It’s been nearly a month since my last post? I can’t believe how quickly the time goes by. January was fairly rainy here. Many long timers say that its wetter this year than they’ve ever seen it before. Still, I was able to get out at least twice a week on the bike so I haven’t found it to be too much of a hinderance. It has been fairly cloudy most of the time though, so the sun sure is beautiful when it comes out. I know how it must feel to spend a winter in Seattle now.

 

As many of you may have heard, we’ve been restricted to staying on base or at our residence (if we live off base) until further notice due to some continued untimely misconduct by some of our younger marines here on the island. While weekly incidences with these 18 & 19 year old marines such as public intoxication, DUI are fairly common, two weeks ago we had an alleged rape of a 14 year old Okinawan girl, then an alleged home invasion last weekend and some other misconduct that has the relations between the US military and the Japanese citizens very strained. In an effort to curb further possible transgressions at such a sensitive time, all SOFA status personal (anyone here that’s here because of the military – including civilians and their dependents) must remain on base until further notice. One interesting side effect of this is that many of the local businesses that rely on US customers are essentially deserted this week. Most of them have simply closed up shop until the ‘time of reflection’ order is lifted.

 

Generally, I don’t leave the base at all during the week and on the weekends I do as part of a 3 or 4 hour bike ride. This weekend we’ve been meeting here at Kadena and riding around the perimeter of the base. It’s 11 miles for one lap and that gets really boring after two or three laps. I certainly hope this order is lifted soon. I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.

 

On President’s day weekend we spent a day riding out of Okuma and discovered an interesting road in the jungle. It wasn’t more than one lane wide and must’ve cost several million yen to build. Imagine the forest service paving one of its crazest cliffside roads and that is what this was like. The pictures might give you an idea:

 

 

It was the steepest paved surface I’ve ever been on. The best part is that it connected to a network of dozens of roads already in existence. It made no sense to be there that we could see. Riding here never ceases to amaze me.

 

The first triathlon of the year is coming up March 22 and I still hate running, but I’m going to try it and see what happens. The run is only 5k and hte bike is 30k so it suits my bike riding preference. We’ll see how it goes.

 

Off to school (since I can’t leave the base I haven’t much else to do but work). Until next time.