Diving Okinawa

One of my main desires on this journey of mine, was to scuba dive and see something spectacular. I can now cross that off my list.

Diving in Lake Tahoe, Nevada / California you get to see clear water, sandy bottom and a few cool rock formations. Here, diving in Okinawa and the surrounding islands you see a plethora of coral and colorful fish, beats Tahoe by a long shot. Also, the water, was a nice 74 degrees.

Yesterday I rode Ron’s bike to “Reef Encounters International”, about 20 min away. From there I rode with the dive masters and one other customer to the harbor with all the scuba gear.

It was my first trip on a dive boat, the boat looked like this…

We rode about 45 min out to a chain of islands called the Keramas.

Where we saw, as you’d expect, beautiful crystal clear waters, and majestic island views. It was amazing!

(see, I told you it was amazing)

I dove all three dives that day. The first was at a spot called Icuroshima-S. Here I got to experience up close, colorful fish, coral, and a sea snake making its way into the sand. The water was amazingly clear.

(between dives)

The second dive, was a wreck dive called Dragon Lady. Dragon Lady is the name of an old US military aircraft either sunk or wrecked off the coast of one of the islands. Because it took too long for my ears to equalize, I did not have enough time to see the entire thing, I only got a glimpse of an airplane hull, and some jagged metal. The dive was still worth it, because I did get to see more coral and all the life that surrounds it. Also, because the wreck was fairly deep, I did get to experience floating, neutrally buoyant at roughly 35 feet with nothing but blue, in every direction for as far as I could see.

The third dive was by far the most memorable. We went to another spot called Tamana-Farm. This is where I got to see a sea turtle swimming along the coral, a sting ray, which seemed to be racing away from us, and an eel poking its head out of the coral eying all of us very carefully as we drifted by.The other types of fish I saw… wellI certainly can’t name them all, but I did see several angel fish, they were gorgeous, also I did see a clown fish or two living in an anemone. They were very intrigued by our passing, they often came out to look at us which was very cool. I saw several schools of fish doin their thing, swimming through them was fun, watching them either stick together, or swim in all separate direcitons.

We had a wonderful ride back on the somewhat choppy sea, sitting on the second story area of the bow with the wind in my hair, I thought to myself, I could certainly get used to this…

By far the best diving experience I have had.

My view on the ride back…

Me and the Japanese dive instructor, who while underwater threw a sea cucumber at me… startled me a bit, but she laughed a lot. So, later i threw her off the boat. I quickly joined though, because the water was too inviting not to go in.

Okuma, Japan

Yesterday we drove out to Okuma beach on the northern part of the island. We hiked around here and there, and we trekked to the northernmost part of Okinawa, even though we were on razor sharp rocks jetting out into the Pacific, here is a picture of me on the cliff overlooking the Pacific.

We ended up staying there for quite some time, just watching the waves crash against the rocks.

It was a gorgeous area.

We were staying in a hotel room only a stones throw away from the beach. We continued to hike and explore  the area.

I have never seen tropical islands or the beautiful water …

We continued to explore up the hills and around the ocean…

He thinks hes spider man or something

After exploring a while, we finally called it a day. The next morning we had a nice breakfast, and went snorkeling off the coast. It was beautiful, it was the first time I got to use my new underwater camera. It took some great pictures…

Because I typically dive and swim in Lake Tahoe, I do not see many fish, here it was like going from Black and White to Technicolor, the fish are everywhere, and the water is amazingly blue.

After snorkeling today, we sat on the beach for a while, just relaxing, and then went hiking at Fiji Falls. On the way up the trail there were signs alerting us to stay on the trail to avoid habu, local snakes that have flesh eating venom, there were signs like these… almost every 100 feet.Warning of snakes…

But it finally paid off, the waterfall was very Fantastic!

We had sushi tonight as well on Okinawa. I am very tired. I’ve been very busy.

I’m Alive!

After venomous Snakes, spiders, falling rocks jungle creatures, ancient burial grounds, haunted buildings, ancient castle ruins, razor sharp rocks, open tombs, windy narrow mountainous village roads on a bike, and blood I am happy I am alive!

Today I rode a bike across the island to the other side. I took one of the wrong roads, which ended up being a curvy road winding up through a mountainous village. On the other side of the island my destination were the castle ruins, it was a beautiful old ruins area of a once gigantic castle and compound.

So, after exploring the castle, I headed to an old abandon hotel construction site, rumor has it, that it was built on an ancient burial ground, workers started loosing their lives quite frequently. Because of this no one wanted to work there and finish building the site became empty. Now it is said to be haunted Walking through it was very freaky, being in an unfinished hotel that is haunted.

It reminds me a bit of the cyanide mill in Virginia City, NV

Once it got too dark in the building I decided to go outside, I started taking a road that turned into a path in the Jungle, I kept going and I saw these beautiful butterflies, 4 times as big as the ones in the states.

I kept walking along realizing that I was in fact in a real Jungle, not a forest like I a used to. Unfortunately there are poisonous snakes, and spiders, with venom that not only immobilizes, but eats through flesh.

Continuing on my journey into this hazardous land I come across several tombs. Then I see one that is open, I decided to get a little closer so I could take pictures of it. However, I couldn’t get too close because there was a fairly big spider in the way. I decided I would jump off of a rock and land in the center of the area surrounding the tomb. I felt like Indiana Jones, I had a sling satchel, there was an ancient tomb whose door had been broken in to, I jumped over a spider but the area I was standing on collapsed out from under my feet. I landed safely in the middle and tried to take a few more pictures before the bugs in the area devoured me.

After that little adventure, I headed back down toward the castle remains, it was beautiful, you could see from one side of the island to another, and the views of the Pacific were astounding.I next headed to a well for the castle…

After getting back to the gate house where I left the bike, I ate my sandwich and took advantage of the fact that everywhere in Japan has a vending machine, I had some Pocari Sweat, which is like an electrolyte replenishment drink, similar to Gatorade but different at dinner.

I then rode my bike back to Rons house, I was traveling at about 30 mph going down a steep hill. When I arrived, I left almost immediately with some of their friends to go rock climbing, and bouldering. We went to an island and off the coast we started to climb on some of the razor sharp rock/coral. One of the guys I was with was climbing upside down and the rock he was holding on to came out and hit the other guy in the head, blood everywhere.

This was an amazingly gorgeous place to go climb around at.

The guys I was with both climbed out on this overhang as far as they could and then decided that a nice dip in the ocean would suit them best…

Here is a picture of me trying to boulder around this rock.

After a day of Jungles, Ancient places, and rock climbing, we saw Terminator on the military base, fairly good movie.

But after all of that I am happy to be done with my 20 mile bike ride, and I am happy to be alive!

Takin it easy…

I am sure some of you are wondering about my gross eye… well good news! It is healing! It is certainly feeling much better and some of the redness is going away. To assit in the healing process, I decided to take it easy today, at least for the majority of the morning while it was stormy outside.

Around 1:00pm I decided to hop on Ron’s bike and go exploring, taking with me of course my REI jacket that scoffs at water. I rode up the beach a ways to the windmil close to his house…

The beaches and water are beautiful here, they have these strange “jack” looking cement blocks though…

Jellyfish around these parts can be fatal…

I rode up a bit further and got lost of course, and inquired about diving and rentals at some of the local dive shops, I certainly  used my Japanese up there.

Later Ron and I were able to “hey lets go check out that rock”…

I mean come on, how can you not go exploring something like this…

Ron coming out of a “cave” we were in, I am presuming during high tide this area is filled with water.

After exploring, we went to a local favorite called CoCo’s. They specialize in Japanese Curry. It was delish!

Okinawa, Japan

Yesterday I arrived at Naha Airport in Okinawa Japan. I am staying with Ron and Kristie Coia, they have been incredibly wonderful hosts and are very accomodating. They were kind enough to let me stay with them while I am in Okinawa.

Okinawa, what I have seen of it so far is beautiful, it is a small island with many USA Military bases, and many Americans. I hardly feel as if I am in Japan. Unfortunately I have not been able to enjoy it as much as I would have liked so far. When I got off the plane my eye seemed a bit irritated, and this morning when I woke up, it hurt really badly, after getting the run around at a nearby Naval Hospital, their diagnosis was that I have a case of what some call “Conjunctivitis” others call it “Pink Eye

I flushed my eye out with this… and sodium chloride solution, an entire bag that took like 25 minutes or so.

Even after this, my eye still looked like this…

So, that sucks. I have some eye medifcation and drops that will hopefully resolve the problem.

Today in Okinawa we had sushi. This is my first time having authentic Japanese Sushi! It was fantastic!

I had a combo with 8 types of Nigiri and a California Roll.

Here are a few pictures of the Okinawa

And a cute sign about dog poo

So, hopefully my eye will heal up soon so I can enjoy this beautiufl island and all that it has to offer.

Shabu Shabu

Today we went to Shinjuku and had Shabu Shabu and Sukiyaki. They are two different types of preparing food. It is similar to fondu, in that you are given food to dip into a hot liquid. You are given raw meats and uncooked vegetables, you are to take those and put them in the boiling liquid. For Shabu Shabu, you take the raw meat and quickly dip it in the boiling water, after 20 seconds or so, the meat becomes fully cooked, because it is sliced about as thin as paper. With sukiyaki, you take the meat and veggies and let them cook in a different liquid for a while then take out whatever you want, and place in a bowl with a raw egg, and then let it cool off a bit and eat. Very good, (oishi). It was relitevly inexpensive considering it was all you can eat, and the quality and freshness of the food was very good.

Later we went to Ginzu a high class shopping district of Tokyo, there were so many people around this area, shopping is a huge part of the Japanese lifestyle, everywhere I look I notice that most everyone is dressed in very up to date fashionable clothing. I am still impressed by the amuont of order and organization this country abides by. They have yellow strips along the streets whereby blind people can follow the grooves, when they come to a change in pavement, like a step or a street corner, the grooves change to alert them. I have yet to use a bathroom with paper towels, all bathrooms have air hand dryers, unlike the ones we are used to in the US, they are sanitized high speed air dryers, similar to the dyson airblade (if you do not know what this is, google it).

Also today we went to Karaoke. This is hugely popular in Tokyo, there are entire buildings it seems dedicated to karaoke. It is very different than US karaoke. You go into a room with 3 or 4 friends and you have a tv and a few microphones, and you use a hand held computer to choose the song based upon artist or song title, once selected you start sining in the room, watching the TV for the lyrics after an hour or so, you leave.  It was really fun!

After singing we stopped by McDonnalds for a quick snack, I wanted to try it to see what kind of differences there are. They have a shrimp burger and a teryaki burger both of which are very good, however even though the food was better and of likely higher quality, it stil made me somewhat sick, just a small upset stomach, which is interesting that i drink the water and i eat the japanese food and i get an upset stomach from McDonnalds

So far I like it here, there are lights everywhere!

(eating shabu shabu)

Tokyo!

By far the biggest city I have ever been to. Tokyo is amazingly huge! We rode the subway all over the city to see the kings palace, a shirne / temple for the god of thunder and god of wind, a huge market, and the times square of Tokyo, it looks just like the pictures from the NYC times square, except everything is in Japanese. Lights people and huge buildings. There are stores lining the streets and resturants everywhere.

For lunch we went into a Japanese fast food resturant, it took less than a minute to get a beef n rice bowl it was about 3.50, very cheap, and the food was excellent. People in resturants who are working there are very gentle and very nice, making sure you have the best customer service.

We also went to one o the tallest buildings in Tokyo and took pictures from the observation deck, we could see the entire city! We saw city in all directions for as far as the eye could see.

This morning I woke up and broke the screen door oops, its okay i fixed it.

It is raining today, which is very nice because it has been very hot here.

Pictures of Tokyo from the top of one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo.

Japan

After a 10 hour flight, I arrived in Narita airport in Japan. I took a train and a series of subways into Tokyo it took roughly 3.5 hours to get to my destination. Many people on the trains and subways were wearing masks, because of the concern with swine flu. I decided to wear my mask to help mitigate the risk of becoming held in an airport hotel for 10 days. During the ten hour flight I was able to watch three movies, Frost/Nixon, Inkheart, and Seven Pounds.  i am anxiously looking forward to tomorrow where I will be exploring Tokyo and all it has to offer, rather than just taking train after train through it with a giant backpack.  (Note, everyone and everything is much smaller here, so walking around carrying my bag was very awkward. ) Oh, and for those of you who dont know,  they drive on the other side of the road and the lanes are substantially smaller here than in the US.

For now, it is tomorrow… Oyasuminasai !

Leaving Soon

I will be leaving soon to Japan. I need to make sure I get all my ducks in a row, finish school, plan my time in Europe, and India. May 21st is fast approaching. I am nervous, but looking forward to an experience of a lifetime!