Okinawa World

One of the friends I made out here (thank God) told me about a place that she had visited last weekend called Okinawa World. I thought it was just caves, but turns out there is more to it than just that.

After finding it no problem, we're getting so good at navigating. The only reason for that is we realized that our iPhone will let you load the directions at home where we are connected to the wireless internet and then somehow still leads you as you go on your route. Only problem is it can't re-route you and it doesn't tell you how to get home. Those are the fun times. The first time we used it and realized it didn't take us home we were like, "Well, here we go." We got turned around a few times, but overall we do ok, I think. We bought our tickets and headed down into the caves. People say you should wear pants and sweatshirts when going down here. If you ever come to Okinawa and go to Okinawa World do not listen to them. We were sweating in our shorts and tank tops and Colton was in the Ergo and he was a hot mess when he finally woke up and got out of it. DO NOT WEAR PANTS. It was so amazing. I had never been in a cave before, Jason said he was in some when he went to Arizona or somewhere with his mom. Caves rule.

This lady and her dog (there behind Jason) were just outside the caves entrance. We had gotten some vouchers for 1000 yen so we decided to get one and use that to get the copy of the pic. Turned out pretty good. I'm glad we did it (Jason tried getting them to use our camera to take the pic, hehe).

Inside the caves there was water all around the bottom (I suppose that was what was carving it out in the first place...) We were so surprised when we saw fish! Weird white fish sitting completely still in the water. At the exit to the cave there was a little "market" I guess you could call it. Samples of pickled daikon, fresh fruit juices and some crafty stuff. Jason and  I got some fresh squeezed juice. I got pineapple (yum, but warm) and Jason got some weird mix with passion fruit, needless to say it was not so delish.

After that we walked down to catch the Eisa Drum Show. It was maybe about 10 drummers and a few men dressed up as the dragon in the show. It was a pretty neat show. At one point though, they were taking members from the audience (quite a few) and had them all line up. Each volunteer walked up to the dragon, the dragon opened its mouth and the person put their head inside the dragons mouth. Nothing happened and then the person went to sit down. That was it. Weird.

Then we got some lunch at a buffet that they had on site there. It was right next to the drum show. After browsing the buffet tables we realized we didn't like much that was on the menu. There was curry (which is delicious) but it was almost gone and the Japanese people that were there showed no sign of stopping. There was a lot of vegetables - fried, steamed, roasted - you name it. They had it. Of course white rice and fried rice (also almost all gone). They also had a salad bar. Mind you, the salad here consists of cabbage sliced super thing with sesame dressing (which is delish) and croutons - if you're lucky. This place had croutons! I guess we should've been impressed. I did find the kiddy table of food. This is where I filled up. Meatball things, French fries and what I thought was spring rolls. I got back to the table and realized that the spring rolls were not that at all - they were little hot dogs! Ew! They looked like spring rolls because the way the "casing" was getting loose toward the end. Ick - needless to say,  I didn't eat those.

After I filled up (sorta) on weird kiddy Japanese food and lots of cabbage salad (with croutons) Jason wanted to see the "Snake Show." I was not thrilled about it, but what the heck? I'm so glad we went. Hilarious. Not only was it funny sitting in a room where EVERYONE was speaking Japanese, but they were doing a little information (I think) prelude to the show. All Japanese. Needless to say, it was the longest 10 minutes of my life - listening to someone ramble on and on basically speaking gobble-dee-gook. After all the rambling and showing us how a snake can pop a balloon - not sure what was so interesting about that, I thought we all knew a snake could pop a balloon, they brought out the thing that made Jason want to go. A snake racing a mongoose (I know - we thought the same thing you're thinking). They were in these little cages at the far left side of the stage about to be dropped into a tube filled with water where we guessed they would be racing. The mongoose was so cute by the way - Timon doesn't do him justice, not even close. You would just assume that the snake would win - it would just have to swish it's "tail" twice and it would be done, but the snake was completely confused and going in the wrong direction while the mongoose was booking it to the other side. I'm not sure if the mongoose normally wins because everyone seemed pretty shocked. Again - I'll never know because of the gobble-dee-gook.

This is us watching the show.

Colton more cared about the ladies behind us.

Overall, I'm glad my girlfriend told me about it. It was definitely something worth seeing. Colton was a perfect angel the whole time and slept the whole way home. We just love that little stinker!

I have more pics of the show with the race happening and some other ones, but I can't find my memory sticks :( Wish me luck. They have every picture from when Colton was little on there. WHEN I find them, I will add more pics!

South Eastern Botanical Gardens

I just don't think it gets much more beautiful than this! This botanical garden was the most beautiful one I've seen. I've seen a lot of botanical gardens given my love for plants. It was super early in the morning (this place actually opened at a normal time) so it was extremely quiet and peaceful here. There were misquitos and Jason and I both got bit a bunch. I think I have Hepatitis B and Jason thinks he has Malaria, so just another normal day here on the island. Colton, luckily, didn't get any.

There were 2 sides to the gardens. A water side and a jungle side. The water side put the other to shame. Both are beautiful, but the water gardens with the lotus flowers that were way bigger than your head were something I would never want to miss.

Almost like fields and fields of them, but this was all just a big pond! We even saw a swan down underneath them just cleaning himself and minding his own business.

Look out for these! Banana Spiders. They are poisonous and huge. This picture does not do it justice. They were everywhere. Needless to say when we left we felt like we had them all over us.

Here is the non-water side. Very pretty but I think I didn't like it as much because there were even more of the banana spiders on this side.

 

And again, someone was all tuckered out, so home we went.

 

 

Shuri Castle Ruins

A couple that we hang out with sometimes mentioned to us that they went to the Shuri Castle Ruins one weekend and they have a young son only 2 weeks older than Colton so we figured it was a safe one to try. It was relatively easy to find as Jason sees the signs on his way to work every day. There is one thing that is confusing here though, about the signs for the monuments. Since the Japanese people read right to left and up and down sometimes if the sign says - "Shuri Castle Ruins" with an arrow first and then 3km, an American would assume it means turn and then go the 3 km and you will find it. I think it means go 3 km and then turn (because whenever we do it the American way we get lost), but Jason is sure that can't be right. Either way we still don't know and often get lost trying to figure it out. Luckily Colton enjoys car rides. Upon researching parking pre-trip I read that sometimes you have to back your car into a parking spot that is 3 cars deep. Oh boy! Jason nor I can even back into a spot 1 car deep. I was thinking we were in for a treat. Luckily we got there and the parking attendant took our keys and let us on our way. Phew! Dodged a bullet on that one. All of the Japanese cars are always parked backwards in the spots. I can only imagine the laughs and giggles that would have been pointed our way if we were trying and trying to park our car and couldn't get it. Either way, thank God, we didn't have to it!

We walked up a hill and saw the giant walls that surrounded the castle ruins. It was amazing. Each rock seemed to have been chiseled by hand to fit perfectly into the wall and it was tall! We followed the signs for the wheelchair and stroller ramps as there were a lot of stairs and we had Colton's big stroller with us. We thought we were following the sign correctly when all of a sudden we were all by ourselves. No one else had ventured this way. Hm.... We looked around and continued walking on the paved sidewalk that seemed to be going in the right general direction. A man stopped us and asked us where we were going. We said we needed the ramp (he didn't understand this). He said, "No strollers this way, all stairs." So... I guess we read the sign wrong. Maybe it was one of those backward reading things again. Either way we turned around and went back up the hill past where we started and there it was. The handicap ramp! Of course I swear we picked the hottest day of the year to hike the castle grounds (I think every day is the hottest day of the year).

 

There were paths all over the grounds headed to different things, this one was a look out point. If you can imagine before all of this was developed it was probably just jungle and little villages. It would have been a great place to make sure no one was coming to invade your castle. The view was spectacular (as you can see).

After we got through the initial gate there was a small courtyard where you purchased your tickets and there was even 2 geishas doing a traditional dance (I guess I don't know if they were supposed to be geishas or if it was just traditional dress). Through a small gate and it opened up to this. The castle. Just to the right of the main entrance is where they were letting people in. You had to take off your shoes and carry them in a plastic bag. Its amazing more people don't get nasty foot fungus over here. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle. But it was very pretty. We can't read a lot of the signs that are inside telling you what each room is for or anything so I can't give you much historical information. We did find a window that other people were taking pictures out of, so we figured we could too.

 

 

After touring the castle there were still a couple of things on the grounds we wanted to see.

 

 

 

Again, I don't know what this is, but it sure is pretty. We can't read the signs. There were some little ducklings underneath the bridge that Jason and Colton are sitting on and there were some kids feeding them that we stopped to watch for a little while. They were cute, but Colton (and Dad) were sweaty so we had to head home!





I Don't Thnk Its Going To Fall Out

Here on Okinawa when you go to the grocery store or a clothing store or any kind of store, it is customary to bring your own bag or pay 3 yen (3 cents) for a plastic one. Of course Jason and I always forget a bag. Not only is it an inconvenience for us to have to pay the 3 yen (really who cares), but the cashiers tape and tie everything shut. Now, this doesn't just happen at one grocery store, it happens at EVERY store. It happens at Makeman (the DIY store), Aeon (Japanese Super Wal-Mart), the pigeon store (I don't know the real name of it) and even the Family Mart (7-11). It even happens at fast food places like A&W, which the Japanese people love almost as much as Americans love McDonald's, Burger King and KFC.

For instance, at the grocery store, you might purchase chicken, pork tenderloin, and tuna. There aren't plastic bags to wrap your meat in like in America. You just put the package into your basket and they wrap it at the cashier. This is where the tape and small bags come in. Each separate item is wrapped in a small plastic bag and either taped or tied shut. There are multiple different colors of tape too. I assume each color means something? Who knows. I don't care enough to even try to ask.

 

Here is a bathroom rug I bought just today. Folded perfectly, stuffed into this nice little plastic bag and taped shut. These bags you do not have to pay 3 yen for. Its the large one that they put all the small ones into that you have to pay for...

 

Here are some of my other items:

 

This is the large bag that costs 3 yen. It is tied and taped shut in the middle. Not only are all the small bags that are inside this bag either tied or taped and the large bag itself is either tied or taped (or both) but the handle on the large bag is twisted to make one thicker, sturdier handle. You can only imagine how long it takes to check out.

 

 

 

These are my baby-proofing items, tied up in this tiny bag, only to be placed into the above larger bag.

 

 

 

PS... I needed to get masking tape. I found it believe it or not. Strange though. Expensive too!

 

 

3 small rolls, almost the same size as a scotch tape refill. (this was sort of off the topic, but I just thought it was so weird.)

Boat Races and Makishi Public Market

Last weekend Colton, Jason and I were enjoying our relaxing Sunday morning when a firework went off over the ocean relatively close to our apartment. I figured since the 4th of July was approaching that some punk kid had gotten his hands on some fireworks and had let one off in the middle day for no reason at all. A few minutes later there was a voice being projected over the entire neighborhood (this is not an unusual occurrence by the way since 3 times a week a man's voice is projected throughout the area). Of course we have no idea what anyone is saying so Jason figured as long as no one is running in one main direction - we should be safe. After listening to the man make announcement after announcement I realized this wasn't the same old boring speech we hear every day at 6pm. There was something happening over there where that firework went off. Let's go see what it is. We packed up Colton (we forgot sunscreen, yikes) and headed in that direction.

Oh.... Boat Races!! They were giving awards on the stage and making announcements about what schools they were from and their names... I assume. As you can see there were stands for food and little trinkets, the normal festival stuff. As we were about to leave I decided I wanted a snow cone. Jason went up to the stand to order where a man pointed at another man who pointed at another man who pointed at a woman... we figured we were being pointed to someone who spoke English so we just went with it. We asked if we could buy a snow cone. No. We couldn't buy a snow cone. The lady could not explain to us why we couldn't because her English wasn't so good and we can't ask because our Japanese is non-existent. So, we turned to go home with no Snow Cone. It just made me hungrier for one.

Makishi Public Market was another adventure we had this weekend. We decided Colton is napping better these days and we can probably get out to see what Okinawa has to offer. Jason got on the computer and found the kanji so we could search what we were looking for (you never know for sure if you've gotten the right place because who knows what that kanji really says).  Just so you can get an idea of what we have to deal with. We end up counting stop lights and completely guessing whether or not this is the street to turn on.

It was supposed to be a 45 minute drive. 2 hours later we decided to park and walk down a busy "shopping district" street so we didn't completely waste our time. We knew it was somewhere near there and maybe we could find someone to ask who was walking down the street. So we turn down a street (in actuality these streets are like alleys) and find a slew of parking areas. There is a sign that says 100 yen per hour so we know we have to pay. There is no parking attendant just a machine. Oh boy.

 

The Silver buttons are numbers. We were parked in number 18 (as you can see we had that entered in the top left corner). In America there are some parking lots where you have to pay ahead of time and some where you have to pay when you leave. Well, we couldn't read the sign here saying which this was. A group of Japanese people parked shortly after us so we began trying to ask them whether we paid now or later. After much charades and a lot of laughing and puzzled looks, we figured out we pay when we leave based on the time we had spent there. Also here there is a metal thing that when you pull into your parking spot it moves from flat to vertical. Once it is vertical you cannot move your car (unless you had a Jeep or big truck or something). Jason and I were very nervous we wouldn't be able to figure out how to get it to go down. We went on our way thinking that was a hurdle we would have to jump later. By now it was lunch time and we decided we wanted to find something to eat. We spotted a restaurant and were headed there when we noticed a white guy all by himself, figuring he spoke English we asked him if he knew where the market was. He did! He said (in an Australian accent) that it was about 300 meters up and there are a few different entrances and that we wouldn't miss it. Sure enough, 300 meters up and we couldn't have missed it. We drove past it 3 times (I don't know how this happens to us).

 

 

That's me in the purple dress with the bad tan lines. This was exactly what we were looking for. People selling everything from dry salted fish to fancy kimonos. There were fresh donuts and fresh steak. I just want to mention that it was 115 degrees that day and the woman in the forefront of this picture is wearing a sweater. What the heck?! We came across a lady that for 150 yen ($1.50) would squeeze out a chunk of sugar cane into juice and people were drinking it. Jason wanted to try it.

 

 

It was disgusting. So sweet. Jason said it felt like his teeth were going to fall out just from one sip. I tried it too. Not only was it too sweet, but it was also warm, really warm. Pass. She was a nice lady though (those mangos on the right of the picture were 1000 yen ($10.00)). Wowsers!

 

We ended up only buying a few items this time because it had taken us 2 hours to get there, Colton needed a nap and some chow and we needed to get home.

 

 

A fresh pineapple and an Okinawan cake. They make it to look like the rings of a tree. It was so good. It tasted mostly like butter. Who can complain about that?

And of course we encountered more ladies who loved Colton.

Sometimes I think they are going to unbuckle him and try to hold him. I wouldn't let them, but I don't now how to say it without being rude. I guess I'll have to look that one up with the million other phrases I needed to learn.

Oh the Sites You'll See

So I thought I should document the walk to the Aeon. The fact that all the sidewalks are made of hand laid brick should be enough to document in and of itself! It is a short walk but shows a majority of "American Village," which is where we live. Almost as soon as you clear the tall buildings that are on the opposite side of our street you see the Ferris Wheel. In the day time it looks like any other normal Ferris Wheel you would see sitting on top of a building, but at night it is all lit up and changing colors. Very pretty. People ride it when its sunny, raining or lightening. I don't know what they are thinking, but apparently no one has gotten struck or I'm sure they would have stopped. I can only imagine the views of the lightening when you're on the tippy top (I guess that's what gets people to ride during the storms).

The building the Ferris Wheel is on is a huge mall. In the bottom of the above picture you can see the number 100 with a kanji after it. That is the 100 Yen Store! They have all kinds of stuff just like our $1 store! Oh the similarities of Japan and America! There are all sorts stores and restaurants inside. This side tends to be more restaurants. There was an article in the paper about the new "Italian" restaurant opening in this complex. We were excited to see what it was... Oh... Sbarro Pizza. How exciting.

Here you can see just how big it is. The Sbarro Pizza is just under the Ferris Wheel in case you were looking for it. Across the street from this is another huge building. They have a store called "The American Depot." It has used toys and some clothes inside. Its more what Japanese people "think" we wear, but nothing that I have a need to purchase. On the tops of one of the buildings there is a sign that says "SOHO" like in New York and just next to that is a Statue of Liberty. Oh joy. It looks just like America! Sometimes I forget I ever left (ya right).

Not only are the sidewalks intricate and carefully laid, but check out these manhole covers! Pretty!

This is just one. The other one has flowers and stuff on it. Now, I'm no genius, but even without knowing how to read kanji. I bet there is a water valve under here to help fight fires!

After looking relentlessly for coasters and asking 3 different people working there and playing a few ridiculous games of charades, Colton and I came up empty handed. We stopped at the freshly baked bread store and were on our way out when I spotted a little juice stand. I decided to try it out. Its super hot these days. The wonderfully courteous woman quickly presented me with an English menu (if she hadn't I would have been picking on color alone). I opted for the Melon Yogurt Shake.

(you can see the sidewalk in this pic)

Here is the most delectable treat I've had in a long time. I know what you're thinking... are those black beans? That's what I thought, too. Oh great. Why am I not surprised? Wrong! I sucked one up into my straw only to find they were tapioca balls. Chewy, delicious marble sized balls of sweet goodness. We didn't get our coasters, but we got a delicious Melon Yogurt Shake. It was worth the trek.

Just a Few Funny Items

On our venture out of the house to get Colton's mind off his teeth, he can't stop thinking about it and whining ALL day long! I will forgive him - I can't imagine if all of a sudden teeth started growing out of my soft pink gums and no one could explain to me what was happening. We encountered a few funny things.

Yep... you guessed it! More black bean sweets. I'm thinking we should possibly give up trying to eat sweets and stick to getting those on base! Luckily it was Jason who picked the winner this time. He ate it, of course!




I bet you haven't seen one of these in years... I've NEVER seen such a fancy one. I guess this is what they would look like if they still existed in America in the 21st century.

It has blinking lights and made sounds and you can even pay with a credit card!




Just wanted to say, "Thanks Pizza!" Don't forget... the 10th is rapidly approaching!

Below is a sign that was outside a grocery store implying that a pregnant woman is handicapped. Don't get me wrong - the up front parking would have been nice (pregnant or not).

 

The picture on the wall to the left of the "TOILET" sign has the handicapped sign, just below it there are 3 images - the first one is a man in a wheelchair, the second is a man bent over with a cane (looking very sad I might add) and the third and final is a woman sitting down with a HUGE pregnant belly! American signs say, "Expectant Mother Parking" but in Japan, they don't mess around. If you are pregnant or maybe just round you can park in the handicapped parking!