I hung out with Kijimuna

Guess who I ran into on Kokusai Street?

An afternoon at Kokusai Street

Kokusai Street also knows as International Street is a mile long street that has many shops and vendors. On weekends the street is closed to vehicle traffic. there are street vendors and performers. We watched Eisa drummers and dancers, along with magicians, painters and many other street performers.
You can find almost any type of “Okinawan” souvenir that you may be looking for, like a Kijimuna! This is the only place that I have located a Kijimuna small enough to bring home. The shops open their doors and try to sell their goods. It reminds me of Times Square or some of the little shops in Branson. You get to the point that once you have been in one shop, you have been in them all. They basically all have the same type of merchandise especially Shisa dogs, shisa dogs and more shisa dogs.

Lighthouse at Yomitan

After the Pottery Festival, we headed across the parking lot to the lighthouse. Many of you know that I love lighthouses. That would be mainly because I love the beach, and lighthouses are located on the beach! I probably took at least 100 picture of this lighthouse and each and every picture was just awesome! The water was really rough. The ground is all coral, I thought it was lava rock, but there are actually no active volcanoes on Okinawa, so the sea shore that is rock like, is actually coral. From looking at the lighthouse, we went to a Nikko Alivila Resort for lunch. They have a beautiful pool overlooking a beautiful beach.

Yomitan Pottery Festival

Saturday I went with one of my Kadena co-workers and two of her friends to Yomitan Pottery Festival. It was really neat. There was so much beautiful pottery. Yomitan Village is considered a pottery village. You can actually visit different pottery shops and see the potters at work. At the festival, there were approximately 30 potters with their works. They really had some beautiful pottery. I will go back on another day and actually go to the village so I can see the potters at work. The festival reminded me of a very, very small War Eagle.

Teppanyaki Feast

Last Thursday night I ate Teppanyaki at Four Seasons Steak House. Teppanyaki is where there cook at your table like at Benihana's. Anyway I had Kobe beef. Oh my goodness. It was just awesome! The meat literally melted in my mouth. Four Seasons has been around for a long time. I wonder if any of you remember it. My chef was so cute; he was 20 years old and said that he had been cooking since he was 16. He asked me if I like movies, I told him yes, he said that he had gone to the movie that day. He told me he went to see "Mama Mia", he said he really like it, he liked all the singing. He said that it was in English. I wonder if it had subtitles?? He said that his mother is an opera singer.

The best lunch room ever!

I stopped for lunch at one of my favorite lunch spots. Where could that be? I know I have posted several pictures of this beach, but everyday that I go by, it looks different. Actually, the water appears different depending on the sunlight. I am sure you probably all know this but, depending on the location of the sun in the sky and if the sun is shining the water can look so very different. Here is just one more shot of the best lunch room ever!

I never want to go to prison!

I remember when Stephen, Jennifer and I visited Alcatraz, I made the comment "I never want to go to prison". I have now made my second visit ever to a prison - I visited the brig at Camp Hansen. I don't think that this brig holds really serious criminals, like murders, but one of the men that I visited was in "special confinement" (I forgot what they called it) anyway the only way he had any contact with anything outside his cell was a little window about 2 X 4 inches. I would look into his cell as we talked. It wasn't quite as bad as Alcatraz, but it was not a good place to be! I repeat.....I never want to go to prison.

Kijimuna is in Ginoza Village also!

Going to the Brig

Wednesday I have a briefing at Camp Schwab. On my way back to Camp Foster, I have to stop and meet with two different service members that are in the Brig at Camp Hansen. This should be interesting. The only prison I have been in is Alcatraz!

I visited Doctor Fish

I read about Doctor Fish, this is at one of the bath houses just outside the gate at Camp Foster. There are thousand's maybe not that many, but a bunch of little bottom feeding fresh water fish, Garra Rufa. Anyway, they eat dead skin. You know me, I had to try it. It feels like the stinging when your foot is asleep and it is waking up. Really weird! Looks pretty gross!

Peace Memorial Park

Monday - Karen and I visited Peace Memorial Park. This park was made to honor all those that lost their life during the Battle of Okinawa. There are walls that have names of all those that lost their life. This memorial is the only memorial in the world that has the names of everyone that lost their life, including the enemy. We did not have time to go through the museum. I plan on going on a Battle Site Tour where I will have time to go to the museum. I am posting a couple of pictures for you to see a few of the name and monuments.

A day at the spa!

It's Monday morning and I wanted to say hello to everyone before I head out for another day of adventure. Today is President's Day, so I am off work and will be going south today. I have not really explored Southern Okinawa, my plan is to go to Peace Prayer Park, which is in honor of the Battle of Okinawa.

A wonderful lady that I talked with at work called me Sunday morning and invited me to join her and her husband at Kanna Thalasso. This is an awesome spa. It has many different salt water pools that are for all different therapeutic things. There is one area that you walk in and the water is rushing against you to provide resistance. There are 3 outdoor massaging jet pools (like hot tubs) over looking the ocean, the large pool has different areas that you can sit that have really strong jets focused in different areas of your body. Feels great! There is a large lap pool, a really hot, hot tub, a fun water slide, a dry sauna and a herbal steam room. All of these pools have really warm salt water which is very good for your skin. There is one last small pool that is ice water. I got in about knee deep and then splashed it on myself; Tracy was brave and dove under a couple of times. The neatest thing about Kanna Thalasso, is it is a community center in the village of Ginoza. There were many older people there swimming and exercising. Made me think of Mother (my mother-in-law), she would love this place. I don't think that my Mom would have ever tried it. I wish we had something at home like that at home.

Kijimuna at Expo Park

That mischievous little rascal is everywhere.

Native Okiwanan Village

Just one more part of Ocean Expo Park is a native Okinawan Village. It was really interesting to see how their houses look inside. Actually when I went to Okuma, we walked thru some villages that still have houses like these, so they really aren't than uncommon today. You can actually look all the way thru the house if they have all the panels open. You will see in the one picture of the back of the house, they have wooden panels that they pull out to close the house. They use panels inside the house that are made of rice paper. This paper is very thin and can be replaced when torn, or kiddos punch holes in it, by accident I'm sure! In the room that the people are sitting, notice the altar on the back wall. All houses have an altar area.

Orchid Festival at Ocean Expo Park

I have never in my life seen so many beautiful orchids. There is no way that I can even begin to share these beautiful flowers with you. God has given us so many beautiful things in this world, these flowers are just one of the many!

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

This aquarium is awesome. This is the only aquarium in the world to have three whale sharks housed in one tank. They are also the world first successful birth of a manta pup in captivity. They have manta rays that are at least 10 feet across. the whale sharks are huge, they each weigh 25 tons. Now that is big! They also have manatees, sea turtles, dolphins and more. They have bottle nose dolphins which is what I am used to seeing, but they also have another kind of dolphin, I don't know what kind it is. Notice the dolphin is sticking his tongue out. The manatee loves having his picture taken. It was hard to get the whale shark in one picture, this one isn't the best, but I wanted you to get an idea of his size.

Ocean Expo Park

Saturday I went to Ocean Expo Park. This park is really awesome. It has a wonderful beach, Emerald Beach. It rained all day so I didn't go down and check out the beach but from the aquarium, it looked great. I am sure I will be going back there. The map is cute; it actually shows three different sections of the beach: Beach of Rest; Beach of View; and Beach of Play. I am sure that I will check them all out, Beach of View sounds good, but Beach of Rest sounds more like my kind of beach! This is a view of the beach from the aquarium.

Jakkepoes Pancake house

This is where I had supper Friday night. I love pancakes, especially for supper. Stephen doesn't like having breakfast for supper. This is a sweet little place that is basically in the owner's home. You have to really hunt in the village to find it. There are seven tables. i wasn't very adventurous, I got plain old pancakes, and they were great.

Kijimuna sighting

Here he is in Yomitan Village!

Wednesday started out as a crazy day.......

Luckily, I always leave early for my briefings, just in case I get lost. Well, I didn’t get lost, I knew exactly where I was going, I drove about 45 miles to Camp Schwab, which is the most Northern base that I visit. I exited the Expressway about 7:15 a.m. and for some crazy reason, I glanced down at my calendar and noticed that I was supposed to be a Camp Kinser. Not a problem, except that Kinser is my most Southern base. As I said, I wasn’t lost, I knew exactly where I was, it just wasn’t where I was supposed to be! I turned around and headed south on the Expressway. Thank goodness I have a cell phone, I called my office at Camp Foster to find out the quickest way to get to Kinser and have them call Kinser staff to let them know that I was on my way! I got there about 8:20, so I was only about 20 minutes late. Even with that mishap, my briefing went really well.

After the briefing I headed out to the beach at Kinser to pick up more of the wonderful purple sea shells that I told you about earlier. That is where problem number two came in! Since my last visit to Kinser, about a month ago, they fenced in the entire Camp. I COULDN’T GET TO MY BEACH! Can you believe in one month time they built a fence along the entire beach? I couldn’t believe it!

The government doesn’t do anything that fast. Some one made the comment that the Japanese workers put the fence up! I really believe they work seven days a week! Now I am going to have to find another beach in that area to pick up my purple shells!

Since I had a limited time for lunch due to my next briefing at 12:30, I stopped at the seawall and ate lunch! It was really pretty to sit and listen to the waves and watch the sail boats off in the distance. But, not near as good as my purple shell beach!

Beach search continues

OK, so I forgot to charge my camera battery. My next beach discovery was Camp Zampa, it was very nice. I actually sat out there for about an hour enjoying the sun and reading my book. It is a nice sandy beach with chair rental, and kayak's and other water toys for rent. I was the only person there. Just as I was getting ready to leave a family with two children showed up.

My next adventure leads me to Yomitan, which has an awesome light house. I didn't get pictures, well, you know why....

From Yomitan, I headed back down toward my home at Kadena and ran into Torri Station. Torri Station is an Army Base, I had heard they had a good beach, and it is true. The beach is very nice and has some awesome sea shells. You all know I need more sea shells. This beach is actually about 15 to 20 minutes from my house. I am sure I will be visiting this place again!

In search of the best beach!

I spent Sunday afternoon in search of the best beach. Well, maybe I wasn’t looking for the best beach; I was really in search of the closest beach to catch a good tan! I found a few that were nice. This picture is of the first place that I stopped, Nirai Beach. It has a lot of rock formations, almost like caves. Notice how clear the water is! I sat here on a rock and ate my sandwich. There was a really nice park at this beach also. It’s nice, but I am continuing the search for the closest beach to hang out and work on my tan!

Whale watching

What an awesome day! I went on the whale watching tour from Kadena AB. It was wonderful! Many times we saw two whales together. This is the time of year that they migrate here to have their babies and mate. It was very different than whale watching in Boston. They do not have fish finders or any type of sonar to locate the whales, all the boat captains talk to each other and they decide where the whales are located. Then you have to watch the water for the whale to blow. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I wish you all could have been on the boat with me!
Love to all of you!

Okonomiyaki for dinner

Wednesday night I had dinner with Karen and two of her co-workers in the Consulate office. We went to Uma no Suke and ate okonomiyaki, it was wonderful. Okonomiyaki's literal translation is "as you like it pancake". The base is made with flour, grated yams, water, eggs, and shredded cabbage. Then you add whatever you would like. OK, I wasn't very adventurous, I added, egg, bacon, onions, cheese and chili sauce, along with the okonomiyaki sauce and spicy mayonnaise sauce. There are so many things that can be added; all types of seafood, squid, shrimp and you get tuna flakes to sprinkle on top. They cook these at a grill built in the center of your table, and then you eat it directly from the grill!

We ended the meal with dessert of zenzai, which is a scoop of shaved ice on top of sweet beans. I tasted Anya's sweet beans, and they really were just sweet beans. I was expecting it to taste like baked beans because that is what it looked it. Again, I wasn't very adventurous; I got strawberry flavored with condensed milk.

Saturday will be whale watching. I hope to have lots of good pictures to post for you all to share the day with me.

Beach lunch

I just had to take a minute to share my lunch from Wednesday with you all. I had a grilled chicken sandwich and sat here on the beach, just enjoying the view and listening to the waves. I can honestly say that I was thinking of all my friends and family in the states. I miss you all!

Another Kijimuna sighting

That mischievous little guy was at the Cherry Blossom Festival too!

Typical Matsuri (festival)

Their festival is a little different than the festivals that we are used to. I expected something like Riverfest. Well, it had all the food vendors like Riverfest and the other vendors that didn’t’ have food, had games with toys for the children. The toys were masks, like Halloween masks, balloons, and inflatable toys. The food consisted of typical matsuri (festival) fare such as takoyaki (balls of fried dough stuffed with octopus), yakitori (grilled, skewered meats, typically chicken or pork), (also know by us as chicken on a stick) and yakisoba (stir-fried noodles and vegetables). Even though there was an abundance of food we decided to eat when we got to our next destination. Just a short distance from the festival is the city's "guardian," a massive, 300-year old gajyumaru (banyan) tree that grows in the middle of a traffic circle.

I just had to show you all - could you imagine eating that squid - with the suckers on it? Not me!

Adventures at the Cherry Blossom Festival

Saturday 1-31-09, We, (me and my traveling buddies Karen and Pam) headed north to Nago to the Cherry Blossom Festival. The Cherry Blossoms really pretty. The festival was held in the city of Nago, at Nago Central Park, which is at the foot of the Nago Castle Ruins, we arrived in time to see the opening ceremony, there were about 15 people cutting the ribbon, then to actually open the festival three men busted the top on a big barrel of Saki (rice wine). Then they handed out cups of Saki to everyone. I wish I could say that Saki is really good, but I really don’t care for it. It is not like wine, it is more like a mild whiskey. But you all know me, I had to participate with the local tradition, so I drank my glass, luckily I grabbed one that didn’t have very much in it! There at the park you climbed up about a million stairs to the castle remains, which consist of a shrine that has a bell hanging on a big rope. You are supposed to put 500 yen into the box under the bell, make a wish bow three times, ring the bell and clap twice and your wish will come true. Yes I made it to the top, it took a little bit but I made it! The view was beautiful, it on top of the mountain looking down on the city below and the East China Sea.

Pineapple Park the second stop on our day full of adventure. This is a really interesting pineapple factory. We began our pineapple adventure with lunch in the café, which served fresh pineapple juice and all the dishes come with pineapple. I had rice pilaf with fresh pineapples, it was really good. They have automatic “Pineapple car” that take you thru the park and tells you all about the trees, flowers and flora that is grown all around the pineapple fields. At the end of the cart ride, you go all thru the factory, and this is a real tasting tour. They make three kinds of wine and a sparkling wine. I really wanted to like one of these wines, but it just didn’t happen! You all know that I am not a wine drinker, so I thought with pineapple flavor wine I would probably love that. Let’s just say it wasn’t pineappley enough for me! Much better than the wine was all the cakes, cookies, pies, jams, candy, chocolate (light dark and white) nuts and a almost anything else you can think of that is made from pineapple. Needless to say, we should have skipped lunch in the café!

Stop number three on the agenda, Mt. Yaedake. Luckily we got to drive to the top of this mountain. It was really tall and again we looked out over the city and the ocean. The Cherry Blossoms were beautiful going up the mountain, as you can see in the picture it was bumper to bumper and a very narrow and curvy road. I guess it is a good thing I didn’t like that pineapple wine before making this drive! All along the mountain were mikan (tangerine) fields, the trees were loaded. This is the area that the mikan picking tour went last week, you know, the one I had to miss due to being sick!

On to stop number four – our final destination – Nakijin Castle Remains, to watch the sunset. Well, the trip there was an adventure itself! Pam was the only one smart enough to bring a map. They had both been to all these places before, so I assumed they knew where they were going….wrong! Pam recognized that she didn’t know where we were! But she bravely kept that to herself each time she told me to turn, she had such confidence that we thought she must know where she was going. Let me put it this way, two stops for directions later, we made it to Nakijin Castle about 6:30 p.m. well after sunset. It was very pretty at night, they had colored lights shining on the walls, and only a half a million steps made from rock and lit by candles in plastic drink bottles. Something you would NEVER see at home due to the danger and fire hazard! I made this one to the top also, but they had let me hold on to them because the rock was so uneven that I was afraid I would fall, there were no rails! When we first started to enter, I saw a big pot holding walking sticks, like my grandma Morgan used to use, next time I go, I will definitely get a walking stick! Any way, I made it to the top and I am sure it was beautiful, the only problem is, it was dark and I couldn’t see a past the mountain. There were a few lights off in the distance, but you couldn’t see the ocean or any of the land below us.

By the way did I mention that remains mean there isn’t a castle anywhere in sight Mostly just a lot of rock walls!

We got back to my room about 9 p.m., it was literally a full day of adventure! Thank goodness the next day was Sunday, because I rested just like we are supposed too! I went to church at Chapel Two, which is where Sylvia and Butch used to go. Butch worked in the Chaplain Service and Sylvia volunteered and hung out there. I will say again, the Fr. King is really great. I can even remember what he talked about. I wonder if I remember because I don’t have as much on my mind as I usually do at home. I am not worried about all the unnecessary stuff, like cleaning house, what will be going on at work the next day, how behind we are at work, if I am doing a good job. You know all the everyday things that we worry about, that really have no value because we can’t control them anyway! Maybe I came to this conclusion because of the readings, it said that God doesn’t want us to be anxious, husbands are anxious about pleasing their wife, wives are anxious about pleasing their husbands. If we focus on pleasing God, we don’t have to working about pleasing others. That is so true, in every aspect of our life, if we strive to please God, everything else will fall into place!

Well, I will close; I miss you all. Please keep me in your prayers and when you find just a minute or two, send me an e-mail just to let me know that you are still around! Remember I get my news from home from Stephen and Jennifer. They are a wealth of information about Morgan, school, the house, the dogs, etc. Let me know that is going on outside of those areas. Come on, I know there are many of you that are just like me read the divorces, marriages, and of course the obituaries, just to make sure we aren’t there!