4th of July Trip to Kume-jima

We spent our long 4th of July holiday weekend with Aaron & Masayo visiting Kume-jima, a well-inhabited island due east of Okinawa Island (about 100 km). After the ferry made a quick layover on Tonaki Island, we arrived only 4 hrs after departure at our destination. The first day consisted mostly of playing on the ferry & in the Kume port (waiting for a bus that never came before a port worker graciously gave us a lift):

View Album

Get your own

But after checking in at the guest house (we basically had a nice-sized apartment all to ourselves) on the little island of Oo-jima, connected by bridge to the west coast of Kume-jima, we did have time to snorkel & play at one of Japan's top-rated beaches, Ifu (aka Eef) Beach:

View Album

Get your own

We slept well that night!

June sunsets

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:

20 June 2008 - From Summer Sunsets

28 June 2008 - From Summer Sunsets

29 June 2008 - From Summer Sunsets

Kayaking on a beautiful Chatan day

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).

Come kayak with us!

View Album

Get your own

Betsy likey mango

Hear ye! Hear ye! Mangoes indeed do a very yummy pie maketh! "Mango Pie" by Dr. Amanda Nielsen (and again we say to her, "THANK YOU!")

Snorkeling in Chatan

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!

Here's the slideshow:

View Album

Get your own

Here are a few highlights:

Layover in Taipei Airport

While traveling back to Okinawa from our trip to the US, my final layover was several hours long in the Taipei Airport bright & early (first thing in the morning). So I decided to wander around & check it out.

A New Friend!

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!

View Album

Get your own

Playing with Eddie

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!

View Album

Get your own

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!

Snorkeling off the middle of the Sunabe sea wall

2 snorkeling excursions in 1 week & both times with a charged dive camera & memory card? Unprecedented!

It was an overcast day but it was nice enough that the sea wall was pretty crowded. Being a holiday weekend probably factored into the crowd also. Usually does here in Okinawa. If people don't have to work they're out & about, like we are! ;-) Normally we've snorkelled & dived off Sunabe's sea wall at one end or the other (either "Water Treatment Plant" or "Junkyard", now really "Dirt Lot"), but we decided it was time to check out the underwater life thriving around the wall's midsection (several dive shops operate around there & we often see the groups trekking over the wall & across the shallow reef top.

We got a few good shots in: We also captured a bunch of short videos of this excursion (basically, Josh chased a lot of fish & tried to capture the experience for others to appreciate):

** Note: the music wasn't playing quite that loudly & clearly underwater. YouTube has a cool new AudioSwap feature that let us add the sound tracks instead of the silence that we captured. ;-)

Restaurant: Kastamandap - tasting Nepalese deliciousness!

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):

"Beach strip serves up tasty culinary diversity"

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!