Let’s start off this Okinawa adventure blog right from the beginning… in a short summary, I basically spent my birthday in Okinawa with some of my friends in CJP, namely Vincent, Tongxin, Kelvin, and Rosalynn. It was basically a 5-day, 4-nights trip in which we tried to cover most of the popular places and activities that Okinawa has to offer. I’ll type up this blog in a chronological order… as usual.
Basically, the vacation started on the 14th where we all flew off to Okinawa and gathered at Naha airport in the afternoon. After checking into the hotel, it was pretty much the evening, so we decided to explore International (国際） Street in downtown Naha for gifts and stuff for the rest of the trip. There were many life sized figurines on the street and those provided good amusement for the first day of photograph taking. Dinner for that night was Okinawa Soba… basically a thicker version of ramen with some really delicious pieces of pork. Back to the hotel, my friends celebrated my b-day with sake instead of a cake…
Since there was a typhoon passing by Okinawa on the Saturday, we were unsure whether we could do the water activities on Sunday as planned, we ended up switching the plan for Friday with Sunday. So in the morning, after breakfast, we went to do what most people would do in Okinawa, the beach. Among the neat things we did were snorkeling, skidoo, banana-boat, and basically hanging out on the beach… snorkeling pictures will be eventually posted on this blog after I figure how to get those hard copy photos into jpeg format. Fortunately, we did not encounter any deadly jellyfish while exploring the deep… instead we were harassed by non-toxic jellyfish that made pin-prick stings while we swam. The activity that I enjoyed the most was the skidoo… cause the guide that piloted my skidoo was very good at executing maneuvuers at very high speeds. I think at some point in time, I asked how fast the skidoo can go: “Ichiban hayai supeedo wa nan desu ka?”, and he told me it was “tabun hyaku km” and took that as a request to go up to that speed. Now, some of you might say that 100 km/h is not very fast but on the water with the waves, it’s frikking fast… to a point where I was airborne. All in all, the beach activities exceeded my expectations because in the morning, we were told by the hotel travel guide that most diving places were closed due to high waves caused by the incoming typhoon. In the evening we had tacos… which reminisces of Taco Bell in Canada, oh how I miss fries supreme…
Saturday was basically the day that the typhoon came sweeping in that brought torrential rain and high speed winds… so we opted to do indoor activities that day: Pineapple farms and Churaumi aquarium in Nago. We drank and ate an obscene amount of samplers at the Pineapple farm gift shop… I ate an excessive amount of pineapples that day… we certainly got our admittance money’s worth of 200 yen :p In the evening, we went to a dinner and show restaurant in Kokusai Street where dancers perform traditional Okinawan dances while we ate a 13-item dinner set. I wish I understood more Japanese cause then I could figure out what the dance story is all about…
Sunday was an extraordinary day… the typhoon has passed and the sky was blue and clear with a cool breeze. This last day was the best day out of all of them (not that the previous days were any less awesome). In the morning, we went to Shuri castle… basically an ancient fortified Okinawan city… from the elevation there, I could see almost all of Naha and its adjoining sea. In the afternoon, we ended up in the south tip of the island and we visited Himeyuri park. I think it’s a memorial for the people who died during the battle of Okinawa in WW2… as Ros said, there was definitely a solomn feeling when we visited the place… oh, and I rediscovered my all-time favourite food when I was a child… taro ice cream. Eating that was uber nostalgic… must get more now. In the late afternoon, we wandered off to a rural port in south Okinawa where we found a beach to hold a bbq at night (moreso, found a place where I could light a fire in the open without attracting the authorities). I think bbqing using a makeshift charcoal sand pit while watching the stars in complete darkness, less the glow of the charcoal, was the most rewarding experience of this trip. After everyone had their fill, we proceeded to light fireworks to bring everything into a perfect ending… sidenote: some interesting things to mention here…
Taihen Situation #5 – Billy should always read instructions… especially when handling explosives
You can definitely see where this one is going… let me elaborate. The first set of fireworks we set off were sparklers… there wasn’t very much technical difficulties in lighting sparklers – put the tip into the bbq and watch them burn. Now, the second set of fireworks, in my great glory, I assumed that they were also sparklers. So I took one of these strangely non-sparkler-looking fireworks and stuck them into the bbq like the ones before. After a minute of non-combustion, I was like, man… these fireworks are so bogus… they won’t even light up… then I was stunned by the loudest BANG I ever heard in my life. The thoughts crossing my mind were in this order: 1) why are my ears in pain ringing? and why is Vincent and Kelvin swearing? 2) I was like, man, these fireworks are stupid… all they do is make a loud noise and it hurts my ears, who would want to buy these idiotic fireworks?. 3) Then followed by, oh frik… I SHOULD have read the instructions. Ladies and gentlemen, to put it short, I basically launched supposed airborne explosive fireworks straight into the ground… and it exploded less than 1 metre in front of me. Billy needs to read instructions… apologies to Vincent and Kelvin who also bore the brunt of the explosion.
After we figured out that we needed to stick the fireworks into the ground and launch it from there, things were fine and dandy… mind less the ringing in my ears.
Anyway, the trip came to the inevitable close on Monday morning where Vincent and Tongxin departed back to Kansai and me, Kelvin, and Ros went back to Tokyo. I guess I will take this moment to once again thank my friends for this wonderful and extraordinary trip. Even with the typhoon, you guys made this trip into one of the most memorable things I did so far… so for that, Vincent, Tongxin, Kelvin and Rosalynn: I thank you.
I have a tendency to say “Okaaaaaay…” to my coworkers when things don’t quite connect but I don’t want to look confrontational. One of the guys (Toyama-san, I’m pointing my finger at you!) on my team started to copy my “Okaaaaaay…” O.o …aiya. I hope next week will look better :p For now, I will smile! 
