SCUBA!!!

I can't believe we've waited this long to talk about SCUBA! We were super blessed to be squeezed into the September class, just in time to get certified before we went to Okinawa. It's WAY harder than I thought it would be and the class was really time intensive, the tests were super hard, and the dangers were large in number. Thankfully, the class does prepare you for many life or death scenarios so we felt pretty ready and comfortable when we finally got out into open water.

The first couple of pictures are from our qualification dives. Joel's posture indicates the tightness of the wetsuit, LOL.

You definitely squeeze yourself into these things... my arms and legs are super long which adds additional difficulty.

We did 2 qualification dives one day and 2 the next. This day we just went down the street to Yuu Beach. It was cloudy and gloomy and the visibility was poor, but basically all we did was practice our "skills", which included losing equipment and putting it back on in the water, running out of oxygen, and various types of ascents.

Oxygen tanks are HEAVY!

Joel rocks it better than I.

Day 1 I learned that I get cold EASY underwater. So for the 2 qualification dives on Oshima Island on day 2, I wore a thicker wet suit and a hood (talk about super messed up hair afterward!). It was SOOOOOO hard to get on, but man did it work. Difficult to maneuver anywhere but underwater, but worth it.

My diving friend, Alicia, and I both opted for the thicker suits on day 2.

So Joel and I were qualified and ready to hit open water when we got to Okinawa! Joel organized a trip on a boat to some of the outlying islands around Okinawa, but unfortunately, after over an hour of seasickness and rough seas, our captain determined the conditions returning to the harbor would be too dangerous. Thus, we waved to the area where we were supposed to scuba and rode over an hour back to the harbor to do some local diving. When I mentioned sea sickness, I meant total and complete sea sickness. One girl aboard did hurl, but I kept it together. Couldn't eat or drink though, so I went over 12 hours total without food (so you KNOW I wasn't feeling good!). But, once I put on my gear and went underwater, I felt FINE. No seasickness, just utter and complete awe. Man, it's a beautiful world down there!!!

The underwater camera Joel got us works really well, but we are going to need to get a different lens for our future dives. This one is meant for above water activities, so the quality and colors aren't what they could be. Please feel free to use your imagination because the colors were vibrant and stunning.

Joel and I were able to follow a couple of master divers underwater. They knew it was our first dive on our own following our qualification class, so they were super good leaders and teachers! But, they said we'd been taught well by our instructor because we were good at communicating underwater about our air levels and depth restrictions (we are only qualified to go to 60 feet for now). The deepest most divers ever go is 120, but even that depth has serious potential negative consequences.

One of the master divers hooked me up with a shell from both dives we did that day. I still have them because they're amazing!

Even above water, I was seasick. It was pretty darn choppy all day.

One of the master divers found a teapot! And another one found a coffee cup... not part of a set though, they checked, LOL.

I had a turn with the camera and thought I was taking all these gorgeous pictures of the fish and sea snakes (I saw a scene directly from "Finding Nemo", I swear!) but unfortunately, I was only switching the camera from video to picture mode over and over, rather than taking shots. Boo! Now I know which button to press! LOL!

So, be prepared for more scuba pictures in the future. This is an awesome hobby and Joel and I so grateful to be certified now. What a world of mysteries and so very beautiful. Hopefully, we will be able to do this on many of our other traveling adventures!

Okinawa - Current Politics and the Naha Tug of War

For Kirk's BIG birthday this year, I planned a trip to Okinawa for a week. She gave me ideas for things to do and see, but I did all the research, phone calls, and planning to make it a special get away for both of us. Thankfully, we have access to "Space Available" military flights in and out of Iwakuni. To places like Tokyo and Okinawa, it's a normal size commercial flight, but if we decide to go to other parts of Asia like Korea or Singapore, we may get on a plane where we strap ourselves in to the sides with just a few other people and hang on!

Here's a little history of Okinawa before I get into all the fun we had (thank you Wikipedia):

"The island of Okinawa was the site of most of the ground warfare in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II, when American Army and Marine Corps troops fought a long and bloody battle to capture Okinawa, so it could next be used as the major air force and troop base for the planned invasion of Japan. During this 82-day-long battle, about 95,000 Imperial Japanese Army troops and 12,510 Americans were killed, and in addition to these deaths, somewhere between 42,000 and 150,000 Okinawan civilians - approximately one quarter of the civilian population - were either killed or committed suicide.

During the American military occupation of Japan (1945–52), which followed the Imperial Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay, the United States controlled Okinawa Island and the nearby Ryukyu islands and islets. These all remained in American military possession until June 17, 1972, with numerous US Army, US Marine Corps, and US Air Force bases there. Since 1972, United States Armed Forces personnel remained on Okinawa Island by the invitation of the Government of Japan as a measure partially fulfilling the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan."


Needless to say, Okinawa is very Americanized compared to Iwakuni because of the history of our presence there and our temporary control of the island after WWII. Basically, it just means there are a lot more McDonald's and A&W's, as well as stores and other restaurants that cater to all the Americans that still reside on the island due to the large number of bases that are there. They are literally all over the island. It was weird to see Americans everywhere we went because in Iwakuni and the other parts of Honshu that we've explored, we are definitely the minority.

Now if you've been keeping up with the news over here, you're probably aware of the Japanese protests against our new aircraft, the Osprey. We saw some protests and a lot of anti-Osprey (and anti-American military) signs while we were in Okinawa. Also, in the last month, there have been several incidents, mostly in Okinawa, where American military personnel have broken in to homes, gotten naked at a bar, and other "international incidents" that have contributed to a Asian/Pacific-wide curfew of 2300 on all American military bases. As civilians, we are strongly recommended to abide by this curfew as well. And just this week, the new rule is that every active duty service member must stop drinking alcohol by 2200 (the Club's last call on base is now 2130) with absolutely NO drinking off base at all. So the US is trying to show Japan they are actively involved in keeping their service members out of trouble, but people are continuing to do stupid things. :-/

Thankfully, none of this affected our wonderful vacation so on with the story:
We left Iwakuni on a Friday afternoon and returned the following Saturday morning, which gave us A LOT of time to explore and sightsee. Thankfully, we were there the same weekend as the infamous Naha Tug of War Festival which happens once a year and is the largest tug of war contest in the world. Our friends, Pinida and Steve, used to be in Iwakuni but are now stationed in Okinawa so we were able to hang out with them a couple times, and they were our awesome chauffeurs to Naha for the festival.

For the first couple of nights, we stayed at the lodge at Kadena Air Force Base. It was HUGE and Kirk loved the size of the Exchange and Commissary. This tree was outside the lodge and just goes to show what typhoon damage looks like - Okinawa was hit really hard by 3 or 4 this year. There was one right before we came so we saw a lot of damage all over the island.

This is where Steve and Pinida took us for lunch

Kirk got fried ramen noodles with pork.

I got a large Ramen soup with pork. Different flavors than the Japanese style Ramen and VERY good!

Apparently, the Okinawa way (very different than Iwakuni) is to park in a random store parking lot as close to where you want to go as you can, then ride the elevated train into the main part of the city.

Interesting t-shirts...

Kirk wanted the "I love Rad Wimps" shirt

Just some of the interesting styles you come across in Japan

Part of the Naha Tug of War Festival included teams of folks that would take turns hoisting their banner up. There were a bunch of teams traveling probably close to a mile until they ended at the big rope.

We found a shop that sold salt from all around the world - you were able to sample all of them. Some were... well, salty and some were just straight up weird

Kirk got a sweet potato ice cream cone that tasted a lot like yams

Poor Tweety

We think these were fake frog purses. We don't know why, this is Japan. They were everywhere.

Our first glimpse of the rope. The tug of war wasn't set to start for another couple hours at this point, so people were able to cross the street and get their picture with it.

This is only half of the rope!

Our tour guides for the day

The other half. Now if we'd stayed for the next two hours, we would have had front row seats to the tug of war. But we would have been really bored, so we went back to the row of shops and walked around for a bit longer.

We found sake with what used to be live snakes in the bottle!! This is one kind I don't believe either of us has any desire to try.

Purple sweet potatoes are HUGE in Okinawa and they make a lot of sweets and pastries with them. Kirk's a fan of their style of marketing, ha ha.

One face doesn't belong

Vans and cars will drive all over with speakers and broadcast political messages or advertise something for sale

Giant Godzilla cat

This is what we found when we went back for the tug of war. Missed out on a good spot, that's for sure!

Pinida had the right idea... Kirk was wearing a skirt so she wouldn't get on my shoulders

There was a ceremony first and folks were actually riding on the rope and others were being carried to act out a battle scene

The actual rules of the game are that each side either pulls for 30 minutes and the one that pulled the farthest wins or the first side to pull the rope 5 meters in their direction. A lot of American military folks were participating and there were hundreds of people on each side.

Pinida is a self-diagnosed sociopath, so you can see one of the symptoms here

Steve and Pinida took us to this amazing sushi restaurant after the festival where one man ran the whole thing. Sometimes, if there are people in front of you, you wait for a long time for your food because everything he does is art.

It was beautiful and tasty. Such a good finish to the day!

Kagura - BEWARE: Contains Spooky Images!!

Joel and I were psyched to be able to go on an ITT trip to a small village outside Hiroshima to observe traditional dancing called Kagura. It was a competition, so we were able to watch two separate groups, called "companies" perform. There are three main points they are judged on in the competition: the dance performance changing its speed with the turns of the story; the ancient form of music played by a main drum, sub drum, gong and bamboo flute; and the quality of the costumes, especially their embroidery.

There are some technical terms associated with the themes in Kagura (which we observed in both plays):
Tengai - strips of colored paper hung over the stage, essential in Kagura
Gohei - a wand tipped with strips of white paper used in purification; an essential item held by the god characters in Kagura
Sensu - a folding fan; a tool used for grace of the gods in Kagura
Ame - thin cut paper tapes falling down like rain between devils and gods; the devil's weapon to paralyze gods
Eboshi - brimless headgear for the god characters

There is always a devil character (or two or three) and gods, or soldiers of god, to fight off the devil(s).

This was our tour guide for the festival. He was SO awesome and SO cute! He had wonderful English but kept apologizing for not being a good translator. This culture is so humble!

My gorgeous friend Neda

Our group was given a VIP section up in the balcony where we actually had bleachers to sit on. Everyone else brought mats to lounge on to watch the shows. As you can see, it was hosted in a local gymnasium. In the upper left, you can see the judges.

This was the band for the second show we observed (none of the pictures came out very well for the first one and even these ones are spotty). Three of them were so very young! (see the Tengai above the stage?)

See what I mean? The two kids you can see were rocking it out as members of the band! So talented!

The costumes were stunning and very intricate! And part of Kagura that is judged is how well the players hold their arms up - they're not allowed to let them fall down to their waists throughout the entire performance. I guess it's part of the art of the dance to have to hold up the weight of the costume, which easily weighs at least 50 pounds!

Everything about it was very rehearsed and professional, very traditional and unique. Interesting fact: all the characters, even the female ones, are played by males. There are no females actors in Kagura.

Our translator narrated what was going on and being sung (did I mention this was a Japanese opera as well? The actors also sang!!) into headphones we were given to wear during the show, but was pretty easy to figure out the plot without understanding the lyrics to the music

The devil masks are INCREDIBLY CREEPY! Truly frightening to look at! But the dancing and the representation of the warriors battling the devil were extraordinary!

I was a tad offended that the devil was a blonde, LOL :-)

Yes, the plot included a spider theme... ick.

Notice the mask is a bit different. This is an inclusion that the more contemporary Kagura dances include: a change of costume/mask. They have designed some of the costumes to "magically" change right in front of the audiences' eyes! Amazing engineering allows the audience to see one mask or outfit one second and then with one swift movement, see an entirely new vision of the character!

This let us know that the toilets inside were normal and not the "squatting" kind , ha ha!

The boys with our amazing guide and translator - don't they look cute with their little fans? It was hot and steamy in the gym so I guess they didn't care about fashion

We were given a private tour after the performances to meet a Kagura company member and try on some of the costumes!

Our tour guide was explaining the level of detail in the costumes and how very heavy they are. He said that they each take about a year to make and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars (MILLIONS of yen!)

I mean, look at this detail!

The Japanese culture is very strongly influenced by China. This is more of a Chinese dragon face than a Japanese one.

Another blonde devil, what the heck?!

Seriously creepy

At least this one's a brunette

Posing the Japanese way - they ALWAYS give a peace sign in ALL of their pictures!

My mighty man

Nick was able to use one of the props which was tightly wound paper which you would fling at the devil, "trapping" him in its web.

Nick rocking the arms up motion

That's Joel!

I swear, these masks will give you nightmares

This pic is for you, Dad! A Va Tech colored van!! :)

Outside the gym there were food vendors, so we each got a fresh fruit smoothie

Joel decided to be brave and try one of these salted fish on a stick

I tried a bite too - REALLY fishy and you have to watch out for the bones obviously

Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a WONDERFUL time and learned a ton about Kagura! Thank you Nick and Neda for a great day!