(Update: I've uploaded Korea photos) When we got back from the DMZ tour, Joe & I visited the Korean War Memorial. This was a Smithsonian-scale museum. I thought it was going to be only about the Korean War, but a third of it covered Korea's military history from 1000 AD up to the Korean War. In addition to the history aspects, the memorial had a wide variety of military hardware on display — everything from ammunition to a full-size B52. And they had a lot of it. I don't think I've ever seen so much military hardware on display outside of a military base.
The trip back to Japan on Friday was smooth and uneventful. On Friday night back in Japan, we went to a grill-your-own-meat restaurant. Every table includes a built-in gas grill. You order the meat and vegetables. The meat is sliced into thin strips, and the vegetables are also sliced. Then you grill it yourself. Since it's sliced thin, the food cooks pretty quickly. It's like doing your own bbq minus the boring/annoying parts: no prep and no clean-up.
Sasebo is well-known throughout Japan for their hamburgers. Not sure why/how they got famous, but even in Tokyo people know about the hamburgers in Sasebo. There are a lot of hamburger places, so on Sat we went to the busiest one, called "Original Hamburgers". They were tasty but a bit different from American hamburgers. In addition to the usual lettuce, tomato, etc, the burgers come with an egg, kind of like the egg you get on a breakfast sandwich. Another difference was the hamburger patty — it was very thin.
The weather was nice enough on Saturday, overcast but no rain, that we finally got a chance to do some local sightseeing. After finishing our hamburgers, we drove up to the top of
Mt Yumihari (a little over a 1000 ft high) which had a nice overlook of Sasebo and the 99 Islands.
For dinner Sat night, we went to another cook-your-own-food place. Instead of a grill at every table, there was a hot-plate at every table with a 4 quart pot. The pot holds clear chicken broth. Just like the grill-it-yourself place, you order the meats & vegetables already sliced up. Then you cook it in the pot. Tasty, but I liked the grill place a bit better.