Ren's Footprints: Okinawa was an adventure

Okinawa was an adventure (0)

10:20 PM by Ren , under Japan, Okinawa

February 5th through 8th was my school trip to Okinawa. I went with the 25-30 California State University students at Waseda. Overall it was a fun trip, but the weather was bad and so we didn't get much beach time in.

We all gathered at Tokyo's Haneda Airport which is designated for domestic flights only. Justin and I hopped on the subway at 5:45 AM and easily made it on time to meet up with the group.

We flew on All Nippon Airlines (ANA) and our jet was painted with Pokemon. After getting our luggage we boarded a bus waiting for us at the terminal which we rode around in for the remainder of the trip. Our guide for the trip was named Sayaka and she was really cute and fun. She would use the bus's PA system to sing us Okinawan songs and play us the traditional Okinawan guitar. She even had a celebratory taste of vodka with some of us when we first boarded the bus!

Our Pokemon Plane

Our Bus and Sayaka the tour guide

Many of the sights we saw were related to the fighting on Okinawa during World War 2. Our first stop was some sort of defense wall used by the Japanese military. It was raining on us as we toured around but we still had fun. We also stopped at a beautiful castle.

A Castle

Inside the bathroom in the castle

An old throne

The defence wall I was talking about

My friend Bora

Despite the beauty of those places, I liked this lookout point by our first hotel the most. It really made me wish the weather wasn't so rainy because I wanted to go swimming so badly!

There is meaning behind those rocks being connected but I forget what it is

Here are some pictures from our first hotel which was pretty nice.

The first night we had a buffet barbecue dinner. I liked the pork and the shrimp the most, as well as all of the delicious vegetables. Being that this is Japan, it was all you can drink as well and everybody got really cheerful and loud. Some people played with the idea of going to the beach in the rain which was about a mile walk and going for a dip. They ended up going but I just decided to go take a jacuzzi. While in there I met two girls and a guy around my age from Osaka and we chatted for around 45 minutes. One of the girls is an Olympic hopeful for the trampoline event.

The next morning we were to leave the hotel at 9AM and being jealous that I didn't get to swim in the ocean yet I woke up at seven, took a swim in the ocean in the rain, then went back the the hotel and went to its public bath and spa and got ready to go.

We all hopped aboard the bus and made a quick stop at a beach since the sun broke out. We didn't do much but take pictures and run around but it was nice.

Myself, Scott, and Justin

Bora in the water

We then went to an aquarium with a really beautiful garden of flower statues. Check them out! Justin and I got a picture with the cockroach because we live in the same building and have both dealt with those pests.

The enterance to the aquarium and garden

Octopus

Welcome to the park!

With the cockroach

Nick, Brad, Jase, and Mikie

A shark & friends

We hit the road once again and went to a place for lunch that served traditional Okinawan cuisine. It wasn't too abstract. The wildest thing was pig ear which was really chewy. I actually thought it was some sort of pickled vegetable.

Hanging out on the balcony of the place we ate at

A very cool place that we went to later was a huge WW2 memorial for troops from all over the world. There were hundreds of tourists there and the majority of them were high school kids from around the nation on their school trips. Anyway, this place was beautiful as it looked over the sea. There was a chilling silence as we walked through the memorials and read the names of the dead. Indoors there was a nice war museum with many exhibits displaying sad stories from US and Japanese perspectives.

High School students on their senior trip

Cornerstone of Peace

This fountain represents the spreading of the understanding of the brutalness of war which starts in Okinawa when visiting this site, and stays with you when you return to where you are from.

A view from above

Just before we arrived to our new, cheaper hotel in the capital city of Naha we stopped at an underground Japanese military work area. This room still had marks on it from where hopeless troops committed suicide with a grenade.

Once in the capital city of Naha we quickly dropped off our stuff and went and had dinner. We had teppanyaki with the main course being steak. It was my first time to have steak in Japan and it was really good. After dinner we went out looking for stuff to do but being that most of the tourists were high school students on field trips it got pretty dead at night.

Dinner

Small shops in Naha

High school students shopping and taking pictures

The next day we had our whale watching tour and snorkeling planned but the snorkeling was canceled because the surf was too high. The waves were so big that 5 of us on the yacht were throwing up even though we all took motion sickness pills.

It was pretty chilly and breezy but I still decided to go shirtless. I had hopes that it would get warmer but it never did. In fact, once the yacht hit full speed we were all getting soaked and it didn't feel good at all having wet jeans and socks. Before we knew it we saw a pair of very large whales. It was a little scary because they seemed really powerful. At one point I thought I saw a dolphin but the tour guide said it was actually a shark!

Ready to set sail

Where we took off from

Soaking wet 15 minutes in to the trip

Two whales

One of them

O-Mikey having a party

This kid was soaked to the bone, cold, and drunk

We returned to the city and my friends Justin and Dustin and I went to explore and buy souvenirs. Habu (a specie of snake) alcohol was very popular and since we bought from a lady's shop she let us all have a drink. It was really good and I liked it much better than Okinawa's other famous alcohol called aomori.

Check out the snakes!

Time to drink some, bottoms up!
(notice how bundled up we were, it was cold!)

We then returned to the hotel and prepared for dinner at an izakaya. That night the "all you can drink" policy didn't exactly bring out the best of everyone in the group and there were some issues. For the most part it was really fun though! On the way to dinner there was a pretty girl handing out menus to a cowboy themed restaurant and I got her to take a picture with Justin who thought she was cute.

Our last night at the hotel brought shame to our group as two people got in a discussion whether or not cigarette smoke will set off a smoke alarm. The fool who didn't think it would blew smoke on the sensor once and nothing happened, then he did it again and the alarm went off throughout the whole hotel at 2:30 AM. I was in bed but the alarm woke me up and rememded me of the time the fire alarm went off in the dorms in San Diego at 5AM on the first day of school.

The next day we just hung out in the city and didn't do much else before our flight back to Tokyo.

Justin looking for his hat in the trash after searching everywhere else

Eating Tacos with Justin and Erik before our flight back to Tokyo