Ryukyu Kingdom Photos

I've decided to make this post a photo post, so I'll keep the writing to a minimum. It's enough to say that most of our pictures from our trip down to Okinawa are ready for viewing in the Gallery, dated 03/21/2006. But I had so much fun during our first weekend there that I thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures here. By the way, the Ryukyu Kingdom is what Okinawa was called back when it was it's own empire, before Japan and the United States and then Japan (again) took control. Saturday, March 11, we spent time at Shurijo Castle, the White House of the Ryukyuans. Sunday, we went up to a Pineapple Park and an Aquarium in Nago, in the northern part of Okinawa. Here's some pics, click on any to enlarge to supersize mode:

Nicki and Josh at Shurijo Castle

Traditional Ryukyu Outfit


Josh at Shikina-En Gardens

Shikina-En Gardens


GO PACK!!!
Sunset at Mihama and someone painted my alma mater on a wall.


Nago Pineapple Park


Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium Park



Is This Fish Smiling?

Sea Creatures Observing Humans Watching Sea Creatures

Joshua Clapping for the Whale and Dolphin Show

Bring the Heat!

Ah, the warm humid breezes of Okinawa. Mike has an environmental class here in Okinawa and he decided to bring Josh and me along for a mini-vacation while we are here. Okinawa is a chain of small islands that make up the southern tip of Japan. The main island's a little over a 2 hour flight south of Yokosuka. The weather was calling for temperatures in the mid 60's to low 70's. I must have forgotten how wonderful that actually felt! I think that I packed accordingly. I brought some layers for the evening, capri pants, one pair of shorts and short sleeve shirts. As soon as we got off the plane, I was overheating. We had just come from 40 degree weather. I was wearing a sweatshirt, t-shirt underneath, and jeans. As soon as we got our luggage, I dug through our suitcase until I could find a change of clothing for me and Josh. Luckily, I have a mother who loves to spoil her grandson, so Josh was all decked out it the latest spring line of Gymboree clothing. I, on the other hand, was sporting my old San Diego wear, which I must say is better than my current winter wardrobe, but still a little worn. No worries though. I was warm and happy. As soon as we arrived at the airport, we felt as though we were gettting a little taste of the States. Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese culture and history. However, we didn't realize how much we missed the States until we arrived here. The streets are wider, most everything is in English and Japanese, and there is no real train system! There's a monorail that goes through a few areas of downtown Naha, the capital city, but that's about it. It feels so strange having to drive everywhere again & being able to go so fast! On base there is a 50 kilometers per hour sign. Sheesh! I really don't know what we are going to do when we visit California and have to drive 70mph down the highway. You'll see us in the slow lane. We are going to get some serious culture shock. It was about a 30 minute cab ride to the Family Lodge from the Airport. We are very close to Naha. Our arrival time set us past Josh's naptime, so we decided to go out and get acquanted with the services on base. Of course we had to do some comparison shopping at the local PX and Commissary. If anyone reading this has ever lived in several countries overseas through the military, you know what I'm talking about. Every shopping facility is different from base to base. Some are bigger and better, others leave a lot to be desired and still others are just different. We found that Camp Foster has an excellent shopping facility and food court with 2 indoor playgrounds. Anyway, after exploring the facilities, we decided to grab a bite to eat and go back to the Lodge to do some Okinawa research.

On Saturday, we decided to check out some historical sites near Naha. For those that don't know, the island of Okinawa used to be an independent kingdom called the Ryukyus. The Ryukyu Castle site is located in the eastern part of Naha, so we drove down on Saturday morning to stroll through and take some pictures. Afterwards, we went south a few kilometers to one of the old imperial gardens of the Ryukyu kingdom. The old gardens had a few restored buildings, several small bridges and a beautiful pond setting surrounded by flowers and trees. It was very peaceful and beautiful... quite and what a nice way to spend a weekend morning. After grabbing lunch at a local Lawson's convenience store (similar to a 7-11), we headed back up north towards Camp Foster. Along the way, Josh actually fell asleep - believe it or not, this is unusual. Josh is the only toddler we know that almost never sleeps in the car, no matter how tired he is or how late it is at night. After Josh's nap, we grabbed dinner at a Mexican restaurant near base, which was run by a local Mexican family so the place had fairly authentic food... great for us considering it's the first taste of "true" Mexican food we've had since leaving San Diego. Needless to say, we licked our plates clean. After dinner, we waddled out to the beach and watched the sun setting over the China Sea.

Sunday, we drove up north to a city called Nago. We planned to spend the morning at a Pineapple Farm. That place was great. We took at golf cart shaped like a pineapple around the farm and heard the recorded history of the farm and some intersting information about growing all of the different types of pineapples... there are over 2,000 kinds! Many aren't edible. At the end of the tour, there were free samples of pineapple juice, pineapple wine (delicious), and different types of pineapple snacks, like cakes, cookies, and other treats. About 30 minutes and 3500 yen later, we walked out with a bottle of pineapple wine, some pineapple/orange juice for Josh, and some different types of food samples. The entire tour didn't take too long, so we felt like we had enough time to visit the Okinawa Aquarium, which has the largest acrylic tank in the world. Whale sharks and manta rays actually swim in there and look small compared to the huge glass walls. The height of the glass wall is 8.2 meters and the width is 22.5 meters... the thickness of the glass is 60 cm. Pretty impressive.

The backdrop to the aquarium was once again the China Sea. We got quite a few great pictures on Sunday and left the aquarium just in time. On the way back to Camp Foster, we drove through one heck of a rough rain and wind storm. For about 5 minutes straight, we could barely see the front of the car because of the rain and the wind nearly blew us off the road constantly. Fortunately, everyone on the expressway slowed down and we made it safely and slowly back to the lodge in time for Josh to get a nap. We decided to make Sunday night a mellow one since we were all tuckered out and because Mike had class early on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, we don't have a way to upload our pictures that we've taken so far. So once we get back to Yokosuka, we'll have to do a Part II post to show off all that we've seen and done.

Busy But Fun Weekend

Jogashima is an island along the southwestern tip of Miura Peninsula, about a half-hour drive from our home. I heard about the place from a few of the guys at work and was convinced that we should check it out, so we made plans on Saturday to go. We got there around 9am and spent nearly two hours just walking around a park there. It was a great little spot with lots of room for Josh to run around and play. Actually, Nicki had control of the camera for much of the journey and she took quite a few really great shots of Josh and me.

After leaving Jogashima, getting some lunch at one of the local 7-11 stores, and doing several loads of laundry, we packed up the car and took a trip up to Negishi. Negishi is one of the Navy housing complexes here - it's actually in Yokohama, but it's considered part of the Yokosuka base system. Anyway, Nicki's made friends with several great people up in Negishi, including a couple named Aime and John. They were having a cookout on Saturday night and were kind enough to invite us, so we decided to try out the freeways of Japan and drive up there. After spending about 45 minutes and nearly 2000 Yen driving up, we arrived in Negishi just in time to find out that most people had already eaten. That didn't stop us from pigging out on all of the great food. I was the self-nominated designated driver for the night, so Nicki drank a few shots of I-don't-know-what and had her fill of Chu-hi drinks (kinda like carbonated Kool-Aid with alcohol). I, in the meantime, took as many pictures as I could while still taking time to enjoy the wonderful conversation going on around me. We ended up staying there until after 8pm and Josh did great, considering it was well past his bedtime. As it turns out, he didn't fall asleep that night until after 9pm, but he was a trooper the whole time.

On Sunday, we were invited to pick strawberries with one of my friends from work, Hide-san, and his family. We met Hide-san at the Keikyu Nagasawa train station and continued together to the strawberry patch. Hide-san's son, Ikumi, is conveniently right around Josh's age, so they will probably become very good friends during the next few years. The strawberry farm wasn't much like ones I'm used to from the States. Here, you buy a ticket that's worth about 30 minutes of all-you-can-pick-and-eat strawberries, though the 30 minute time limit is actually really flexible, so we just continued to eat until we were about full. The great thing about Japanese strawberries, or at least the ones at this farm, is that they have been genetically engineered. Basically, the Japanese have found a way to merge the old fashioned typical strawberry with as much sugar as could possibly fit into a genetically engineered berry. The things are delicious. They are plump, juicy, and full of sweet strawberry taste. It was very kind of Hide-san and Nagisa-san to invite us to join the family and we were honored to meet Hide-san's mother and grandmother too.

Our pictures from the weekend are up in the Gallery, dated 03/08/2006. Enjoy!

It's a Dead Man's Party

Nicki mentioned it briefly on our previous post, but over the weekend I took a short trip to the other side of the peninsula. My goal for the trip was to get close enough to take pictures of what I thought was a "spikey headed buddha" that my coworker, Lonnie-san, pointed out to me the previous weekend on a mountain near his judo dojo. Basically, I didn't know exactly where to go to get to the big statue, but my plan was to spot it from the main street and then venture closer on some of the smaller streets to get to the base of the mountain.

As it turns out, I parked in completely the wrong area. But like so many other things in life, sometimes the path less traveled ends up making all the difference. Once I got within visual range, I started heading down some of the narrow residential streets of lower Miura Peninsula and found myself at the base of the mountain. Then I parked the car, hopped out, and started walking uphill. I found myself walking through a small cemetery (followed shortly by a larger one), where I stopped to take pictures of some of the sights. I've always had a strange fascination with cemeteries - morbid, I know - but the places seem so peaceful and quaint, but there's that underlying feeling that someone's laying underfoot. Anyway, there were quite a few little "baby buddha" statues, which I've learned are really called "Ojizo-san" or the guardians of unborn, aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies. There were also quite a few buddha and kannon statues. As it turns out, the "spikey headed buddha" that I based the trip around is actually a "Kannon", which is a female diety of sorts. Thanks to Hide-san and Jeff-san for clearing that up for me over lunch.

Anyway, I went to shoot the spikey headed kannon and found out when I got home that my best pictures were actually taken on my way up the mountain. And when I got to the mountaintop, I found a road that led all the way up the mountain. If I had found that road originally, I would have missed some great photo opportunities. Fortunately, my lack of direction helped produce some pretty nice photos, which you can see in the Gallery, dated 03/01/2006.

Sorry I didn't go into more detail during the post... I've been feeling under the weather these past few days and am hoping to get to bed early tonight.