Okinawa (June 2006)

In June of 2006 I needed to visit the Awase LF Transmit Station in Okinawa, Japan for business. My son lives in Okinawa. He was stationed in Okinawa as a U.S. Marine. After getting out of the Marines, he and his girlfriend came to stay with my wife and I in San Diego. While they were with us they got married. They both decided they wanted to go back to Okinawa to live. This was my first opportunity to visit them since they left the states and it was my first visit to Okinawa.

I took this first picture because it just struck me as odd. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a bad idea to put telephone poles on the road. I don’t know if the pole or the road came first, but somebody made this decision. This was on the road to my hotel so I passed it very frequently. It amazed me with every passing.

Below are pics of my son Rick, his wife Nozomi, and me at dinner then soaking up a nearby arcade. I smoked him at all the games! Ok, maybe I didn’t smoke him at all the games. Or maybe I didn’t win a single game. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember ever being at the arcade.

The three of us took a trip around the north end of the island staying along the coast for the entire trip. We stopped at a number of vistas and shot a few photos.

We came across a small park that had mangrove trees and what looked to be small land fish or something that my son called “mud skippers.”

Here is some video of the mud skippers and Rick practicing his mud skipper call.

At one stop, we saw some fishermen. They used a traditional Okinawan boat. I don’t know how far out they went in that boat, but I wouldn’t be inclined to go to sea in such a craft.