At last I have time to update the blog!
May 27th, 2008 ScottIt’s been a while, but it’s been busy. I’ll go back to spring break to start with…
Spring Break (Okinawa Tourism)
The bases here have agencies that set up tours. On the Air Force Bases it’s called ITT, and on the Marine Core Camps it’s called MCCS Tours. Either way, it’s like going into a travel agency and booking a trip. Most of the trips are day trips local on the Island. They will also book multi day events to mainland Japan, China, the Philipines, Austraila, & New Zealand. Our goal was to book as many local day trips as we could and be nothing more than tourists for the week. Unfortunately, many of the tours were already full so we only had the opportunity to do two tours: Northern Highlights & Okinawa Expo + Churami Aquarium.
The northern highlights took us to the north end of the island which is very rural and mostly jungle, unlike the urban landscaper around the south end of the island. We went to a castle ruin, a glass blowing factory, a cool lunch where we made our own food at the table on a grill, and then the Orion beer factory. Also, we went to the pineable farm. A very fun day, even though it was totally kitschy tourist stuff. It was fun to do once anyway.
We also went to the Charumi Aquarium. Until the new Atlanta aquarium was built last year (or two ago), this was the largest aqurium in the world. The main tank has two whale sharks in it and has a 80 foot tall viewing window. It’s an amazing place. The facility is on a large amusement park type area (think Sea World) that has a museum and a replica village of natvie Okinawan huts from the last several centuries. I though this was the best part of the facility. Check out the pictures.
The big castle attraction is Shuri Castle. It was the japanese headquarters during WWII and as such, was completely destroyed by the Allied forces during the battle of Okinawa. In the last 20 years, they have complete rebuilt it to it’s original glory. Here are some pics:
One week after spring break, I had the Far East Honors Music festvial to go to with 16 of my band students. All the DoDDS high schools in the pacific area audition for this event in January and about 180 students are selected in band, choir, jazz band, and a small string ensemble. There are 14 schools in our region from Guam, Korea, and mainland Japan (as well as the two here on Okinawa). Gina chaperoned with me and we spent seven days in Tokyo with the kids. However, we were so busy with the event that we never stepped off the air base (Yokota). The only parts of Tokyo we saw were from the bus as it transferred us from the commercial airport to the air base (yeah…we flew commerical even though we left one air base to get to another air base). The kids had fun and it is very similar to an all-state or all-northwest event except that the calibar of musicianship isn’t quite as high and we don’t hire a ringer conductor. Teachers take turns selecting pieces and conduting the groups. I got to do Pageant which was fun, but I gave up so much rehearsal time to others with their monster tunes that it wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, but it was good to meet the other teachers and see where everyone’s at in their own world.
This was our 747 we flew to tokyo. It’s a Pokeman plane. The center picture shows a sign on the freeway about the upcoming interchange. Click it to zoom in and see just how insane the roads in Tokyo are. The picture on the right is of a fancy pen that was for sale in the airport. I don’t recall for sure now, but I believe it was $3000 or something crazy like that.
We moved in about 10 days ago, but then I went into tech week for Footloose and didn’t get to see much of the apartment during the day until Memorial day after we closed the show. It’s an amazing place and we are 10 miles from base and have begun shopping more and more in the japanese stores which has been very cool. The last time we went to the store I bought taco flavored corned beef hash. They love taco flavor here and they love corned beef here. You can get Taco Rice at KFC here (yeah…Kentucky Fried Chicken in Okinawa serves Taco Rice). More pictures of the apartment:
