Jail Island, Alcatraz

A visitor drives in San Francisco city. He drives from Union Square area heading north toward Fisherman's Wharf, taking Leavenworth Street. Around the place where Leavenworth comes across Lombard Street on the top of the hill, the road starts to be downhill. In front of his windshield, lower part of his eyesight, he is now viewing northern part of San Francisco Bay. He will see an island, shaped like a huge battleship, with sharp and steep side, standing straight from the ocean surface.

He is watching Alcatraz Island, "Jail Island" in San Francisco Bay.

Many have known the name "Alcatraz" from movies and. It is world-famous Jail Island. The island had an unusual shape as mentioned. The both edges of the island are not slope. They are sharp and steep cliff. It also looked like a huge ship. It gives a viewer an impression immediately that it is an immense "Battleship". Other than its unusual shape, with bright California sun, it did not look like a jail at all.

n addition, the island looked too close to the Fisherman's Wharf to be "an inescapable island jail". If one is a swimmer who can swim 2-3 miles, he might think he could swim to the island.

Alcatraz Island is located on the northern part of San Francisco Bay, between Fisherman's Wharf and Marine County. It is so close to Fisherman's Wharf that almost everybody wonder if it is the infamous prison island, which people called inescapable. A good swimmer would be able to swim the distance, if prepared to the temperature of the water with diving suits and guarded by an emergency rescue boat,. It was a couple of years ago, 6 years old boy could swim from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf.

Then, why is this jail island is inescapable? Talking with some people, there are several different answers. Water is too cold to keep swimming the distance without body temperature protection. San Francisco Bay looks calm in the surface. There is violent tide deep in the ocean. It changes directions so often. No swimmer can be free from the influence of this violent tide. Swimming at night is almost killing oneself. Man-eating sharks are active especially at night. Many of these may be true. These all factors are working together to prevent prisoners to escape from Alcatraz.

There was no one who escaped from Alcatraz alive during its history served as a jail island in official records.

Ferries to Alcatraz depart from pier 33. If one stays in San Francisco and hope to visit Alcatraz, he should select weekday and make reservation 3-5 days before he schedules to visit. Weekends' tickets are usually sold out for next 2-3 weeks. In the ferry boarding area, there are exhibitions of notorious criminals jailed in Alcatraz, including Al Capone.

Travel time in Alcatraz Island Ferry to Alcatraz is incredibly short. It does not take more than 15 minutes to reach the island. Even there is no enough time to enjoy views of San Francisco city area or Golden Gate Bridge, despite the fact that there is a magnificent view over them, since it is the best boat trip to view over San Francisco city, Marine County, and East Bay.

We can freely explore Alcatraz now since the federal government closed the jail, and it is now a part of Golden Gate National Park. For the criminals sent to Alcatraz, it meant "Death Sentence" for them. In the Ferry Boarding Area, just next to Al Capone picture, a picture of wall graffiti of unknown prisoner says "You will be sent to jail if you break the law. If you break a rule in jail, you will be sent to Alcatraz". One can feel hearing a prisoner sobbing in his jail cell. My Japanese friend commented to my Blog post one time. "It is exciting to take a look into infamous jail island without committing a crime". Simple crime is not enough to be sent to Alcatraz. One needs to commit a crime of Al Capone level to be sent there.

It is a part of Golden Gate National Park, so the rule is "Don't carry in anything, do not carry out anything, other than you throw away garbage and you buy souvenirs." As soon as arriving at the front gate of the jail, visitors will listen to 10 minutes explanation about the history of Alcatraz and visiting rules. Now they must be ready for walking into the jail chamber.

All they have inside of the island is Jail Building. White hospital like looking building is building for jail facility. Other than that, there are some small houses for wardens and wardens' family lived. Stepping into the jail building, visitors will visit the shower place, first. It may be the first place where the prisoners went when sent to Alcatraz. In here, visitors can rent narration unit explaining histories of Alcatraz as they walk through the island. There are translated narration unit is available for Japanese, Chinese, and many European languages.

Now let's walk into the center of cell area. There are small cells on both sides of not so wide hallway. They are individual cells for prisoners. They are incredibly small. Cells lined up side-by-side and three stories. The ceiling of each cell is low. It looks like so small that, if one stretch his arms, his both hands touch walls. Animals living environment in zoo looks much better than this. It would not take more than 3 days to make a normal person totally crazy if one continue to live in place like this.

Now visitors stand in front of a black board hung in the higher part of the Dining. It is the menu placed on the top of the dining area entrance overhead. The board was showing breakfast of the day. "Assorted Dry Cereals", "Stewed Whole Wheat", " 1 Scrambled Egg", "2 Milk", "Stewed Fruit", and "Toast". Top of the board showed "21 March 1963". Their breakfast on March 21, 1963 did not look miserable.

There is a window looks like a window of submarine or battle ship at the corner of a hallway. There is some story This is the windows inmates can look out. What they could see was San Francisco city. It is not just through this window, but prisoners could have a clear view of San Francisco city. In festive time, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc, prisoners could watch city dressed up with illuminations, fireworks, and could even hear people partying, singing, dancing, laughing, and enjoying.

It would have been unendurable torture for prisoners who could feel, sense, watch, and hear the people free outside, enjoying themselves in festive occasions. They must have wanted to close their eyes, cover their ears. They could still feel what is happening on the other side of the Bay. How horrible it was. What a cruel torture, human beings could do to the other human beings even they are criminals!.

History shows that there were lots of escape attempts from Alcatraz. Official record indicates "34 Escape Attempts, 7 killed, 2 drowned, 5 missing, and 20 arrested". Included in the missing were "Frank Morris" and Anglin brothers as shown the movie "Escape from Alcatraz". Frank Morris was sent to Alcatraz in 1960. He planned and attempted prison break in 1962 with John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Allen West. They built a raft. They made their own dolls. Put them in their beds. They continued to dig to escape for 2 years. They put their plan into an action on June 11, 1962. Allen West was late and could not join the escape.

FBI started search immediately, but they could not find them. They could not find their bodies, as well. All they found were a part of their raft, bags of Anglins, and some other belongings to fugitives. FBI and Alcatraz authority decided that they were drowned and died. Federal government decided to close Alcatraz Prison about 1 year after this escape.

Another important figure in Alcatraz is Warden and Officers in Alcatraz. Show room in Alcatraz displays mannequin of the officer in Alcatraz used to be. They lived in the island with their family. Across the road of the jailhouse building, there are individual house ruin of the wardens and officers. Higher-class officers could live in a separate house. Now, if someone wanted houses like them with a great view to San Francisco city, he might have needed to spend well over 1 million dollars.

Also, their children were attending schools in San Francisco across the bay. They were taking ferries every morning and evening to attend their schools. In comparison with inmates, the officers lives might not have been so miserable. Lives of officers in prisons and jails, however, were not easy. It could be as destructive as prisoners. They need to be tensed days and nights. If something happens, the officers need to fight for their lives. Prisoners are not amiable to them. They must be tough to inmates. The jail island made lives of all related people hard.

Isolated from outside society, this island had their own functions. They had their own fire-fighting unit. There is a fire truck preserved in the island silently telling the days when the island was still the jail.



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Faithful Geyser of California

It is less than tow hours drive, from downtown San Francisco, to reach Calistoga in Napa Valley. The drive is quite simple and easy. Take Highway 101 North. Go over Golden Gate Bridge and continue to keep going north along local mountain road. Calistoga and Napa Valley is famous for several things, such as wines, hot springs, mud baths, or fine dining. Among the nature's wonders, visitors can enjoy in Calistoga, this geyser is on the top of the list. There are many geysers in the world. Japan has some, as a volcano country. New Zealand is another country one would visit for their geysers.

In the US, visitors can find geysers in Nevada, Wyoming, or California. This Old Faithful Geyser of California is one of few geysers in the world named "old faithful". The name, Old Faithful Geysers, was given to geysers having water eruption in regular time intervals. Since the natural condition of forming a geyser is not simple, it is not easy to find a geyser with regular water eruption even in the world. Conditions include such as enough amounts of underground water, heat source, pressure, or path for water to surface of the earth.

This geyser erupts the water to the air in every thirty minutes. The eruption of steam and scaling water reach sixty to one hundred feet in the air every time it erupts. Admission to this geyser is $8 for an adult. A child of the age between six and twelve is $6. Children of six years old or younger are free. An adult of sixty-five years old or older is $7. A visitor can get $1 discount with the triple A membership or their official website printout.

In the geyser area, tables and benches are provided. No food or beverage is provided. The visitor must be prepared for their eating and drinking. Visitors may see occasional small eruption, but the real eruption is big. Do not be disappointed too quick with small eruption. The major one will come.

While visitors wait, after growling sound for a few minutes, it erupts all of a sudden with a hissing sound of water scratching the ground. The water and steam reach fifty to sixty feet in a second shooting the water straight up. One time eruption lasts longer than one's expectation. It continues for at least three to five minutes.

It is known as a good prediction measure of the earthquake. When the authority observes change of eruption pattern of the geyser, such as delay of eruption or smaller amount of water, an earthquake will occur in five hundred miles in area. It is the place one hopes to visit for touching nature's spectacles.





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What Is Your Interpretation of the Proverb, A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss?

This is a controversial proverb. Generally it means that the people who change their occupations often do not obtain a particular professional skill. The other interpretation is that people who pursue new challenges never get old and dull, but stay young and fresh. We have never known a proverb that has such different interpretations. The Japanese version of this proverb, in its negative form, is same as the English version. Most likely, the Japanese version was translated from the original English. The version with a positive meaning in Japanese is, "When the stream of a river is fast, the water does not go bad."

Hanako was a dreamer. She had many dreams. She wanted to be a window decorator. She hoped to have a job in a Web creation business. Sometimes she thought simply marrying a person whom she loved would not be a bad idea. She graduated from college and started working as a secretary for an executive in an electronics company. She liked her job, but she could not give up her dream of having a creative job. To this end, she attended design school after work.

Hanako had a friend named Minori. She did not consider herself clever. After finishing her study of English literature, Minori continued to study English, and became an English-Japanese translator. Her translation speed was not fast, but she worked with attention to detail and made few mistakes. She did not take more work than she could handle, but for the jobs she did take, her translations were detailed and thorough. She gradually became popular. She began getting offers for jobs in the academic translation field.

As a one of the leading professionals of the age, Minori was interviewed by a TV program. Hanako watched Minori receive VIP treatment in the program and envied her. Hanako had been unable to get a creative job. She had changed her job several times. She found herself lacking professionalism in many things. Well, she thought, if nothing works, I will find a partner and marry him.

Minori did not look very pretty on TV. She was wearing a dark-colored suit like a man would wear. Her suit was dark gray and did not match her shirt. Her hair was not well styled; it was just tied back on her head. Hanako thought herself more attractive than Minori.

Which woman do you find more attractive? The bottom line is that everybody is different and everybody is attractive, as long as they live their lives to the full extent.



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Himiko, Mysterious First Empress in Japan

Every Japanese knows the name of this first ruler of Japan, Himiko (175 - 248). This ruler was female. She was an empress. She is the first Japanese appears in written historical record. Another noteworthy fact is that we have known her, not from Japanese historical record, but from Chinese historical book. According to this ancient Chinese document, "Gishi Wajin Den", Himiko sent her messenger to Chinese Emperor and established equal partner basis relationship with China. In the second century, China was far advanced country than Japan. Japan was just out of the prehistoric age and formed several countries. She amazes people by her bravery.

According to the record, there were male kings fighting each other that time. She defeated her enemy country with the Chinese army sent for. In this way, Himiko ended the civil war. The Emperor of China approved her to be the ruler of this "Yamatai" country. The Chinese Emperor endorsed it by sending her certificate and stamp.

She was originally female shaman and spiritual medium who could communicate with god and bring his message to the people. The Chinese history book talks about her that she exercised shamanism to rule her kingdom. Her power must have been extraordinarily strong so that people were respectful and enjoyed peace under her reign. Since she appears only in Chinese history book, she is a mysterious figure for Japanese. There were some theories have been advocated. One of them believes that she was one of the existed Japanese emperor's families. Her country "Yamatai" is ancient Japan. The other argue that she was just one of tribe leaders in Japan that time.

Himiko appears in a cartoon from popular Japanese author. In this story, Himiko is a forever-young female ruler. The record says that she did not appear in public much after she became an empress. If the data was correct, she would have died at the age of 71. She had unusually long life in her age. The other notable fact is that the name of her country, "Yamatai" is so similar to ancient Japanese country name "Yamato". The name "Yamato" came from the way Chinese called Japan. Japan was called "Yamato" around the fifth century until the imperial government started to use "Nippon" in the seventh century. It does not seem to be just coincident to see this much similarity.

History of any country in ancient time referred to gods. Japanese legend says that the goddess of Sun created Japan and her brother god came down from heaven to rule it. Some historians believe that Himiko and Yamataikoku was the origin of this myth. Himiko did have her brother helping her to reign.

After her death, the civil war broke out again in Japan. The war lasted years. It is amusing to learn that only method to end the war was to find Himiko's daughter and make her successor empress of Japan.




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