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.