Snorkeling at Sunabe

What a lovely day in the gorgeous waters of Okinawa! Josh was lucky enough to have a free day to spend with Jessica, Linda & Susan on a snorkeling excursion near the south end of the Sunabe sea wall in Chatan. There is lots of life in those waters & they saw a nice slice of it!

And they had the dive camera with a charged battery & memory card! The 131 shots he snapped before the battery was exhausted, were cropped, resized & whittled down to a still-plenty 99 shots for your viewing pleasure.

View Album

Get your own

Some highlights:

Supporting their education in Japanese culture

As a substitute teacher, Josh got assigned many different classrooms at AEIS, wherever he was needed. He came to really enjoy being assigned to fill in for a "Specials" (PE, Music, Art or Japanese Culture) educator because it meant he got to work with 4 or 5 groups of kid in a single day instead of just 1 (sometimes it was a good thing & sometimes not, depending on the kids' attitudes & moods that day). He could then work with a "just-busting-at-the-seams-to-be-adolescent-middle-schoolers" class of 6th graders or with a "still-very-child-like-&-so-innocent" classroom of 4th graders. It was pretty fun to see the contrasts in developmental phases on the very same day like that.

But Josh especially enjoyed substituting for the educator in the Japanese Culture classroom, because of all the things he got the chance to learn myself. We're quite jealous of the kids here that they're getting exposed to this very different yet extremely beautiful culture, not only from just living here (like we do) but actually being formally educated. We're sure that most kids don't even realize what a wonderful thing it is (how can they, at their age & maturity level?), but we maintain the ardent hope that someday they'll look back on their days with Ms. Tawabata & appreciate what she taught them about human diversity.

On one such assignment in the classroom, Josh took a few minutes to snap some photos of the things that the kids here get to see & hear & learn & create & experience about the Japanese & Okinawan cultures that we wish we got exposed to at their age. Some pretty cool stuff!

View Album

Get your own

O-medeto gozaimasu!

It was a day to celebrate! After an uneventful morning (Betsy attended the final portion of a continuing education course at the hospital), we spent a lovely afternoon with our good friends the Wheelers. We reminded them what it's like to have an oven in which to bake brownies. In our contest of boxed mix vs recipe "from scratch," we are too stubborn to concede the victory to the mix (we reason that probable overcooking dried out the from-scratch batch). So we had to munch on quite a few & pair them with some American ice cream. Meanwhile, the Wheelers reminded us that we do live in Japan by teaching us how to carve our stamp blocks using fancy tools & erasers. They, of course, assisted with the relevant Kanji & Katakana for our names, but we were very successful at producing functional products. They also taught us the secrets of Sino-Japanese calligraphy (well, Betsy actually learned; Josh not so much really), before we presented the couple with a small token of our affection on the occasion of first wedding anniversary (1 day early). As subsequent celebration for Josh's achievement of 30-something (yes, his age has gone from 2 syllables to 3), the very generous Wheelers treated us to a delightful dinner in the Omoromachi area of Naha at a very nice Japanese restaurant. They wisely recommended that we each order the 6-course set meal, and indeed, each dish was excellent! The grand surprise of the evening was a delicious dessert topped with 7 candles (making me feel not quite so old) that Josh promptly extinguished before the sweets could be damaged. Having been alerted to the possibility, patrons at an adjacent table received their own dessert shortly thereafter to celebrate their own occasion so we happily joined in the birthday chorus (in English). It was a fun & memorable day of happy celebrations.

View Album

Get your own

*The title of this post means "Congratulations!" in Japanese.

Daihatsu Naked

I finally got a good photo (ok, 2) of the final auto model that we find humorous enough to blog about:

From Auto Models

I'm not sure that it's so much that it's "wrong" to call an automobile model naked, as much as just strange. I mean, yes, it's indeed unclothed, but it IS painted! Hasn't Sports Illustrated decided that paint is now a suitable replacement for fabric in order to permit lounging on public beaches? Doesn't the same hold true for cars?

From Auto Models

Sunset & powerlines

From Okinawa Sunsets

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.

Toyota FunCargo

From Auto Models

We seriously considered buying one of these models (when we were still considering buying from a dealership rather than saving a couple grand with an individual). And the main reason was just so we could be the "fun cargo" wherever wouldst our "fun car go!"

Exploring Yomitan Peninsula: Cape Zanpa & a cave!

What a lovely way to spend a Monday morning! Inspecting the views from & around the lighthouse at Zanpa-misaki on Yomitan Peninsula. I was pleased to be able to chauffeur & guide visiting relatives (Laura & Susan) of our friend & neighbor Jason. It was a grand excuse to see the sights of Okinawa for myself!

View Album

Get your own

After we'd hiked & photographed our way around Zanpa, we set out to locate a couple of caves on the peninsula. The guidebook that Linda & Susan had brought along with them had these on a high-level map, although I'd never heard of them nor did any English signage on the roads. However, with relatively little searching, we found Chibichiri Gama (west of Hwy 6). It wasn't overly large, but did have dedicated restroom facilities adjacent to the stairway leading down to its mouth. And there were fresh flowers & hanging garlands of brightly colored paper/origami cranes (often made by school children as an homage to honored deceased) placed in front of the cave's mouth, adjacent to an elaborate stone shrine. Inside the cave (which we could only inspect in very limited fashion, since we had no flashlights) was another shrine, which our camera flashes illuminated for us. It's hard to say how deep the cave might extend. We'll have to re-inspect one day with flashlights!

View Album

Get your own

We next attempted to find Shimuku Gama on the east side of Hwy 6 (& south of Hwy 12) but to no avail (not for a lack of looking though). We were tempted to call some cave-like wells (as in water sources) the cave that was in the guidebook. Instead, we settled for finding the fresh produce market on Hwy 6 (across from the Max Value hardware store) & buying a papaya that sure wasn't like any papaya we'd ever tasted.

House Party in Ginoza

View Album

Get your own

Betsy's coworker Chris & his family threw a fun bash at their new beach-side casa in Ginoza, a wonderful afternoon activity to complement our morning dive at Sunabe South. The food was delicious & the weather was superb! The kids & a few adults had a grand time playing with our inflatable kayaks & raft. While the sun was still bright, I snapped several shots of the house & beach area with my camera phone (despite our having brought along our real camera, I only took off a few minutes from playing with the multitude of kids present). So please witness that indeed the beach & ocean & house itself of the Cockrells' new residence is impressive. We've truly enjoyed getting to know their family (camping, biking & babysitting their energetic & intelligent children). Thanks for having us, Chris! Good times!!

Diving @ Sunabe (south end) - 3 photos

On our only dive of the day we remembered a fully charged camera but no memory card, so the internal 10 MB had enough room for only 3 shots, so we had to make them good (well, the best we could given the difficulty of seeing sharpness thru the small viewfinder underwater). In hindsight, we wish we'd reduced the quality/size level per photo & thereby gotten a few more shots in, considering these are not of the greatest focus/sharpness we've gotten. We settled on 3 shell-less mollusks, based on such factors as 1) we could get close & steady ourselves, 2) they did not scurry away when we approached, 3) they're quite beautiful marine creatures that we greatly admire & 4) these were not everyday varieties in dives around here.

This gorgeous white, purple & yellow nudibranch was the best shot we came away with: This white (yes, the green hue was not so much there in real life) marine gastropod mollusk (of undetermined variety) was really cool (those feathery appendages moved): And this gorgeous green & blue nudibranch was much prettier in focus:

Enya Izakaya

The Nielsens invited us to join them for dinner at an izakaya that recently opened up near Cayce's daycare (very near Camp Lester on Hwy 58). It was near enough to ride our bikes instead of drive (but we were too lazy to walk) & we were on top of things enough to remember our camera to snap a few shots of the very tasty, generously portioned & reasonably priced food! They even brought us an extra dish (for good luck?) & we graciously accepted! We plan to go back!

View Album

Get your own