Okinawa Trip report (long with pics.)

[Soh]

I’ve been exchanging letters for more than ten years with this friend, who lives in Okinawa, Japan. She asked me a few times to visit her, but I wasn’t in a mood for a trip. The last few trips that I took were poker trips to Vegas, not a “real” trip. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether or not I enjoy going to unknown places and just chill. I used to enjoy traveling, but I sort of lost that desire. I got older I guess.

I live in Chicago suburb, and the last winter was very cold. I was surprised to here on the news that the winter was mild this year. Yes, I’m getting old, and one day when the cold weather was bothering me hard, I received a letter from her asking me to come to visit her. Okinawa is pretty warm, so I wrote her back and said “I’ll be there.”

The plane arrived at night at Naha airport in Okinawa. Plants and flowers were all over the place, and that was nice.


I picked up my luggage and went out to look for my friend. She found me first, and that was the first time I saw her in more than 10 years, but she almost looked younger. She rented a “Kei,” which is a car with an engine less than 0.66L!


While we’re driving back to her apartment, we passed a US military base or two. Now, I’m not hear to judge whether it’s a good idea to have them in Okinawa or not, but one thing for sure, it’s not an easy topic to discuss. Apparently some of the Japanese people are greatly benefited from the bases because they are leasing the land to the US (and the lease is paid by the Japanese Government???) But some people look at it as noise pollution. I was in Okinawa for only 3 days, but I can’t count the times I heard military planes flew above us.

Her apartment was better than I was expected.


I was very hungry, so I asked her if there’s anything that I can eat. She said she can make a noodle. That sounds great. She put a lot of vegetables and such in it, and it tasted great.

Since nice weather is extremely important for us to have a good time, she had already checked the weather forecast. Unfortunately, the next day suppose to be cloudy/rain… So she started making “Teru Teru Bouzu” which is a little doll made of paper.


It’s a Japanese culture, so to speak, that when you hung the paper doll outside, it supposes to make the next day's weather nice. Not that we really believe it, but we made it one together and hung outside, just for the hell of it. After that we chatted for quit a bit, but I was getting sleepy. While she was taking a bath, I fell a sleep. It was past 2 am.

It doesn’t really matter how late I go to bed, I always wake up early, especially when the sun light comes inside the room. Well, that was the case, and I woke up around 6:30am. I went outside to check the weather, and it was… Well, so so.


By the way, you can (barely) see the ocean from her room. She woke up a while later, and we ate breakfast together. We head outside to drive north to have some fun. While we’re driving, I saw a few military planes flying above us. To be honest, it was cool, but I don’t know how I feel if I have to live there.

First place we went was this “Elephant Cape.”


Although the temperature was nice, maybe upper 60s to lower 70s, I felt cold because of the wind. That’s the thing about Okinawa, at least when I was there. So many times I felt hot and cold with in like a few minutes. There was really not much to see there, so we went further north. We arrived at this hotel called “Busena Terrace” Since it was still early for lunch, we decided to enjoy the ocean view and head to the beach. When we got to the beach, we realized that there’s a bridge (?) that goes deep into the ocean. We decided to check it out, and it turned out that at the end of the bridge, there’s a tube that goes about 15 to 20 feet deep into the ocean. I paid 2000 yen (about $16) for us to go down. It was pretty nice as we were able to see fish from “inside” the ocean.


We got out and went to the beach. A few kids were playing with the water. Although the ocean wasn't officially open for swimming, I decided to check out the water. It was a bit cold but was nice.


We walked the beach a little bit more and went to this hotel. One SPECTACULAR thing about this place is what you see when you get inside the hotel. You can see the ocean across from the lobby. I’m not a good enough writer to explain how beautiful it was, and I’m not a good enough photographer to take the picture that describes the scene, but I tried.


When I was in the US, she sent me an email with “things to do” list in Okinawa. One thing she suggested was to go to a hotel and eat. Well, that may not sound anything special, unless the restaurant looks like this. And that’s where we went.

AWESOME OCEAN VIEW!!!


…and drink that I finished.


I ate so much that I wasn’t able to eat anything till next morning, and I have a VERY high metabolism. We really didn’t do much since we arrive at the hotel at 10:30a, but it was already 2:30p. Time flies when you’re having fun. Next stop is even further north: Aquarium.

It wasn’t big or anything, but the nice thing was it had a HUGE tank with HUGE sharks in it. I enjoyed taking pictures, but that was about it for that place.


Next…

“Tropical Dream Center” (botanic garden)
Although the aquarium was reasonably crowded, for some reason only few people were in the garden. My friend knew the name of different flowers and plants, and I some how think that's cool.




We went back to our car, drove south and went to this tourist place with a lot of gift shops. I bought 3 little penguins and a postcard for my friend. We head back to her house, and I was STILL full. With her new laptop computer, we watched together the pictures that I took. Then we watched a DVD that I brought, and just like last night, I fell into a sleep while she was taking a bath. It was like 12:30am.

Trip report continues...

Soh

[klaching]

nice so far... cool pictures. I have a friend born on one of the bases there

[Shadowrun]

sweet TR i have friends that studied abroad in japan (not okinawa though)

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Marry her, she looks cute and fun.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

PS: That is a sweet apartment. Looks like mine, but bigger.

[goodgrief]

Nice report, next time I go to Japan maybe I'll check out that area!

[TIEdup14]

Heh, I lived in Okinawa for 6 years (elementary school)

Fantastic place. I miss the beach being 15 minutes from my house!

Edit: Should add that I lived on Futenma Military base there.

[vikefan24]

She looks a little young for you but I'm not here to judge [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


j/k cool report.. that elephant pic is amazing

[einbert]

Freakin awesome dude.

[ QUOTE ]
Marry her.

[/ QUOTE ]
QFT I wish I had never let my Japanese woman get away. She cooked a mean sukiyaki and she loved to [censored], more than me even which I thought was impossible. Yup, Japan is [censored] heaven. I gotta get back there soon.

[NT!]

fantastic TR, you sir are a valuable OOT poster