– As a seasoned traveler, I wanted to try to adjust my body to the local time in Japan right away when I got on the flight. I boarded the plane in New York on Monday, August 3rd at 12:30pm. So after an hour delay on the plane at the gate, I finally set my watch ahead 13 hours and all of a sudden, it was 2:30am and I wanted to make myself go to sleep so I would be on the right time zone when I arrived. I decided to wait for the meal (and four small bottles of French Champagne and an Ambien later) I was sleeping for about 9 hours! I was so excited as I knew this would help me adjust and avoid jet lag. After 3 flights (and one with only 15 minutes of a layover and plane change with a run in the airport), I arrived in Okinawa and had Vanessa waiting for me. Yea…I was in Japan at 10:00pm on Tuesday, August 4th. Crossing the international date line made me lose the day.
– It was so great to see Vanessa again as last time I saw her was in December in Australia. It was just like old times as we got caught up in the car, even though it was so strange seeing her drive a car in Japan…it just felt so weird to be in Japan. As it was nighttime, we had one more cocktail at her swanky Japanese apartment (my first comment was, “wow…you are such a grown up” as the apartment was really nice and fancy!). I think I may have slept a little too much on the plane as when I went to bed at midnight, I woke up at 2am, 3:30am, 5:30am and finally when Chris has to get up for work at 7am. I wasn’t’ tired and was ready to tackle my first day in Japan.
Japanese Earthquake
– Right after breakfast, at 9:18am, I started to feel some movement. It was odd as I was sitting at the table and when I looked up, I could see the apartment moving and the drinks on the table were also sloshing around. I said to Vanessa that this must be an earthquake. It felt fairly strong to me and once again, I know to get under a table or in a door way when there is an earthquake, but I didn’t move and started to giggle with Vanessa and discuss the earthquake. It actually lasted a while (in earthquake terms) and I think about a minute and a half. I was guessing it was a 3.5, but later learned it was a 6.5 quake and was only 20 miles south of Okinawa where we were. Must have been out in the water as it wasn’t as strong and there really was no damage. In the past 16 months, this was only my second quake so that’s pretty good.
Shurijo-Koen Castle Area
– So after the quake, Vanessa and I were off to explore the Shuri Area. Shuri was the original capital of Okinawa and was full of temples, shines and a castle. Our first stop was the Shurijo-Koen Castle.
– Before we even got to the castle, I have to laugh about the parking experience. We pulled into the parking garage and it was very funny. One man made us wait to get a ticket. Then we went through the gate and had to wait behind a long line of cars that were waiting for another parking attendant to wave them in. There was stack parking, and it was super tight. Once we were waved in to park, we got to back into a narrow row of cars and the man was telling Vanessa something in Japanese (which clearly we didn’t understand). I guess it was slow…slow…slow and then turn…turn…turn. He wanted her to turn back and forth to straighten out the car, but there was no way that would work. I tried to stop laughing, but it was really funny.
– So back to the Shurijo-Koen Castle. We started up the “10 minute walk” to the castle, yet we made it up in a few minutes as I guess we are more able bodied than most tourist. First stop was the famous gate called Shurei no-mon – which is Chinese influenced and appears on the 2000 yen bank note (yet I have not seen a 2000 yen note yet and when I asked Vanessa, she didn’t think there was one…so I may never see it on the money). So everyone knows it in Japan as it is the symbol of Okinawa.
– Once we were in the castle area, we came to the courtyard. I started to look up and enjoy the view, but then one of the workers came by us in a long monk like outfit and he was wearing flip flops with socks. I then saw more and really started to giggle to myself as flip flop and socks is not a good look, but I guess it was part of the uniform here. So sad. Outside of the flip flops, we had a great time exploring the castle and seeing what the Japanese lifestyle was like back in the day.
– At the end of that day, we met Chris after work for dinner. Vanessa knows how I love Benihana and there are lots of hibachi like places to eat all over Japan, so they took me to one that was more showy. When we were seated, we were given bibs and of course, Vanessa and I put ours on, but Chris was too cool to wear his bib and be in a photo, so he got to take the picture of the girls in the bibs. We ended up having a really great hibachi dinner of lobster and steak. Yes, I have ordered my first dinner with steak. I was just saying the week before that I was ready to order half a steak one day, so this was a perfect arrangement. It was very tasty!
– As the night is young, we head to an Irish pub (guess Irish pubs are everywhere in the world), and have a few more drinks and thrilled as they have Kilkenny on tap. I still wonder why I find it everywhere in the world, but not the USA. Not fair. We knew a typhoon was supposed to hit in 2 days and it was so windy this night and right as we were ready to leave, it started to pour rain. So we decided to try to wait it out and have another drink. Too bad once we started to walk back to the car…the rain got harder, stronger and was raining horizontally so we were all pretty wet by the time we got to the car.
– This morning, the wind was so strong from the approaching typhoon it almost blew us away walking to the car. Vanessa and I actually stopped and asked each other if we should go out as it could be dangerous. We decided to head out and play it by ear and see what happens and how we felt. So we started off the morning driving south and a couple times felt the car move. We also saw a man across the highway from us on a motorbike and he was really struggling to drive forward due to the strong winds. I think he was dumb for trying to ride a lightweight bike in this weather, but then again we were in a car which was a little better but not much. Once we started to drive more…we felt safe and continued.
– First stop of the day was at the Ryukyu Glass Factory. Here we got to watch local glass blowers during the process of heating the glass, blowing it and rolling it to different glasses, vases and bowls. There was some speakers overhead narrating, but since i don’t speak Japanese, I tried my best to make up my own explanations and keep Vanessa laughing. I was in awe as what they were making were so beautiful and it took a lot of time to make something so nice. Half the fun was walking around the show room looking at the finished products. It’s times like these that I wish I had a place to live and could buy some items to decorate, but alas…I couldn’t justify buying things to put in storage till I move to a new place.
– Since my second day in Japan on Thursday, August 6, we wanted a day of remembrance for all those that lost their lives in Japan during World War II. It was 64 years ago on this day that the US dropped the first Atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Even though I won’t be in Hiroshima for another week, I wanted to honor this day.
– I remember learning about the fighting in Okinawa during World War II so we thought today was a good day to learn more about it and have a day of remembrance. We made a brief stop at the Himeyuri Peace Memorial. At this spot, you can see two very large holes in the ground where bombs were dropped during the war. I was surprised how deep they were and can only imagine the destruction of all the bombs at this time.
– Next stop was at the Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum. This was the main museum to learn about what happened. So Vanessa and I headed south and were almost blown out of our car when we got there. The wind was so strong our car was shaking. We were actually worried about the car flipping and being blown away, but we got out and walking into the wind, made our way to the entrance (and now had really sexy wind blown hair). Once inside the museum, I learned a lot about the war that occurred in Okinawa. It started in March 1945 and was called “The Typhoon of Steel” and lasted for 90 days. (I had to laugh that this battle was called the Typhoon on the day we were there and it was Typhoon conditions). This battle was the only land based attack on Japanese soil and over 200,000 people died and mostly were civilian. I will say for museums, this one was so well done with information, photos, models and video. You could have stayed for hours to really take every inch in.
– When we walked outside to see the view, as Vanessa said it was so pretty, we were almost blown up and away. Each step we took, our flip flops were almost blown off our feet. Yet…we still wanted to go out to the water to see the view and it was pretty and the water below us looked fierce! This was not a place I wanted to swim!
– Final part of our night us trying to find some peace of our own. So we opened one of Vanessa’s favorite bottles of wine (cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand), tried some cheese she found in Japan (I was a little skeptical of Japanese cheese based on my other cheeses from Asian countries). The two cheeses turned out to be great. I asked Vanessa if one of them was a brie or Camembert and she said it was a Camembert based on the taste, yet there was no English on the wrappings so I started to laugh. It could have been either, but it was tasty nonetheless.
– Afterwards, we headed out to one of the Sushi train restaurants for dinner. It’s the place were plates of sushi cruise by you on a belt and you take what you want. When we got there, we had a long wait and just sat there. Trying to be resourceful, I asked Chris and Vanessa if we could order beers while we sat. They looked at me a little strange and said they didn’t know as no one does and Chris said to try. So I got the waitresses attention and tried to ask for beer here (where we were seated) and after a few tries, she understood and got us 3 beers. I don’t think this is normal as she really had to think what to do, how to start a tab, but we were much happier with our beers and wait time. Finally when we sat down, most of the sushi was the raw sashimi which I am not a big fan of, but was willing to eat some while I was in Japan. We were lucky as there was an English menu and we could order a few other things and we all stuffed ourselves. I ended up having raw scallops and raw tuna plus a few other things and it was all super tasty!
Friday, August 7th
– This started and ended up to be one of the longest days ever (but oh so fun!). Dumb me…I forgot my camera at her apartment. There is something different when I stay with friends as I start to unpack, and leave things around. I realized part way up on the drive that I left my camera on the bedside table and thus we only had Vanessa’s iphone for photos. Anyways, Vanessa and I headed north on the island and drove up the coast, and first stopped off at a beautiful lookout place at Manzmo. We walked around for a while, but were slowed down when all the Japanese tourists were blocking the walkways and completely unaware they were walking slowly and hogging the path.
– Vanessa just found out she will be able to get a job at the Intercontinental resort and it was close to where we were, so we stopped to see the place and it was really nice. I really would have a hard time going to work there every day as it’s right on the beach, with a fun pool and was so beautiful. I wish we had a swim suits to take a dip as this was the most beautiful day yet and the sun was out. Oh well….we were off to continue north to the Aquarium.
– The Ocean Expo Park was our next destination. It was about 90 minutes away from Vanessa’s apartment and well worth the drive. This was one of the most amazing aquariums I have ever been to. I felt like I was a kid in the candy store as I wanted to sit and stare at all the fish and tell Vanessa all about the ones I know about from Scuba diving. We first got to play in the touch pools and pick up star fish and sea cucumbers. So i went right for the chocolate chip star fish and played with him for a while. We spent some time wandering around the different tanks and actually trying to get past all the Japanese tourist. There were so many of them (as this is super high season) and it was hard to get up close to the tanks as the Japanese would just stand and block the tanks, spreading both arms across the tank so you couldn’t see. It was a very selfish thing to do and got a little annoying as we all wanted to see in. As soon as we would wait our turn, someone else would push past us.
– the big attraction to the aquarium is the giant tank with three whale sharks in it. I didn’t realize there were any in captivity, but there are and I guess there is a total of five whale sharks as the aquarium swaps them in and out of the big ocean pen they have so the whale shakes can swim outside of the tank as well. As much as I loved watching the whale sharks, it did feel bad as it was a small place for the large sharks and there were so many other giant manta rays, sting rays and other fish that it looked so cramped to me. Yet, I just wanted to sit and watch shark TV (and we were there for feeding time so that was fun as well)
– After the sharks, we went outside to the dolphin lagoon to get up close to the dolphins, but once again, we couldn’t get too close as all the Japanese tourists were already up close and we had no room. But we watched at the dolphins were being trained and we were off to the dolphin show next. Right as we were walking in, it started to rain and then rain harder. We debated leaving, but I thought we are already here, we will get wet on the walk back to the car, so we might as well wait for the show and then head out. Plus, Vanessa had never seen a dolphin show before, so we had to stay for her.
– I thought we were done at the aquarium, but then I learned there were giant manatees and I wanted to see them. To our surprise, luck or horror (how ever you deem), we got to watch some manatee lovin’! We were standing right in front of two giant manatees as one started to rub up against the other, then suckling a little, a little more massage with the nose, then more rubbing, smelling and then they turned into a compromising position and were enjoying each other. At this point, there was a huge crowd around the manatee and Vanessa and I were right in the center of the action trying not to giggle too loudly. I don’t think a baby manatee was created at this union, just some afternoon delight for the large manatees! I read that this aquarium is the only one in the world to successful breed manatees, so maybe these are the two breeders and they were practicing for later.
– So we finally had to leave as we had big plans that night and had to get back to meet Mike as he was heading over for some drinks before we went to dinner. Now I had no idea what I was getting into for the night, but it was so fun. After a bottle of wine and a few beers each, we were ready to start. We went to a Japanese place for dinner and entertainment and the entertainment was a eight person performance group that was playing all 50’s songs. The guys all looked like Elvis with their hair and the girl was in traditional 50’s dress and petticoat. There was quite a fun show of music, singing, dancing and fun. Mike told us in an hour or so, most of the Japanese would be dancing on the tables as they get drunk quickly and love to dance on tables there. It was a really fun time and the beers didn’t stop flowing…
Check out the video of the singers on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIuB-rjXdO8
– After three sets of songs, we decided to venture to another bar down the road. The big draw here there are four resident penguins. I was shocked to see them as two were out swimming around and two were in the penguin house (at one point there was some penguin lovin’ going on as well!). I love penguins and it made me think of all the penguins I played with in Antarctica and I just sat at the glass watching them and playing with them as much as I could through the glass. We were there for feeding time (or I think Mike may have paid for me to feed them – thanks!). So the waiter brought me a tray of fish and tongs and I got to go up to the tank and feed fish. I tried to be fair and get all of them some fish, but one penguin was very pushy and greedy and kept jumping up to grab it out of my tongs. So rude! So a long night at the bar and I was exhausted (and actually fell asleep for a few minutes at the table….whoops!). very fun night and back in a cab. One interesting thing about Japan is there is a zero tolerance for drinking and driving and the you can’t even have a drop in your system. So Mike called for a taxi and side man to pick him and his car up. What a great idea…and it’s the same price as just a regular taxi home. So Mike had the side car guy drive him and his car home and the taxi them took the side car guy back to town. Really keeps the drunks off the road I guess.
– I’ll just say that Saturday was not a good day for me. I was not feeling well and after a whole day on the couch and some rescue McDonald’s from Chris… I was feeling much better by 3pm. So much for our plans for the day. It ended up being super fun as we watch so many hours of Friends on TV and made it out of the house around 7pm for pizza in Japan (which was so good).