Okinawa-rama

I have never in my life seen so many snails as I've seen here, slinking up and down the side of our house and every other building in Okinawa. At first I thought they were cute with their little antennae probing the air, and felt guilty at the sound of a crunch of a wayward snail underfoot. But not anymore. First of all, the number of snails has gotten to "ewww gross" proportions. Second, they are destroying my plants. (That's supposed to be my job!) I find myself wondering more and more if they are edible. Anyone know any good escargot recipes???

Today I saw the coolest sport ever. It was called "surfball". Joe and I, his colleague, and the Filipino rock band we took out for dinner, just stumbled upon it as we were walking around town, lured by the sound of loud music and the throng of people. When we reached the crowd, we saw that they were watching what looked to be a game of touch football. It was being played on the beach with the sun setting in the background and a Japanese woman was giving what seemed to be a very knowledgeable play-by-play in English. The whole thing was done to the sound of techno music and was very exciting and fast paced. But in my mind, the best part of it had to be the dancing. Whenever a team scored a point the players would line up in front of the crowd and perform a mini synchronized hip-hop dance routine -- with music. (This was no backflip in the endzone. It was a dance routine by gosh! Synchronized!) Actually, no, scoring wasn't the best part. The best part was after the game when the winning team did their dance routine, took turns breakdancing, and then ran into the crowd to freestyle amongst the people. Fantastic! I have definitely found my new favorite sport.

I was informed this past week, at a book club meeting at the Macaroni Grill (it just opened on base - a huge event) that it had rained for twenty-two days straight. Twenty - two days. And I'm not talkin' little bitty rain either. I'm talkin' I'm feeling sorry for my windshield wipers rain. But yesterday, it stopped. And our old friend the sun appeared. And I was stuck in the frame shop, while others reveled outside. It felt almost like that movie where the kids live on Venus because the earth has died and it rains every day and nobody has ever seen the sun. Except for one little girl who used to live on earth. And all of the kids are jealous of her and hate her for it. But then they learn that the sun will appear for a couple of hours on Venus and everyone is excited and puts on special sunscreen, but they still can't quite believe it. And the mean kids play a trick on the girl and lock her in this dark room. Then all of the sudden, the sun comes out. The kids run outside and frolic in the sun and pick a bunch of flowers and forget about the little girl they'd locked in the room. But soon, the sun is covered by clouds and they go back to their school and suddenly remember that the little girl is still locked in the room and they feel terrible that she missed the sun and give her all of the flowers that they'd picked. I kind of felt like that girl, except for the fact that the sun was still out today, when I didn't have to work! So, Joe and I drove down the street and went snorkeling, as fast as we could, before it got cloudy. It was lovely and refreshing. But, sure enough, not an hour after we got home in came the clouds, away went the sun, and down fell the rain.

Some cool Japanese Kids we met that gave us a free tour of the Sensoji Temple

Kelly doing a cleansing ritual before entering the temple - The proper way to cleanse yourself is to pour water into your left hand twice and clean, pour water into your right hand twice and clean, pour water into your left hand, take a sip and rinse out your mouth. The last thing you do is tip the laddle back, pour water where you held the handle to cleanse the laddle.

Shinto Shrine near Sensoji Temple.

Cute kid in his Japanese School Outfit.

Fujimi-Yagura (Mt. Fuji-View Keep) at the Imperial Palace.

My first Japanese breakfast - Fish, Rice, and some other weird stuff.

Shibuya - The busiest Intersection in Japan.

Joe and I just made it back from our first trip to Tokyo. It was a fantastic trip and a refreshing change from the daily grind. Invigorating! Although Joe seems to be even more tired now.

Tokyo is a big, crowded, stylish and fast-paced city. Women teetered by on their high heeled shoes, brand-named handbag dangling from an elbow. Men dressed in either of two ways: the office uniform of black tie, white shirt, black suit/ or carefully styled androgynous. Everyone carried a cell phone. At any given time you could count on about 50% of the people around you to be staring into one. (A few even talked into them!)

We began our vacation in Shibuya, the Times Square of Tokyo, known for being the busiest crosswalk in the world. I would have to say that there is a good possibility that this is true. I dragged Joe to a Starbuck's on the corner, which from the second floor has the perfect Shibuya view. (I think I heard in the "Lost in Translation" director's commentary, that that's where they filmed their Shibuya crossing scene. We were informed, however, that no pictures were allowed...shucks.) "A mass of humanity," Joe kept saying. That it was.

Three days later, we wrapped up our trip in Harajuku, a really cool, crazy hubbub of life. Another mass of humanity. I've never seen a place so crowded just because. I mean, there was no street fair or concert or any big kind of attraction, and yet the streets seethed with people. You could spend all day there just people watching, and it seems that the Sunday we were there, the entire under 20 population of Tokyo had the same idea.

In any event, I'll have to write about all of the in-between parts of our trip soon. But I need to do it in chunks, 'cause there's just to much to tell about: the fish market, the kabuki theater, kimonos, sumo dinners, wood block prints and subways, shrines and fortunes, palaces and dank hotel rooms. And nice airports which don't make you stand in line for 45 minutes before making you take off half of your clothing, rushing to your gate for your delayed or cancelled flight.

Also, we have pictures to post (and other surprises!)

Take care!

-Kelly

Joe and Kelly