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Over these last couple of weeks that I haven’t written, Julie and I have been living it up on this little island. Julie has continued being my wonderful tour guide and we have experienced more of Okinawa than anyone else we know here.
A week or so ago Julie took me to Shuri Castle down in Naha. It is surprising that on an island as small as Okinawa there are so many castle ruins. I believe there are around 15 of them actually and we’ve already been to 5, but like I said, all of them are just ruins of walls mostly. Shuri is the only castle that has been reconstructed, so it was very cool to see what a functional Okinawan castle would be like, all painted red and gold with tatami mat floors and artwork all over.
Then just a couple of days ago our friend, Janine, invited us to go climb Mount Katsu with her and we jumped at the opportunity to see a new part of the island. It was a relatively quick hike straight up the ‘Mount’ through some lush greenery and over a bunch of boulders. The view at the top was wonderful though. The top of the hill was small, with just a bunch of rocks to climb around on, so after the mandatory photography session we all found ourselves a little niche to read, write or contemplate the universe. Soon enough though, the wind shooed us back down to our car.
To warm us up, Janine suggested the restaurant “Pizza in the Sky” just a short ways away for lunch. I’d heard about this place from numerous people so was stoked to try it out. It’s a little restaurant halfway up a hill overlooking the East China Sea. The funny thing about this little place is that it only serves one kind of pizza (sausage, onion, corn and green pepper) and one kind of salad. Your only real choice is the size and what to drink. J Through my travels I have become wary of what to expect when one orders something that sounds ‘familiar’ in a foreign country, (for example, a hamburger that I ordered in Thailand tasted like fish, and had definitely been deep fried….) so when this was the best pizza I’ve had since Guatemala, I was pleasantly surprised. J And besides the really good food the view was, once again, excellent.
Besides sight-seeing, we have also hung out with Julie’s Japanese friends from her work which has been so much fun. I always love to hang out with the locals and here that takes a bit extra effort because there are Americans all over the place due to the 5 bases within a half an hour drive. Anyways, lately we’ve been out to dinner with a group of girls who are all eager to practice their English with us, as well as Russian and Spanish, our other two languages, which they seem determined to learn as well. That night they took it into their own hands to order mad quantities of real Japanese foods for us all to share and try, then started passing around the sake. It was a good night, I felt very cultural. Then one of them has a boyfriend who manages a bar called Natural so we all went out there the following Saturday night. I was excited just to be in a real Japanese bar with Japanese people, not one flooded with Military men with short hair cuts. Though occasionally that is fun too. ;)
Now for the most exciting bit of my time here which is diving! It is still on the cold side, as far as swimming weather goes, but Julie and I have sucked it up a couple times and gone snorkeling down the way and seen some really groovy stuff. We found a juvenile Lionfish which was VERY cool, it was a darker brown color than they usually are and sort of spindly. Then we’ve run across a crown of thorns, a barracuda, unicorn fish, tons of porcupine fish and half the tank gang from “Finding Nemo.” J If it would warm up just a bit, we would be out there every day I’m sure.
This last week Julie decided to take the Advanced PADI dive course and get herself certified to dive deeper so she spent the entire weekend diving. I joined her on the boat dives out in the Keramas Islands yesterday and we had a great, if freezing time. The boat had just enough space for 18 people and all of our equipment. Half of the divers were working on their Open Water course and seemed a bit nervous, hardly opening their mouths the entire trip. But we motored out about 45 minutes to the dive site all zipped up in our multiple wetsuits to keep out the cold and drizzle. I think my only problem with the day, besides the cold and rain, was the lack of organization. Julie and I kind of just did our own thing, which consisted of diving with (aka following) our new friend, Drew, around the whole time. Drew is a fun guy we just met who is working on his Dive Masters here and basically goes diving every weekend and sometimes after work during the week. He loaned me some of his extra equipment so that I wouldn’t have to rent it all and watched out for us for most of the day. It was good to have him around too what with him having a flashlight, a dive computer and a good eye for finding interesting creatures. On these dives we saw some absolutely gorgeous parrotfish (one purple and lavender), a sea snake (which Julie has seen tons of), a giant lionfish, pairs of Moorish idols, clown triggerfish, two white mouth moray eels, a bunch of nudibranchs (sea slugs) of varying bright and beautiful colors and much, much more! Oh man I love diving.
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