Camping & biking around Yoron Island

We took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to remember our nation's heroes from another Japanese island!! We journeyed with a group of friends (7 adults & 4 kids, many of them coworkers of Betsy) to do some camping & biking on Yoron Island (southernmost part of Kagoshima Prefecture, due north of Okinawa Island).

We boarded a ferry at Motobu Port with way too much gear (including bikes for everyone). And 2.5 hours later we got off on Yoron-tou, which we discovered for ourselves was a small rural island, about 8 square miles total of land. We had decided to just bike across it once we arrived, so we stuffed (literally) our gear into a taxi & let Betsy accompany it to the campgrounds. The rest of us arrived approximately an hour later, having miraculously ridden straight to it (over road & hill), joining her at the very clean site complete with cold showers, bathrooms, lighted pavilion with sinks & fire pits, picnic tables & flat tent plots. And there we enjoyed a relaxing 2 nights, only about 100 yard walk from a gorgeous beach. The weekend's weather wasn't awful, but it wasn't wonderful (somewhere in between). The bugs (mosquitoes mostly) were about the same way. Deet was our friend. All in all, we had a fun time sight-seeing, biking, swimming, biking, beach-combing, biking, taking cold showers, biking & eating Yoron soba (we found the restaurant menus weren't as picture heavy as on Okinawa so we were left to come up with those typical southern Japanese dishes we could think of). Click on our photo album below for proof & more (some might say "too much") info!

Yoron Island camping trip

I'm not sure that we'll again combine the whole ferry transportation with camping (gear, mainly). But we'll definitely do another ferry ride & we'll probably go camping again (on Okinawa).

In fact, we're considering purchasing a van (upgrading out little Daihatsu Terios) to be able to lug around gear & people in the same vehicle. And we're seriously investigating another ferry excursion to another hotel-bearing island in less than 2 weeks (as a send-off adventure with newlyweds Aaron & Masayo, who will be heading to Fiji for at least 6 months). We'll keep you posted & take too many photos!

Creamy Powder

So one of our favorite things is to figure out how the bad Engrish got so bad. Often with a bit of thought (sometimes creatively) we can figure out why things are worded, or in this case, named, the way they are in Engrish. Here's a fine example: We bought it at the little convenience store 2 buildings over from our apartment, Lawson's Station (1 of 3 big chains here, along with Family Mart & Hot Spar). We were out of creamer for coffee & this was on the aisle end near coffee stuff. It turned out to taste about as attractive as the name sounds. :-( Anybody want us to send you some Creap?

Another sunset

We snapped a few shots of another gorgeous Okinawa sunset from our apartment balcony:

Hiking around Nago

After giving ourselves a full week of recovery from the Aha Falls hike/climb, we ventured northwards yet again for some hiking. This time we towed John's wife Amanda & their baby, Case, along with us. And we decided to consider the "hard-core" list of venues appropriately, and went for the easy/moderate venues of Todokori-no-Taki Falls & Nago Central Park. Both places turned out to boast some very scenic sights. The falls came first along the way (although the MCCS website's directions again proved to be somewhat less than adequate). It was located not far from Okinawa's main roadway, Highway 58. And it consisted of a short easy walk to some quite gorgeous water falls. After poking around there for a bit, we then the Nago Castle ruins, a portion of the large Nago Central Park. We spent several hours (more than we'd planned) hiking all around it, finding some gorgeous views including an impressive suspension bridge & a fun playground!

Hiking in Nago

Protesters

Upon arriving back in our near-home part of the island (after hiking Aha Falls & viewing the northeastern coast), we discovered a group of organized peaceful protesters of the US military presense (we'd had some forewarning that they'd been organizing something along the lines of what we witnessed). It caused us some minor congestion & delay, but it was kind of interesting to watch so we weren't too upset. We decided to snap a few photos while we watched them.

Prostesters around Kadena

Views along the Northeastern Coast

As we drove back down the coast from Aha Falls, we stopped to snap a few photos of the gorgeous views we were afforded, both inland over the mountains & out towards the Pacific Ocean.

Views along the Northeastern Coast

Hiking at Aha Falls

We decided to venture north on a gorgeous Saturday for some hiking at Aha Falls (the MCCS website rated it "hardcore"). Armed with what turned out to be very vague & incomplete directions, we headed that way, taking way too much time (after missing a couple of turns) to arrive. We quickly discovered that it was really more of a climbing experience than hiking. It started off with ropes leading down a steep hill to the river where the falls were nearby. We spent the next few hours hiking through the thick undergrowth & playing along the river banks (sure would have been nice to have brought swimsuits).

Hiking at Aha Falls

Josh's brother is a college grad!

Well, my little brother, John Murphy (youngest sibling in my family), has finally caught up to me in terms of education (I'm still taller & better looking though). Today (Thurs, May 10) my little brother graduated from Auburn University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting. I was not proactive enough to venture there for the event (sorry, John!) but I was able to capture the video feed that Auburn broadcast live on their website. Since the commencement ceremony was at 2pm CDT, that meant 4am GMT+9 (Japan time). I couldn't stay up that late or get up that early (sorry again, John!). But I caught up on the event after I woke up & saw Betsy off to work. I was happy to see that my PC was able to capture & hold that much video time for me (don't get too excited, the album below is just still screenshots not actual video):

John's Graduation from Auburn

Ain't technology grand? Pardon the interruption from our regularly scheduled posting (Okinawa-related topics). Just wanted to give a shout-out & declare my love, support & pride for my little brother. Congrats, bro!! - Josh

Enjoying a May Sunset

So Tuesday (8 May 2007) was a gorgeous day here & included a gorgeous sunset. After we enjoyed a delightful Kobe beef Teppan-yaki style at Jack's Place (on Kadena AFB) we still had a little time for a quick sunset bike ride. We didn't remember any of our fancy cameras, but good thing our cell phones have 3 MP cameras built-in, huh? Thus, we were able to capture some shots of the sunset:

Okinawa Sunsets

Enjoy!

Karma

Category: Computer Jokes It was time for Bill Gates to make the transition from his earthly home. St. Peter agreed to be his guide. Since Bill had been such an important person on earth, St. Peter decided to allow him to make a choice between Heaven and Hell. So Bill was first escorted to a tour of Hell, it was not at all what he expected. It was actually a pleasant spot, with good food, wine, and music, entertainment, beautiful women an all around very fine place. St. Peter and Bill then toured Heaven; again Bill was surprised it was a stark and dreary place, very simple and pastoral with only very basic amenities. Bill was not impressed, and so he chose Hell as his preferred destination. A few weeks later, St Peter paid a visit to Hell to check in on Bill. Bill was extremely unhappy, tied up to a post with flames all around him, burning, hungry, and scared. He called out to St. Peter, "Hey, this is not what I expected! What went wrong? How could I have made such a mistake?" St. Peter listened patiently and then replied, "Bill, I'm sorry about the misunderstanding, but what you first saw was only a demo!"

Bad Day

Since we're now certified scuba divers (although nowhere near pros), we especially enjoyed the following "perspective" story (even though it may not be true) for those bad days on the job: Are YOU having a "jellyfish" kind of day? If you don't laugh out loud after you read this you are in a coma! This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad day at work .... Think of this guy, Rob a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on Offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was Sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won. Hi, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after a ll. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt ... I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically!!!! Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work...think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt. Now repeat THIS to yourself, "I LOVE my job, I LOVE my job, I LOVE my job." Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, "Is this a jellyfish bad day?"