ANYONE WANT TO "C" WHERE I LIVE?

 

THE MONKEYPLEX

My little car, Jujubee, is parked right in front of our unit. Also notice the ferris wheel on the right side of the picture. See, life really is a carnival! 

My Hood...

So, you may be asking yourself, where exactly does our favorite little white girl in Okinawa live? Hey - you don't know that many people in Okinawa so I'd BETTER be your favorite girl on this island chain! Well children, we live in Government Housing on base (the base we're on is called Camp Lester and I'm sorry but that name gives me the creeps). We are living in what I refer to fondly as a monkeyplex (or for those of you who can't make the leap - multiplex) . There are four units and ours is wedged somewhere in the middle. It seems that military families really like to have babies because we are surrounded by families with young children. There are 5 children in our monkeyplex and considering the fact that we don't have any kids living with us, that's a lot! We lucked out and got unit "C" (I like it because my name starts with C - so I can always find my way home... As long as I can remember my own name, that is). It's a 2-story 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a living room and sliding glass doors, dining room, a washer and dryer, a kitchen with lots of cabinets and even a dishwasher (My other dishwasher, that would be Joe, is very pleased about this). Our house has lots of space to frolic in. What? You don't frolic in your home? Well try it sometime! We turned one room into a dressing room (a Diva has to have her dressing room dahhling) and the other room into an office (a Graduate student has to have her study space after all). Hmmm... It seems all the rooms are pretty much mine except the final one. You'll never guess what we turned the last bedroom into... Ooh you got it, a bedroom. Sedona (you remember, the not-so-vicious Golden Retreiver) demanded her own room since we have all this extra space. We told her that she could live in the shed out back if she was going to start in with that attitude. She has since become very agreeable and sleeps anywhere we tell her to. The inside of our unit is painted a not-so-lovely nicotine smoke yellow. With the price of paint on the island at $43/gallon I believe the walls will just have to stay that way (I'll just put up lots of pictures to distract from the wall color). The floors are covered with industrial grey and off-white linoleum. Luckily we have almost enough rugs to cover up the majority of the ugliness. The stairs had metal treads on the edges so that if you walked down the stairs barefoot it hurt your feet. I know you're concerned about my delicate little feet so I'll tell you how we fixed that little problem (and NO, wearing shoes to go up and down the stairs was just not an option)... Every Thursday is bulk garbage day and everyone leaves all their junk at the end of their driveways. One day on his way home from work, Joe found 2 entire still factory sealed boxes of self-stick carpet squares. No, don't worry, he hasn't become a trash picker (but we are on a budget now so never look gift carpet in the mouth). They weren't exactly pretty (think vomit and dirt mixed together) but they covered the stairs nicely so I can go back to frolicing barefoot up and down the stairs without hurting my precious little feet. I do have some major complaints here now (what and the other stuff I was rambling on about wasn't???), so if you don't want to hear me whine and bitch I suggest you just skip to the end. Here's my gripe: We paid $1000 up front for a year of cable TV (including HBO and Showtime) and internet. We figured that was a small price to pay for our entertainment and amusement. But wait, it gets better... After trying desperately to figure out what's on, we come to find out that there is no actual television schedule! The movies on the pay channels are about 2 weeks behind the states and there is no TV guide except the one on the TV that only covers up to one day ahead of time. You have to sit and watch until the hour you are looking for rolls through and if you miss it you have to sit through the whole thing again. This my friends, is not what I would call entertainment! Even this schedule is not always right and we have tried to watch several movies that turned out not to even be on at the time posted. After ripping most of my hair out of my head (my new style is now sort of punk rock meets Mr. Clean), I went back to the company to find out what was going on with the cable craziness. When we confronted the company about this they said, yeah, that's just how it is. Do we live in a third world country? I could've sworn that somebody once told me that Japan was more technologically advanced than anyone. What happened to that?! Humph! We canceled the two pay channels and instead of giving our money back they told us they'd put it towards next year's bill. What kind of back alley operation is this??? Oh well. Lesson learned. Next year we're not getting any cable and will just put the "refund" in our account towards our internet account. O.K., the whining has now ended. Also, this post has now ended. So if you skipped to the end, well let's just say you didn't get your money's worth (wait a minute, I thought this was free...)!

Joe at Sesoko Island - looking finer than frog fur!!!

Sesoko Island Beach

Emerald Beach - the snack bar sells Orion!

Me, running from pirrahnas at Sesoko Island

Another day, another beach!

So where were we? Oh yes, we'd just gone snorkeling, been attacked by a school of red pirrahna, and managed to forget our guilt about not taking the bad dog to the beach with us. So on with the story... We found our way across a beautiful bridge to a little place called Sesoko Island. The best beach there was near a beautiful golf course and had parking for $10. Being the budget travelers, now that I'm not pulling in a paycheck (and yes, I'm living the life of leisure - but it's leisure on a budget), we decided to do like the locals and park for free on the side of the small road. Besides, there were only 2 suckers (uh, I mean tourists) that parked in the pay lot. We made an excellent choice since we only had to walk 2 block back to the beach. When we got there the sea was the most stunning blue imaginable - almost like the ocean had swallowed the morning sky. A commercial was being made on the beach (the second commercial we've seen being filmed here on Okinawa in a week)while we were there. I know it was an ad because the models kept drinking from the same bottle of water over and over again with lots of flair. It was only a small film crew and we had the rest of the beach almost to ourselves. After cooling off in the ocean for a bit we decided to head out again. There was more of the island to discover and we were afraid that it would start raining before we finished checking out all the good beaches. We went back across the bridge, up the road and to Grandmother's house (oh wait, different story). We found cruised around and found Emerald Beach, yep another great beach (this time with lots of free parking lots). It had clean white picnic tables and shaded areas, a netted off swimming area to keep out the jellyfish and other critters that sting and bite (things that are a lot more real than the red pirrahnas I keep fibbing about)and even plastic floats that you could swim out to and hang out on. There were bathrooms and showers, a gift shop (in case you had a wardrobe malfunction with your bathing suit) and even a snack bar that served Orion beer. The best part (besides the beer - because c'mon everyone knows beer is always the best part)is that once again it was not crowded at all! The only negative is that there is no snorkeling allowed there. Hey, that's better than no beer allowed! Hmmm... I seem to be stuck on that subject - but it's only because I'm not drinking until the 4th of July since my lose 10 pounds campaign wasn't going so well when I was hitting the sauce on a regular basis... When I try to deprive myself of anything I find myself obsessing about whatever the forbidden fruit of the week is (and this week it just happens to be fermented fruit). Did I mention I'll be getting my Master's degree in Psychology? I think I'll be great at helping maladjusted people because as they say "it takes one to know one!" Anyway, on the way back to the car I was assaulted by a couple of misquitoes (and when I say assaulted I mean brutalized - it looked like they took a lead pipe to me... but I'm a sensitive girl so on a normal human being the two bites might've looked normal). Then once again, but this time a little itchier than before, we were off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of beaches!

Sedona says "Yipee! I'm going to the beach!"

  

"What do you mean I don't get to go???"

  

"Fine. I'll watch the @#%$ house."

  

The story of Itsy Bitsy Spider (or how it finally stopped raining)

Just like in itsy bitsy spider, out came the sun and dried up all the rain. Now I don't know where that spider is - but I've got the bug spray handy just in case he comes back. And yes, I've got the umbrella standing by as well, there are still 10 days left until rainy season is "officially" over. It turns out that we have had twice as much rain as normal this year - I guess that was our special "Welcome to Okinawa" gift. Not to look gift-rain in the mouth, but I was about to look into spending a few weeks in the Sahara desert just for a change of pace. Now that we finally got the sunshine we'd been craving, Joe (my husband, for those of you not up to speed yet)and I finally got to do more exploring! We slathered on our sunblock, packed a cooler full of water and snacks, got some yen out of the bank, grabbed our snorkels and fins and headed out for adventure in my new car (or as I like to call her, Jujube). Sedona (our not so vicious, badly shaved, tennis ball addicted Golden Retriever) was disgruntled, to say the least, when she learned that her job for the day was to watch the house. If she only had thumbs I'm sure she'd have given us the finger... But off we went, shaking off the dog fueled guilt by the time we started to reverse out the driveway. ~~~ Brief interlude for a serious complaint. O.K. I know that Okinawa is not a HUGE city and I know it is not a top destination for travelers (though it is known as the poor man's Hawaii), but what's up with the lack of decent maps here??? The best map we have found thus far is, check this out, in the yellow pages of the phone book! None of the many military bases here have much more than basic maps showing only a few of the main roads and highways. We looked for maps on-line but had no luck. We searched the local bookstores - still no luck. We even bought an Okinawa guide book - and though it helped a bit it was still lacking some very basic places (like military bases) and it showed the roads, but didn't show the names or numbers. If ANYONE knows where I can get a good map of this place PLEASE let me know!!! O.K., end of complaint session.~~~ We decided (with the whole map dilemma) that the best solution would be to drive by brail and wing it. After a shakey start and some mild cursing we found our first destination - Cape Maeda (one of the top snorkeling/diving spots on the island). As you can see by the picture below, this place was gorgeous! It was like walking into a postcard (but without the cramped writing space). The hot sun beat down on us and the humidity blanketed us in sweat as we happily wandered off in exactly the wrong direction. While struggling over the sharp, rocky and treacherous landscape we came to notice that not one of the 100 or more scuba divers that were all gearing up in the parking lot were anywhere to be seen. Hmmm... Now that's peculiar. Well having both served in the scouts, we were both pretty quick to put 2 and 2 together and headed back to the parking lot. At last we found what we were looking for! We found the steps to our salvation, to the holy grail, yes, we found the steps down to the ocean. The water was a perfect blue and so clear you didn't even need a mask (though saltwater can be hard on the old eyebulbs, so we wore the masks anyway). The fish were like colorful candy (though they sure didn't taste much like candy...), blue Starfish, brilliant yellow and black Angelfish, orange and white Clownfish, and a school of bright red Pirrahanas with very sharp teeth. Maybe there weren't any red Pirrahnas - but this is MY story so I'll tell it the way I want! We swam around and around until we were tired of looking at fish and then jumped back in Jujube (remember, that's my bidgy little Mitsubishi Pajero Jr.) and headed out to the next beach. To be continued...

CAPE MAEDA - snorkeling site

How Not to Eat at a Japanese Restaurant...

My dear husband (Joe) and I decided that it was time to go for another nice meal out. Although I am becoming quite the little chef (and, no, DON'T YOU DARE call me a good little housewife... But then don't call me a bad one either... LOL)I needed a night off from cooking. I checked the sparse reviews of restaurants in Okinawa and found one that got rave reviews. Happily it was just across the way from us so off we went to discover new yumminess. The stairs leading up to the place were lined with plants and lanterns, romantic and inviting. The restaurant had just opened and we were the first ones there. The inside was small with wooden floors and only 6 normal tables (if you can call a table with a flat tepenyaki style grill in the center of it normal) and 2 low tables (the kind where you must first take your shoes off then sit cross legged or kneel at the table)also with tepanyaki grills (think Benihana for midgets). The waitress brought us hand written menus in English. The only problem was that though they do a fair job of it (as compared to how we would do trying to write their language in their characters, which trust me would be a nightmare for them to decipher)there were many words spelled completely wrong and phrases put together that made no sense. Lemon was Remon (though that is how they say it...) and Strong was Stong and phrases like "original syle most you will find popular" were sprinkled liberally throughout. Joe was a bit put off by the whole thing. "I can't understand what's on the menu and don't see anything I want and I don't feel like cooking my own meal!" he said exhaling with frustration, closing his menu and looking up at me with a furrowed brow. I convinced him that this would be a fun new, and perhaps a little bit of a crazy experience... And if we didn't like it we could always have some sushi somewhere else afterwards. He relented and we finally chose a couple things off the menu and the waitress scurried over (she was standing nearby and peering around the corner furtively to see if we were ready the whole time we were perusing the menus) and started to take our order. She told us in broken English that we needed to choose two of the dishes from the next page to go in our order. We told her (gesturing, with our own style of sign language that we seem to be using a lot these days when speaking to locals) that we'd need another minute to figure that part out. We randomly picked a couple things and she appeared magically at the table to finish taking our order and then turned up the grill. A bit later she came over with several bowls and plates full of various meats and egg and veggies and noodles and 2 small spatulas and 2 large spatulas. She set one bowl filled with different ingredients in front of each of us and 2 spatulas in front of each of us. She also set a bowl of oil on the edge of the table and then left. We grabbed the oil and started slathering it on the grill. We each mixed up our bowl of raw stuff and poured them on the grill. Not sure how to proceed we went about creating and cooking our meal as best we could. The waitress appeared back and quickly began removing all the empty dishes and bowls from table and gave us each a plate. She kind of gave us a funny look - but everyone here does that... We're Americans so I guess we stand out. While we were busy making the first part (sort of unremarkable egg foo young tasting stuff with noodles on the side), she brought over a plate of thinly sliced beef and onions in sauce. Once we finished eating the first lump of food, we immediately grabbed the plate of beef and dumped it on the grill. The beef was delicious! When we were all finished with that she brought over two fabulous salads with Japanese dressing. As we were sitting there eating our salads two more tables of people came in. I suddenly noticed that the waitress was mixing and preparing all the food and then cooking it on the grill at each table for the customers. No wonder she looked at us like we were crazy! We completely misunderstood what we were (or in this case weren't) supposed to do!!! Once Joe looked over and saw that she was cooking for everyone we both started laughing hysterically. What we did was the equivalent of going to Benihana, standing behind the grill and slicing, dicing and cooking your own food. While trying to stop laughing he remarked how much better (and how completely different) what she made looked. Instead of being lumps of globby food she made two pancake sort of things and put the noodles and meat between them. As we left (and yes, I was still laughing and shaking my head at our little faux pas) she gave us a smile that indicated she knew that we suddenly "got it" and that she thought it was pretty amusing as well. Oh well, I guess we'll have to go back and try that again - this time we'll let her do the cooking...

Christine's new ride - it has a 4 hamster engine!

  

Well, now that I'm an Okinawa "expert"... After living here in Okinawa for a month, I have more interesting and entertaining* info about this crazy little island. First some actual facts: Japan experiences more earthquakes than any other country on earth. If you include tremors detectable by only the most sensitive seismographs (and really, how could you NOT include those???), about 7,500 earthquakes may occur in any given year in Japan and its surrounding areas. Of these, about 1,500 can be felt by humans. I guess that means the rest are only felt by Mongoose (or would that be Mongeese?) and very high strung little yappy dogs. So far I haven't felt any shaking here yet, but I'm on high alert. It figures that I move from California,the earthquake zone of the USA, to the biggest earthquake zone on the whole other side of the world. I do have my surfboard at the ready though - it just may take a tsunami for me to finally catch a good wave here... O.K., now on to the trivial little everyday weird things I've come across in my travels around the island: Nearly every building here looks like it could use a fresh coat of paint. It looks almost ghetto in fact. This disturbed me to no end when I got here. Why not just go out, get a few cans of paint and make it all look nice again? Well I finally decided that I was going to paint the town red, when I noticed the price of paint. I stood in the Japanese version of Home Depot (Makeman) searching for the proper shade of red when I noticed the price of paint. Hold on to your lower jaw, 'cause mine nearly dropped right off my face when I saw that house paint was, get this... $43 a gallon (and that was the cheap stuff). NOW I understand why no one paints out here! Dear God! The typhoons wreak havok on the buildings (making it hard for even the newly painted ones to stay "new" for very long) and the "MAN"** sticks it to the people so that can't afford to re-paint. It all sounds like quite the conspiracy to me... When driving around on the wrong side of the road (otherwise known as the left side) one must always watch for Japanese children. They are squirrely little things and legally only have to raise their hand before they run into oncoming traffic. This hand in the air (sort of like the kindergarten hand in the air signal for "I need to go to the bathroom")signals all drivers that they must skreech to a halt and let the children pass safely. So far my brakes seem to be holding up... So speaking of driving, I finally got a vehicle!!! It's a Mitsubishi Pajero Jr., a cute skinny little Suzuki Samarai looking thing. Over here, on base, they have these parking lots called "Lemon Lots" where everyone who is leaving the island parks their car with For Sale signs in the windows. Most people are pretty desperate to unload their vehicles (since if they don't sell it by the time they leave they have to pay a "junk fee") so you can get a heck of a good deal. We had one guy offer us a free car, but it sort of looked (and sounded) like an old Transam and I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those things (unless of course it had an 8-track with AC/DC already loaded and ready to rock)! So, since we're not adverse to looking a gift car in the mouth, we turned it down but found a sassy little car that had just been marked down from $1500 to $500. After paying all the taxes and fees (good for two years) and insurance for one year it all came out to $1200. Not bad considering I used to pay $1200 just for insurance back in the states!!! Plus the thing runs for ever on just a thimble full of gas. All in all I'm very pleased. It seems that we arrived just in time for the rainy season. In fact, I believe it's just about time to build an ark. Since I can only imagine what the cost of wood is here on the island I guess I'll have to build it out of recycled cans (they LOVE recycling here and encourage it like crazy). So while I'm building the sistership to the Titanic, I'll keep praying for something other than this "liquid sunshine." Not to complain (meaning: get ready because I'm about to complain) but I think we've only had 6 days in the last month without rain. That's all right though because rainy season is over at the end of June (and then we go right into Typhoon season). That's all for now. Stay dry and please send umbrellas and galloshes! * the "entertainment" factor of this info is purely subjective - one woman's entertainment is another woman's sleeping pill... ** the "MAN" in this case happens to be the Japanese government (you see, it turns out that there is a "the MAN" in every country, not just the good ole' USA)