We heard some celebration coming from right outside our living room in the early evening (curtains are drawn at that time, due to intense light & heat from setting sun pouring in). Upon venturing out on the balcony to investigate, we were surprised & delighted to having a great view of some Eisa dancers playing the sanshin, taiko drums & traditional Okinawan songs as part of the celebration of Obon right in the parking lot of the commercial buildings across the street (near Araha Beach in Hamby Town of Chatan).
After our day viewing the southern half of Okinawa from 1000 feet in the air, Ana just us at our apartment. And the 4 of us (Betsy, Josh, Ana & Tito) had a delicious dinner at Kastamandap (yummy Nepalese curry), among the strip of restaurants just off Araha Beach in Hamby Town of Chatan-cho. Then we had a nice stroll along the beach & watched the ultimate players frolic against the gorgeous sunset.
While babysitting 2yr old Cayce for our friends & neighbors, the Nielsens, we were alerted to the sight & sound of fireworks in the night sky outside, going on just across the bay from us at Sunset Beach in Mihama of Chatan-cho, Okinawa, Japan. So we snapped some camera phone videos:
Wish I had started shooting this 2nd, longer video just a tad earlier because the light that is spread across the large expanse of water at the beginning was absolutely HUGE & awesome, but I missed most of it. Oh well!
The next morning we got curious as to what event was happening to warrant such impressive fireworks, so we checked our local listings. Turns out they were part of the festivities of the 1st night of 2 for the "22th Seaport Chatan Carnival" (yes, they printed caps & shirts with that name & that made our OkiEngrish.com blog) which also includes the usual vendor booths, live music, tug-of-war, Haarii (aka dragon boat races) & Eisa dances. So we went by & watched the morning boat races:
And then later that night we caught the 2nd night of fireworks:
Still shots from the fireworks show & boat races:
After an early morning rain, we were greeted by a very pretty rainbow where we normally photograph our sunsets (over the ocean, directly outside our living room balcony). As we gazed & photographed, it slowly faded away.
It's not normal to take this many photos of the same sunset, right? Josh started playing with settings on the camera (it's just a point & shoot, not a DSLR, so we're talking things like Exposure, ISO, contrasts, auto bracketing, etc) & got quite a few different versions of this one gorgeous sunset. This is the view from our balcony, right outside our living room, power lines & all. We probably had plenty of time to run up to the roof (4 floors up) but we didn't.
This afternoon, shortly before Betsy arrived home from work, Josh felt the strongest earthquake (although "tremors" would be an applicable term, since nothing was damaged in any way) that we have felt thus far (and we've felt quite a few in our 18 months living here). Here is a news summary about it: AP News - Strong offshore quake shakes south Japan
Josh thought at first that a cat that we're watching (Mushkie) for neighbors (Jay & Genean) was just messing with our wine glasses (causing them to knock against each other), before quickly realizing that the whole apartment was shaking (it started off slow & increased in intensity). ;-) He then found a doorway, meanwhile the "scaredy" cat just sort of froze for the 10 seconds until the quaking subsided, at which point Mushkie ran around in a couple of circles before accepting some petting to reassure him things were fine. It was interesting but plenty of excitement for us. No more earthquakes necessary, God! ;-)
Considering we weren't in Okinawa for a good portion of June (Betsy missed 9 days & I missed 16), we came away with photos of 3 gorgeous June sunsets from our building looking over Araha Beach & the East China Sea:
Remember us? Yep, we still live here! I know, I know, we're a little behind on updating the blog with recent adventures (including a long, fun trip to the US of A). But, first, an Okinawan adventure!
We had the pleasure of spending a hot, humid, sunny, beautiful Sunday (well-named) here in Chatan playing in our front yard (aka Araha Beach) with our inflatable kayaks (best thing we ever bought from Walmart... maybe, we don't come from money so we've been shopping at Wally World for a long time). Our playmates were Aaron, Masayo & Masayo's little brother (visiting from Nara in the Kansai region of Honshu - that's the main island of Japan). We remembered to take our dive camera in it's nifty waterproof case & snapped a few shots to prove we had fun (please forgive the moisture that blurs a few key parts of some of the pictures).
Our friend Aaron came & spent a day & night with us to give some of his wife's visiting friends more room at their apartment & he had a wonderful wish to go snorkeling, so Josh jumped at the chance (only a couple of hours before our dive class) even still being a bit jet-lagged & even remembered to take the camera!
Aaron & Masayo had an old friend (from a previous life in Japan's Nara Prefecture) in town visiting from California. Betsy & I thoroughly enjoyed meeting & getting to know Mike. After a yummy onigiri lunch at our place, we tried to go kayaking around the sea wall's Kadena Steps, but we found out that the 400W auto power converter doesn't provide enough juice for our electric inflater pump. Thus, the inflatable kayaks remained deflated. So Aaron & Mike had fun snorkeling instead while Masayo, Betsy & I just relaxed on the stone steps (Kadena Marina was out of rental gear for us to have enough for all 5 of us to jump in at the same time). That evening we had a very delicious cold Somen noodle dinner prepared by Masayo at our place, before we played a rousing game of , boys vs girls. It was a fun day!
We've grown quite close to some neighbors in our building, especially their 5 yr old son Eddie. We play with him & sometimes supervise him when his parents need us to, such as this day when Genean was out of town & Jay had to work late.
After Josh picked Eddie up from kindergarten, they played at the park right next to the school for a while. Then after a refreshing popsicle from an off-base convenience store, Josh introduced Eddie to Tobaru park in Chatan's "heights" (between hwys 23 & 24). The clouds were a bit dark but the views from the park's observatory combined with the fun that Eddie (& Josh) had playing on the slides & ropes more than made up for it!
A LOOOOONG video of 5 yr old Eddie going up (the wrong way) & then down (the right way) on the big roller slide:
After exhausting themselves there, they then proceeded to play on the teeter totter & small stream/pond at nearby Jagaru Park, that is, until Eddie decided he wanted to be soaking wet after getting a drink from a faucet & subsequently began chasing Josh around with a water bottle. That finished off their energy & made them head for home for some yummy veggie burgers!
One of our favorite restaurants (both on Okinawa & in the world) just got a little write-up in this week's edition of Stripes Okinawa (the free weekly advertising supplement published by Stars & Stripes). Here's a post with the full copy of the review (several restaurants included; Kastamandap is merely the first):
We live a couple of blocks from the strip described in the article so we often find ourselves there for some food when we don't feel like preparing our own. And it's hard for us to resist Kastamandap's incredible curries & scrumptious naan bread (I guess some people might choose the rice option but we consider that, well, just wrong!).
We've been meaning to write up an experience of this restaurant (by itself, not merely as part of a larger experience with friends or family) but at the same time, the place is tiny & we like getting a table when we want one. So now that the word's out anyway, we'll show some public love & let everyone know where we go get our curry fix!
Taken from our apartment balcony overlooking Araha Beach with plenty of lovely powerlines in the way. A couple more follow this one in the album if you want to click thru & investigate.
Okinawa Prefecture is made up of a chain of subtropical islands located about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo. For those more familiar with US geography, a similar longitudinal difference would be New York to the Bahamas. Many Japanese associate the islands with a vacation resort. In mid-October 2007, it was 65 degrees F. in Tokyo, and 85 degrees in Okinawa. We live on the largest island, Okinawa! The island is about 464 square miles (66 miles long by 7 miles wide, roughly) with a population of about 1.2 million. And while we do live near the city of Okinawa also, we actually live in the town of Chatan. Our 3rd-floor apartment overlooks the East China Sea on the island's west coast & about 1/4 of the island's landmass lies south of us. We are around latitude +26° 18' 15.06" & longitude +127° 45' 36.01". Check out the map of our Asian adventures:
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