Sayonara

I hope that all of you have enjoyed seeing Okinawa thru my eyes. This has been one of the most wonderful experiences of my VA career. I celebrated my 29th anniversary of serving veterans on April 4th. I have worked over half of my life (a whole lot more than half - LOL) serving those that have made it possible to have the freedoms we have today. I am so thankful for each person that I have served. I still feel the same way that I felt on April 4, 1980, I want to treat each and every veteran that I serve the same way that I wanted my Dad treated.

I send a special thank you to everyone that made this trip possible. My family, especially Stephen, for loving and trusting me to be gone for almost five months! To Jennifer for posting her Facebook with how much she missed her mom! To Morgan who was always excited to talk to me and who made me smile every time I heard her voice!

To all my friends at the VARO that answered all my questions when I didn’t have computer access. To all my other friends that e-mailed and sent cards to let me know that they hadn’t forgotten me.

Last but not least, to Cheryl, my VARO Director and to Brad, Wes, Ed and all the staff at VA Central Office for choosing me to represent the Department of Veterans Affairs all the way on the other side of the world!

Sayonara

My final Okinawa sunset!

Yes, I got up at 4 a.m. on my last day, May 15th, to drive to Miyagijima Island to see my final sunrise in Okinawa. Remember I had to drive to Miyagijima Island because the sun doesn’t actually rise over the waters of Okinawa. Miyagijima is actually only about 10 miles from Kadena. It was a sad day, to know that I may never get to experience the sunrise at this exact location again. But, on the other hand, it was a great day because I get to see Stephen and the rest of the family today. I leave May 15th, at 11:50 a.m. and arrive in Little Rock about 21 hours later, at 6:30 p.m. May 15th.




My final sunset in Okinawa. I sat and enjoyed the sunset from Sunabe Seawall. This is located just outside Gate 1 of Kadena Air Base. Needless to say, I am certainly going to miss my daily ocean view. Even when it was raining it was wonderful!

Saying good-bye

Joe Catahay from Kadena Air Base. Joe picked me up from the airport and was brave enough to take me driving for a couple of hours the day after I arrived.
Danita, Tracy and Karen. Pam was the only one missing!

This most of my gang from the USMC. Dean, MaryBeth, Jennifer, Crystal, Jackie and Tony. We are missing Pam and Rahat! I am really going to miss this wonderful bunch of people!

Food in Okinawa

Jusco is a very popular store in Okinawa. It would be like a giant Walmart Super Center. It is about four stories high, each floor has different things, the first floor is groceries and household type items, the other floors are clothes, shoes, etc. This is an example of how they have the meat laying out each day. Yes, those are marinated whole squid. They have very small refrigerators, so they basically buy small amounts of groceries everyday. That would never work for me, I HATE going to the grocery store!

Makaishi Public Market, this is where they sell fresh fish, shrimp, pork, etc. In Okinawa, they use every part of the pig. The fish are puffer fish, they love to eat these, but if they are not cooked properly, they are very poisonous.
This is fried rice from my very favorite restaurant. I didn't discover it until about mid April. It is a good thing, because with that big hunk of butter on this fried rice there is nothing healthy about this dish!
Another one of my very favorite restaurants is SuSuSoon - Pancakes and Sushi. I never tried the sushi, but the pancakes are awesome. My favorite is Maple Gorgonzola Pancakes

Lily Festival at IE Island

We went to an awesome Lily Festival at IE Island. IE Island is about a 30 minute ferry ride. The lily field has over a million, yes million lilies. They are beautiful, looking at the ocean over millions of lily plants. There was one area that had lilies of various colors, but the main field is all the white lilies that I know as Easter lilies.

Playing tour guide.

I met a lady in the parking lot of my building this morning. She was looking for the exchange. I told her where it was and told her that I was going to the post office; she asked if she could follow me to see where the post office is also. So I suggested that she go with me. She was thrilled. She works for Human Resources for the Navy; she arrived on island Thursday from Yukoska. We went to the post office, the exchange, then off base to eat lunch and go to the 100 Yen Store. After showing her around, we went back to the room and I invited her to go with me to watch the sunset at Torii Station. She said she feels like she knows more about Okinawa than she does Yukoska, which she had only been there for five weeks before they sent her here. She will be filling in for someone down her for two weeks. It was fun to show someone a few of the wonderful places that I have grown to love here in Okinawa. I wish that some of my friends and family would have been able to share this wonderful experience. Hopefully seeing it thru my eyes will be enjoyable for all of you! Believe me; my pictures do not reflect the beauty that I see everyday. This time next week I will be home. Continue to pray for my safe return!

I'm going to miss the ocean sunsets!!!

Another perfect Okinawa sunset. This is the beach at Torii Station Army Base, there was a live band playing in the background. It was so wonderful! I hate to think of getting home and being so far away from the ocean sunset!

Edwin McCain at Camp Shields

Edwin McCain gave a free concert tonight at Camp Shields. Tomorrow night he will be at Camp Hansen. It was really a great show. There were probably only about 75 people there. He was so nice, at the end of the show he gave free CD's that he autographed. He sang two of my favorite songs - "I Could Not Ask For More" - the only thing that could have made that song better, would have been to have Stephen sitting right there with me and the other one that I love is "I'll Be", which would have been even better if Stephen was here. I can hardly wait to get home to see him. It was really fun tonight, after the show I saw a young man that I thought looked so familiar, he and his date came up to me and said they were in my briefing back in February. They had met each other at the briefing and have been dating since. Then when I got up to have my picture taken with Edwin McCain someone yelled take care of her, she's really helping everyone here. I looked around and there was a couple that was at one of my briefings and then I assisted in completing his application for compensation. They made me feel so welcome and like I really had assisted them. I am going to miss the daily contact with the service members and the outreach, but on the other hand, I can't want to see Stephen and the rest of my family!

Shikinaen Garden Haarii (Dragon Boat Races) Naha Port, Okinawa
Tuesday, May 5th was Children's Day in Japan. Carp wind socks are hung up in honor of the children. These are the crap that are hanging over the Hija River.

Shuri-jo. Shuri Castle, Okinawa

Weekend in the Kerama's

The beach at Aka. It was beautiful. Snorkeling there is great. We saw a lot of big starfish, fish and beautiful coral.This is sunrise at Aka Island. Isn't it beautiful? This island has deer, When Pam and I got up to walk down to the sunrise, there was a deer standing beside the road. This is out hotel at Aka notice there are three beds and a tatami room. Karen was sweet enough to sleep in the tatami room. Just to give you an idea, this room was bigger and had beds, we paid dearly for this room. We paid 12,600 yen, or $126.00 each for this room. That is over $500 per night for the room. Of course both of these hotels the priced claimed breakfast, the island of AKA hotel served us dinner Saturday night and breakfast Sunday morning.
The beach is absolutely beautiful at Zamami. There were beach lounge chairs and umbrella that we rented. The snorkeling at this beach is just awesome! Saturday evening we took the ferry for a 15 minute ride to the island of Aka.

We took the ferry Friday evening from Okinawa to Zamami. It was beautiful! This is the room that we stayed in at Zamami. The hotel name is Summerhouse Ya Ya, this a traditional Japanese room, called a tatami room. Yes, it really is as small as it looks, and no there is not a bed there. All four of us girls slept on the floor. It was literally wall to wall people! We paid 4,600 yen each for this room, which is about $46.00 each for one night.

May 1st

Today is May 1st here. Only 14 more days. Part of me is glad and part of me is sad! I am headed to a beach adventure today after work. We will ride the ferry to Zamami spend one night, then Saturday evening ride the ferry to Aka and come home Sunday evening. I am really excited. It is supposed to be a nice weekend weather wise also! I'll write more later. Luv ya!

Zamami will never be the same!

You know me, I say the more the merrier, so I started working on a weekend beach trip for Karen and I and it grew a little. There are now four of us going. We will be going to the island of Zamami and then on to Aka. We will catch a ferry after work Friday and sail to Zamami, spend the night and go Saturday afternoon by ferry to Aka. There will be four of us ladies; it is the beginning of golden week, so my Japanese friend could only locate one room on each island. Mind you the islands aren't very big. You can't even take your car over. Anyway, it is a traditional Japanese Tatomi room means we will all be in one room, sleeping on the floor. The hotel Saturday evening will pick us up at the ferry port and take us to the hotel. We have to eat dinner and breakfast at the hotel because there aren't any restaurants on the island. Then Sunday morning they will drop us off at the beach and we will make our way to the ferry to return to Okinawa Sunday afternoon. The beaches and snorkeling is supposed to be best in the world on these islands. They are located in the Kerema Islands. Stay tuned for the details on this adventure!

The sun doesn't rise over Okinawa

I went looking for the perfect sunrise this morning. I came to the conclusion that the sun doesn't rise over Okinawa. I will explain, last night I watched the sunset at the seawall outside Gate 1. The logical place for the sunrise is directly across the island, which is straight out Gate 2. If you go straight out Gate 2 keep straight all the way, you come to Sam's by the Sea, which should have a beautiful sunrise. Wrong! I left the house this morning at 5:00 a.m. I sat on the seawall by Sam's and the sun never came up. I could see a pink glow to the left, so I decided to get in the car and follow the glow. I knew if I drove long enough I would eventually see the sun. It took me driving to the island of Hamahiga then on to Miyagi Island and there it was, a perfect sunrise. It was about 6:30 a.m. the sunrise was 5:53 a.m. Next time that I go, I will not waste 30 minutes at the wrong location!

Sunset at the Sunabe Seawall

Sat on the seawall at Sunabe to watch the sunset. This seawall is across the street and about two block down from Gate 1. The seawall gets busy every afternoon with people watching the sunset. I have spent my share of evenings there! You know that I have taken a thousand pictures of this very scene. How do you pick the best?

Do they know me?

Karen and I went to eat at Sam's by the Sea, do they know me? After we ordered they came and put a bib on me. Karen didn't get one. I haven't ever been to this restaurant, but they must be able to tell that I always wear my food!

I ordered flaming steak on a sword, it was very good!

Can you guess why snorkeling was cancelled?

As you can tell, the water was pretty rough on Sunday. It doesn't seem like I am ever going to get to go snorkeling! In addition to the water being really rough, it was cool outside! I guess I will try again next week!

International Killers Meeting

Tonight I went with Danita, her husband Kevin and her Aunt Diane to a murder mystery dinner play. There were about 25 parts, so you only went if you got there in time to get a part when they first announced the tickets were on sell. It was so much fun. I guess you can tell from my picture that my part was the clown. It was really fun. I got runner up for the best actor. I know that it is hard to imagine me as a clown! Danita was the Black Knight, Kevin was a Chinese man, Mr. Will choke u, Diane was the President of the Killers International Club. Which was the name of the play? Karen and I are headed to the beach on IE Island for the Lily Festival tomorrow. Karen and I got a room at the YYY Resort. I will write more on Sunday. Have a great weekend!

Making Shisa Dogs

My yellow shisa dog.

Karen Waltz=-Davis, Tracy Bender, me, Jeff Runnfeldt(Tracy's husband)

I went with my friends Karen, Tracy and her husband Jeff to make Shisa dogs. We had so much fun. I didn't know how creative that I am!

BEACH TIME!

Submarine

I got up to see the sunrise Sunday morning

Same islands as below at high tide


View from my camper
I rented a camper this weekend at White Beach. It was wonderful. When the tide was out, you could walk out to other little islands. When the tide came in that night and Sunday morning the some of the islands were under water! It was the first weekend in at least a month that it has been nice outside! I kept looking toward the west toward the sunset and seeing something in the water that I was not sure what I was looking at, and then it dawned on me that White Beach is a submarine base. So, it was a submarine that is in port. Of course it wasn't under water, or I would not have been able to see it. Here is a picture of the beach from my camper, the island that I walked to, and the island when the tide came in.

A beautiful weekend finally!

The weather was perfect this weekend. I spent Saturday night at White Beach in a camper on the beach. It was awesome! Will post more later!

Margaritaville on Okinawa

Friday night at the Butler officers' Club they had a Margaritaville Party. It was a lot of fun. Danita, Janine and I took the bus from Kadena, so no one had to drive. Luckily the bus left from the USO which is just a block from my BOQ! It was all you care to drink margaritas and all you can eat food - which was excellent. They had all types of fish and seafood. I didn't drink too many margaritas; I have an image to uphold over here! Several of my customers that I had met were there, especially Colonel Lamson and his wife; he spread the word fast that the VA Rep was in the building. I met a lot of new people, several which are very close to retirement, so they will be coming to see me. The members of the band that played Son of a Sailor were from Ft. Smith, Arkansas. I had to go talk to them, as they are the only other Arkansans I have seen on the island!