Julie and I have made some progress on our explorations of Okinawa. Last week she invited 2 Japanese friends from her English classes to come with us as we traversed the island in search of Sefa Utaki and the Gyokusendo caves. Not only were the Japanese girls (Yuko and Haruna) fun to hang out with, but they were great help in the map reading department.  The first stop was Sefa Utaki, a sacred, forested area all green and dripping where priestesses used to perform ceremonies and where men weren’t allowed. It really was a beautiful little area, though quite small. There were little nooks and crannies to be checked out and cool trees with roots all strewn about. Underneath an overhang at one point were two stalactites with bowls directly underneath. The water that the bowls gathered was considered to be sacred water.

One of the cooler parts of Sefa Utaki was a little pond on one side of a path where we noticed a newt swimming over to a log. We were all cooing over the cute little thing when we realized that the whole area was covered with them. There were newts all over the place! Of course we had to play with them. Sefa Utaki was a short, but very worthwhile stop. Before heading to Okinawa World, the four of us found a quite patch of grass (outside of a local gym) overlooking the sea to have a picnic lunch. It cracked Jules and I up that we had brought our “typical” picnic items; sandwiches, applesauce, some fruit, hard-boiled eggs and the like. Yuko and Haruna, on the other hand, had brought onigiri, which are triangles of rice with seaweed or fish inside, wasabi crisps and these pickled plum things that made Julie and I make the ‘sour face’ and apologize profusely while the girls laughed. Food is culture, and that lunch was proof.

The last stop of our day trip was at Okinawa World, which may sound cheesy, but all the Japanese tourists were doing it too, so I didn’t feel so bad. The first step of Okinawa World is to walk through about 2 miles worth of caves that are absolutely FULL of stalactites and mites. The four of us wandered through them enjoying the atmosphere and getting dripped on. We even saw a surprising number of creatures including a large crab, fish, a shrimp, an eel and a bat climbing up around in the shadowy ceiling. Outside the other side of the caves were little craft ‘villages’ of Okinawan style foods and artwork. Julie and I were transfixed by the guy blowing glass for a good 15 minutes. The Habu Sake brewery was interesting too, this type of sake requires this deadly (and dead) snake, the habu, to sit inside the vat of sake. This also makes a great souvenir, a clear bottle of sake with a snake bearing it’s fangs at you with glazed over eyes.

Lastly, the Eisa dance. Okinawa World had a production of Eisa dancers and Shisa dancers that I absolutely loved. The performers of this typically Okinawan dance looked like they were having so much fun I just wanted to join in. They banged drums and threw their legs in the air shouting the whole time. Then the guys dressed in a Shisa oufit (you know, that hairy dragon thing in Japanese culture?) came out and jumped around the stage. It was a great experience.

Other than that, Julie and I have taken a couple of half-day trips around to different places on the island. We’ve seen two more castle ruins, (the one today was fantastic) and a pottery village. Then we’ve also been hanging out with Julie’s friends here, most of with are involved with some branch of the armed forces. Beth, Ken, Janine, Julie and I have continued a Dinner Club which has been going on here for a while, with each household rotating and making dinner for everyone once a week. Its good food and good company. Marc, our wonderful chauffer whenever we need to get on base, has even managed to drag us to the gym a couple of times using the sauna as bait. But our sore biceps and thighs are proof that we’ve actually done some worthwhile machines as well.

Now the weather is starting to warm up and it looks to me like we’ll be heading for the beaches for more than walking in the near future. Snorkeling and SCUBA season is coming up and I can’t wait!