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Published: December 27th 2008
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Tokyo drift
complete with girl Arrived into Okinawa after a long day of flying on the 22nd and arriving on the 23rd. I honestly could feel like I was in America on the flight from Tokyo to Okinawa. Okinawa is the home of many bases. Airforce..Army..Marines. This island's got em all. Hence my flight was filled with loads of Americans and their families. Ashley, my friend of a few years, is a marine corps officer who invited me to spend the holidays with her. She was at the airport ready to pick me up. We got back to her apartment and my jetlagged self was put to bed.
Allow me to talk about Okinawa and her apartment for a minute. The island itself is about 40 miles long and around 11 miles wide at its widest. Its surrounded by the Pacific and the East China Sea. The island is very green and even though its December the coldest I felt since Ive been here is probably around 50 degrees. The people are very nice. Everyone smiles and is polite. Even when they speak not an ounce of English they start drawing pictures and pointing helping you to understand. Her apartment rocks. Its got a view
The vending machine phenomena
These are everywhere. We were in a residential area and we see a vending machine. Complete with hot and cold beverages of the ocean on two sides and her toilet has a heated seat with a bidet and a...how to I put this politely..oh I can't, a butt sprayer. Almost every toilet Ive sat on here is like that. Her shower room is just that. An entire room dedicated to her shower and bath. You walk in and everything can get wet and steamy.
Christmas Eve we took a long walk then headed to a couple Christmas parties. The first one had a white elephant gift giving. The hostess said to bring something from the home. We found a snow scraper and a scarf. Its funny see cause it doesnt get cold here. We ran out of wrapping paper so I wrapped the snow scraper in massive amounts of bubble wrap and made a "bow" for it. Ok my bow was more of a few loops of wrapping paper just taped on the bubble wrap. I claimed that gift in order to not make Ashley get all the grief. We get to this amazing cozy Christmas party. We get to gift giving time and EVERYONE brought proper gifts. I was the only one with a gag gift. Ha. Some kid got
I found my new calling
Gift wrapping...notice my beautiful bow it and everyone laughed a lot about it so it worked out ok. Then Ashley and I headed to the party of some of her marines. A bunch of 22 something year old boys drinking and singing American Idol karaoke. That was more my scene. Those boys were fun to hang out but Ashley couldn't hang out too long being their superior officer and all so we headed out.
Christmas Day we didnt leave the house once. Ashley, erm excuse me, Santa stuffed my stocking full of little gifts. i didnt expect it so it made me really happy to loads of presents. We watched Christmas movies all day, ate good food and all together had a perfect Christmas in Japan.
Yesterday we actually started some site seeing. We drove a long drive north (though in actuality it probably was only 25 miles away or so..with oversized hills and stoplights in the way it takes FOREVER) We made it to the aquarium. Even though Ive been to loads of aquariums all over the world, this one was special. It has whale sharks!! Three of them. I love love love whale sharks. Im hoping to go diving with them
Yay America
and yay marines especially. :-) in Thailand. These massive fish swim around in this huge tank with sharks, manta rays, and lots of other fish. We ate lunch by the window into their world. It was awesome. We also hung out with some sea turtles, watched a dolphin show, dipped our toes into the China Sea and named some manatees Bill and Ted. We went next door to a butterfly farm. It was four dollars but we got to wear a hat of butterflies. They would crawl on our fingers and heads. It was fun!! Then off to a castle 20 minutes away. Also 4 dollars to get into but it apparently is the largest surviving castle in Okinawa. It was kind of neat to walk around the ruins. I ended up going up this trail on the side of the castle wall only to see that the end of the trail actually went up the castle wall. That was my adventure for the day...scaling a castle wall. Good times.
Today more sightseeing with Ashley. Japan is a pretty cool place. I'm not going to lie though..I am really looking forward to those Thai beaches. Being on the beach for 3 weeks in Hawaii
got me a lil spoiled. There are beautiful beaches here but its just not quite warm enough to warrant jumping in. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and got what you wanted.
Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Morgan
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Merry Christmas & Konichiwa
Don't actually know any japanese- but I'm so glad you had a great holiday over there!! love you!