Since we were too lazy & tired of other recent travels to take advantage of the long weekend to plan & take a trip (although we should have, we now realize in 20/20 hindsight), we are more than happy to report that we had a very lovely Thanksgiving holiday with several good friends. And we did the American traditions grand honor, being very thankful for the feast that we assembled & attempted to consume. We had some great food, including a 20+ lb turkey & sides (purchased from our friendly MCCS - I think it was prepared at Camp Foster's Globe & Anchor club) as well as numerous home-made items that different people contributed. We definitely ate more than we should have allowed ourselves to (continuing that tradition). And we didn't just enjoy the food on Thanksgiving Day itself but also for several days after!
One of our favorite Thanksgiving companions was 18-month-old Cayce. Here's a fun video of her digging into some cool whip after we enjoyed leftovers 2 days after Thanksgiving: The main objective (well, besides watching her make a mess) was getting her to say "Hi, Grampa!" We thoroughly enjoyed her version:Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
We Are CouchSurfer Hosts!
We recently opened up our humble abode to some very fun guests that we met via couchsurfing.com (a site that matches up travel hounds like ourselves with each other to overcome some of the travel industry's high prices). A lovely couple hailing from Australia (formerly of Sydney, soon to be Melbourne) flew in from Taiwan (where they'd been visiting her family). And we were happy to meet them at the airport & provide about 4 nights of lodging during the last full week of November (since we hadn't made travel plans for the Thanksgiving holiday for some reason). Most days they were forced (or chose, or a combination of both) to fend for themselves (walking or bussing or renting a car).
But on their last day with us, we were finally able to spend a full day discovering Okinawa with Jo & Brendan. Discovering a day that began cloudy/drizzly/windy but became sunny & clear, we drove out to east-central side of the island, across the peninsula in Uruma. We explored the ruins of Katsuren Castle before venturing onto the bridge out to Henza Island. We then explored coasts, shrines & caves on Hamahiga Island before continuing on to Ikei Island's Big Time Resort coast. After finding an afternoon snack on Ikei, we drove back to Miyagi & along some of the less-popular roads (as evidenced by the vegetation covering a lane or more). We eventually discovered the park & lookout pavilions at Ato Gusuku Observatory, before leisurely making our way back to Okinawa Island & into Naha to find the Shinko Port.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Yaeyama Islands: Delights Await Ye Nature-Lovers
After arriving on Ishigaki (main island of the Yaeyama group, due east of Taiwan), catching a bus into town, settling in at the comfy guest house (where we found communication most convenient via translation services from a friend that we phoned), we slowly realized that our Japanese mastery or lack thereof (especially written comprehension, which is not far above 0% fluency) was not going to be nearly as forgivable in the Yaeyama-shoto as it often is here on Okinawa. And since there were quite a few activities we were interested in taking part in during our long weekend (3 nights) there, we decided to seek some assistance & spend a bit more money than we normally allow ourselves to. So we booked a tour thru Hirata Tours at the nearby ferry port for Saturday, called an English speaking dive shop to set up some SCUBA diving for Sunday & decided to only chance our partial day on Monday to our own fallible communication skills. After those plans were made, we followed a lovely walking tour (printed from a website) of the main town before finding a delicious dinner at Yuna, across the street from our guesthouse.
On our first full day, we embarked on a day tour to Iriomote Island which included round trip ferries from Ishigaki, bus transportation on Iriomote, boat trip up the Urauchi-kawa, hike to the Maryudo falls, delicious resort lunch, star-sand hunting/gathering, & a wooden cart pulled by water buffalo to tiny Yubu-jima for a scenic stroll about the gardens. Though it certainly wasn't cheap, it sure was easy to do more than we could probably have figured out on our own & we thoroughly enjoyed each part of that was included. Dinner back on Ishigaki that night consisted of some yummy bento box food we found from a local vendor in town.
We did some SCUBA diving on Sunday, finding a dive shop in Kabira that could handle our language needs (Umicoza). Unfortunately, the Manta Scramble location (famous for regular year-round sightings of awesome, huge Manta Rays) was too choppy for the dive boat to visit, so we had to settle for 2 dives in different areas that boasted coral reef life in Nagura Bay. It was quite lovely, but not terribly different from what we witness around Okinawa Island. Still, our very knowledgeable divemaster (Satoki-san) showed us quite a few things we'd never seen before (arrow crabs, jawfish, etc), often using his underwater flashlights to illuminate places normally concealed to our view. Also provided by Umicoza was a delicious lunch of curry, rice, spaghetti & salad (very nice after diving). After getting dropped back off at the guest house in town that afternoon, we quickly realized that not bringing our AAA-issued international driving permits would be preventing us from rental of any motor-powered vehicle(s), so instead we rented bicycles to get in a few hours of riding across the southern coastline (great sunset views & monuments & a small lighthouse). On our way back, before returning the bikes, we happened to see a fresh seafood shop & purchased some fresh fish sashimi which we paired with some bento food from a Hot Spar store near our guest house.
On Monday we awoke to bright, gorgeous weather (the clearest of our days there) & ferried over to Taketomi-jima, where we rented bicycles (highly recommended) to see the island's beaches, typical Ryukyu village architecture, shrines & historical sights. In only 3-1/2 hours we found that we had seen basically all of the small island's very interesting scenery & we docked back on Ishigaki-jima JUST in time (i.e. 30 min before time was up) for a DELICIOUS lunch buffet at the Chisun Hotel. We even had enough time to leisurely stroll with our backpacks from the ferry port to the airport instead of taking the bus! ;-)
Friday, November 02, 2007
Our longest bike ride so far
Since Betsy has only a 2-hr workday on Fridays, we decided to spend one lovely Friday doing some bike riding around the island. So we charted a course we'd been considering for a while, over to the Pacific (east) coast of the island, then south along the coast & back across the steep ridges that run north & south. We included a lunch stop at a buffet that we'd read good things about (lots of sushi!). The route we followed is available if you CLICK HERE.
Basically, it was a big loop along roads we'd driven several times but never ridden. Only 3 of our 4 total tires survived in an "able to contain air" state. But Josh didn't let a flat front tire keep him from riding his free bike (found on the side of the road beside other large trash items on "large trash items" day) without an inflated front tire (the tube has since been replaced & feels just as good, which isn't that good, as it ever did). It was a good workout & great fun besides! And we even remembered to snap a few photos!
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