Okinawa Love

So Okinawa...

It was absolutely incredible. So much fun. Maybe the best vacation ever. Okay, specifics.

We were there from Wednesday to Saturday only 4 days, but we packed in so much.

Day 1

I as usual, waited until the absolute last moment to pack, i.e. 7:30am on Wednesday morning. I ran out the door to Takeda-san's house to pick up my “breakfast” which was like 3 days worth of food, thankfully no spam. I walked as briskly as I could in flip flops and carrying a big duffel bag to the station where I met Matt who was similarly attired. We of course stood in stark(er)than usual) contrast of the packed train full of salarymen on the way to work. It really sucks being on a packed train in general and it's ten times worse carrying a duffel bag and backpack. But, we made it to Haneda Airport on time and for only $3.50 (if we hadn't cheated it would've cost over $10). The flight was good, barring the fact that I had to sit next to Sketchy Nick aka Sidle-san aka Creeper.

When we got there we grabbed our bags and got on the bus, the weather was gorgeous, 80's and sunny. On the bus we were introduced to the woman who would tell us random things things about, play games, ramble incoherently and sing for us over the next 4 days, our lovely Gaido-san (literally, Ms. Guide). We went to international street in Naha and had lunch at a teppanyaki place which was delicious yet slightly weird since teppanyaki places really only exist outside of Japan. All the waitresses were dressed up in little sailor outfits, it was adorable.

Then we headed to Shurijo (Shuri Castle) a very famous castle that is on the 2000 Yen bill. It's also interesting to note that while you NEVER see 2000 Yen bills in Tokyo, they're very common in Okinawa because they like to use the currency with their landmark on it.

Next we went to our hotel, Hotel Miyuki Beach. It's somewhat stuck in the 80's and very tacky in its decor, but it was great nonetheless. The rooms were Japanese style and we slept on futons on the ground which was cool because it's the first time I've done that. I roomed with Matt and Dale. Up until this trip I really didn't like Dale but after spending some time with him, I found he's a pretty cool guy, so that was really cool. (Do I use cool too much, I can't help it my English is really degrading I think) Anyway we basically threw our stuff down and ran to the beach, which was also gorgeous. It was like our own little lagoon with rock outcroppings on either side of the beach, and there was a really cool little pagoda-like pavilion in a smaller outcropping in the middle. We did a bit of exploring and then headed back inside for dinner (and a show!) Shin-san sang when they asked for volunteers to come up, and it was awesome. I haven't mentioned it up until now, but Shin -san is the Assistant Director of IES Tokyo, but he's essentially the director, he does everything and no one really knows or likes the real director. After dinner everybody put on their yukata's and went out to the beach pagoda thingie, drank lots, and talked. It was so much fun. I went back inside at some point and Dale, Becca, and somebody else I can't remember said they were going to the Onsen(hot spring) ( it was actually more of a Sento(public bath)), I was a bit tipsy and probably shouldn't have but I went anyway and it was great, such a cool experience. I went almost every day.

Day 2

The next day we went to a huge park. We went to Emerald Beach there for a few hours, it was a bit cloudy but still beautiful. Much chicken-fights were had and at some point someone stepped on a sea cucumber and it jizzed all over the place and got stuck to several people's legs and feet much to their horror. After that we went to the aquarium there. I hadn't been to an aquarium for a super long time so I really liked it. They had a huge tank with three whale sharks(bigger than our bus) among other things in it. They had a little cafe next to the tank so we ate lunch there. I had a tako sando(taco sandwich) it was strangely good. I learned that tacos in general are fairly popular in Okinawa especially taco rice which is sold as an Okinawa omiyage(souvenir). Then we walked around around the park which had some incredible views and a cool little recreation of a traditional Ryukyu village. After we left the park we went on what may be the single greatest moment of the trip. The IES sponsored, glorified beer run. The first night everyone had to buy their alkies in the hotel which is expensive. So Shin-san built into the schedule “grocery shop”. Ok so, 1) We get breakfast and dinner at the hotel everyday, 2) We eat lunch at the places we visit each day, so what groceries would we possibly need? That's right, ALCOHOL. And boy did we every buy a lot of it. I bought 7 chu-hi's for power hour and 2 bottles of wine--15 bucks, I love Japan. Everyone had a litle basket filled with booze, those Okinawans probably thought we were all alcoholics. After we left you could hear all the cans and glass clinking together every time the bus turned, it was hilarious. From there we went to the Nago Pineapple park. There we were let loose in a room containing 5 different kinds of pineapple/shiquasa wines. That was your first mistake, Nago pineapple park. If you say all you can drink wine, you bet your ass I'm going to take you up on that. I was the last person to leave the room. They were actually at one point like, “why don't you try some of our fresh pineapple in here”, in hopes of coaxing me from the free wine. I had a few more and took them up on it. And I proceeded to eat every free sample I could find, because after you drink as much as I did, you tend to get hungry. I had pineapple cake, juice, cookies, break, jelly, gelatin, fresh pineapple, and repeat all those and replace pineapple with shiquasa (sort of like a lime) and brown sugar. And I didn't buy a damn thing, which is more than I can say for everyone else, they bought so much crap there. I passed out on the bus ride back, most likely due to the excessive wine consumption. Had dinner, went to the sento, had a nice talk with Alberto, then it was Power Hour time. My mix went over pretty well I'd say, and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards, Tessa, Allen, a few others and I watched Battle Royale on my computer. Then hit the hay.

Day 3

We got up and went to Manzamou which basically amounts to a big ol' cliff. It was an incredible view though. There were lots of people hawking their wares but I resisted once again. From there we went to a little Ryukyu themed place called Murasaki Mura. They actually shot a drama series there a few years back. There we all did little cultural activities. I made a strap for my keitai (cell phone) using banana tree fibers and glass beads. Or as Stephen would say, traditional Okinawan Bead Crafts. The weather was supposed to be crappy that day but it wound up being great again so every one wanted to skip out of that place early and go back to the hotel so we could get some quality beach time in. And after lunch we did so. Before lunch I did some exploring at the beach near Murasaki Mura which was fun. I saw a million hermit crabs. Back at the hotel every one went swimming for a while and ikimono was introduced to our collective vocabularies. The water was fabulous. After a while the Japanese middle school trip group took over the beach, but it was ok cuz we had another cultural activity to do. In the hotel we had a shinsa (okinawan shamisen) lesson. It was pretty hard and I thought my being able to play guitar would help and it probably did, but it was still really hard. After dinner I played drinking games in Molly, Dawn, Thally, and Cto's room, got pretty tipsy then went out to the beach to hang out with Tessa, Allen, and Allen's Okinawan friends Ken and Oota. There was some interesting conversation. Then some other people came out, skinny dipped in the ocean, and left. Later I was hanging out with Dawn and Rachel near the smoldering campfire and they went skinny dipping again, and I proceeded to pass out next to the fire (this is becoming a habit). Dawn woke me up when she got out and we had to go around to the front to get into the hotel. I passed out right away and woke up with a ton of sand in my futon.

Day 4

The last day was pretty hectic. We went to Okinawa World first. There we walked through a pretty amazing cave. Although it would've been a lot cooler if it wasn't a commercialized tourist cave. Then we saw a taiko/shinsa/dance performance which was pretty awesome. I tried Habu-shu – a type of sho-chu that is distilled with a whole Habu (Okinawan Pit Viper) in the bottle, and had a microbrew that hit me like a truck, I wish I could get me some more of that stuff. After that we went to the Peace Memorial Park, where I mainly sat on the edge staring at the sea and cliffs for the half hour that we were there (wasn't really in the depressing war memorial mood), but it was still very engrossing. Then we went back to international street for last minute omiyage shopping and lunch. It started pouring though so it kinda sucked but it was ok, the majority of the trip was gorgeous weather.

Best Shin-san quotes of the trip:

“Amerika-jin Amerika-jin!”

“You're all going to hell”

“I don't want you to have to pay a lot for “stuff””

Awesomeness:
Glorified/program sanctioned beer runs, IKIMONO!!, Gaido-san, Gorgeous tropical islands, the beach, Sentos, Yukatas, UUUGGGGGHHHHH!! (cto's orgasm), Delica Maison, Power Hours, "A nice cave", Okinawan Friends, Pineapple everything, shiquasa, BEEF, Okinawan Bead Crafts, whale sharks, bonding with people

Our Camping Adventure

Seems like it's been forever since I posted.

Camping was so much fun. As predicted, there was no tents, and even better, I didn't even have a blanket or sleeping bag. The town was so tiny rural it was crazy. When we got to Choushi Station, we had to transfer to the "Choushi Dentetsu", which basically amounted to a sardine can on an ancient track. It was so funny. We rode it till the end of the line, Tokawa "station". Here's a picture:

yes, that's really a station

When we got there, we asked a gas station girl where the nearest conbini was, to which she replied, there are no conbini's in Choushi. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to people who have never been to Japan, but if you have you'd be just as floored as we were because conbini's are literally EVERYWHERE here. But she told us where we could buy alkies which we did post haste. But after that, I thankfully, found a super, so we could get some food and water...and more booze. Sufficiently supplied, we set off to find the beach. However our initial effort was unsuccessful, locating only a port with some crazy surf and a huge wall. Oh and I forgot to mention, it was cold as hell, probably low 60's with 30+mph wind.

We were all starving so we decided to find somewhere to sit and eat our food. We sat in a little playground next to a temple and ate and talked loudly as we gaijin are wont to do. And in no time, we had an old couple staring at us from across the street. (They probably NEVER see a foreigner let alone 15, so they stared for a good while, way more than people in the Tokyo area) After that we set out to locate the beach once again. We found one shortly and decided that we would camp there despite it being a pretty piss-poor beach. Here's a picture:

We all wondered off in search of a better place shortly after we put our stuff down, and thankfully the others found a such a place. However, Joe and Constance weren't back from their wanderings yet, but it was ok, we left them a note to tell them what happened to us.

So we found the main beach that was sort of an inlet so the wind was reduced a lot which was fantastic (it was still quite strong though). We hung out there for the rest of the day drinking 300Yen wine and other such whitetrashities (that's my word, don't steal it). I went in the ocean up to my knees and it was freezing(this wouldn't be my last time in said ocean that night). The water was filled with different colored seaweed that was fun to squish between my toes. When the sun went down and the locals left, we set up "camp", which basically consisted of a few tarps and our bags. As I mentioned before, it was pretty cold and now that the sun was going down it was only going to get colder so we had to build a fire(ok we were planning on having a campfire anyway but once we got there we realized it would actually be necessary...for survival.)

We got it going with the help of some stolen wood, and some aerosol igniter fluid which was highly entertaining to watch. (We stole/burned sooooooooo much wood during the course of the night) The fire was fantastic though here's a cool pic of it:


Some highlights of the night: More 300Yen wine, cooking Joe's store bought fish in the fire, a couple chu-hi's, hobo packs, 300yen whiskey(Kirin, next time I say "hey, can I get some of that whiskey?", say no) , tai chea (chai tea), Kirin's urine, hanabi(fireworks), swimming in the ocean at like 1am, and of course what has come to be known as Anthony's Odyssey--

I wandered off at some point, presumably to go pee and was not heard from for a good chunk of time. After a while they realized I wasn't there and sent Matt to go find me. I was found by Matt about an hour later on some rocks and soaking wet. I'm told the following conversation took place;

Matt: Where the hell have you been??
Me: Fuck you!

lolz....That definitely sounds like something I'd say.

But that's not the best part, I had also acquired a British accent during my time doing god knows what, and spoke in said accent for the rest of the night.

The order of events for that night are hard to put together but I think I went back to the fire and passed out shortly after. I slept about a foot away from the fire, it was awesome. We all got up at the crack of dawn and began our long trip home, we were all ridiculously exhausted.

But it was oh so fun.



As an interesting(at least to me) sidenote: While writing this, I had to use my translation software to find the English word for inaka because I forgot what it was. (rural, country) Woo! My English is going to hell!

Golden week goodness

Golden week has been pretty good even though I wasn't able to do any major trips. Didn't go to Disney though, like I said in the last post.

We went back to Womb last thursday(i think), because it was super cheap, but as we found out, it was super cheap for a reason. We now know to never go clubbing in Tokyo during the week, there's NO ONE there. Apperantly, thirsty thursday exists only in the US. The music was drum and bass, which is fun to dance to for about 20 minutes. Nevertheless, I danced my ass off again, and goddammit I looked good haha. I must've sweated 10 gallons. gross ne? But after we had our fill of that place we left and tried to find another place to hang out for the rest of the night, but were unsuccessful. We wound up eating/sleeping in McDonalds(Makku) for the rest of the night, and the awesome thing is, we weren't the only ones doing this. Apperantly it's quite common, as the place was packed with sleeping Japanese and a couple gaijin besides ourselves.

I took it easy for the next couple days. Monday, me, Stephen, Allen, and Tessa went to Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, which is the oldest temple in Tokyo. I like temples a lot for some reason. Then we met up with Marisa and her exboyriend who's visiting for the week. (on a hilarious sidenote, when he got here he proposed to her and she said no, LOL) Then we all went to Ginza and hit up the Hub for happy hour and then the 300yen bar(the good one this time). It was a lot of fun.

Yesterday, Tessa and I planned a picnic in Yoyogi that went off with very few hitches. It was pretty last minute, but a lot of people showed up throughout the day. The weather was gorgeous. Got my inner hippie on, played hacky sack, frisbee, and in some strange series of events, tried my hand at tightrope walking. And if you'd like to know, it didn't go well. I've got bruises to prove it. Regardless, it was a fantastic day, I even got a little sunburn :D

Tomorrow I'm getting up early and we're going to kujukuri-hama beach on the eastern coast to camp out for the night. Supposedly from one spot you can see the curviture of the earth, so how bout that?? It's going to be ghetto camping with no tents, but hey it's only one night, and it'll probably be awesome.

Saturday is Yuji's birthday so we're having a huge party for him at a nomihoudai called Suikoden in Tsudanuma.

Sunday I'm probably going to be doing homework all day :( :( :(




i'll dream you up on a vast dark coast
believe i see you walking toward me arms outstretched like a ghost