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)