Saturday - June 2nd
Cape Zanpa
John and Allison live closest to the city of Naha which is south on the island of Okinawa. So on Saturday we started our day with a trip headed north to Cape Zanpa which is nearest to the city of Nago. Cape Zanpa was BEAUTIFUL and we spent most of the morning walking around and enjoying all of the sights. Breathtaking views of the water, cliffs, a lighthouse, several monuments and statues! Last fall, John and Allison visited this area and LOVED it, so it was fun to get to share one of their favorite places on the island with them. We even spent time re-creating a fun jumping picture they took during their visit in the fall.
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| Some of the beautiful views around Cape Zanpa |
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| More of our Cape Zanpa adventure - the bottom left picture was taken at the top of the lighthouse! |
In my last post, I mentioned that we were going to visit a local brewery, that ended up not happening today due to all of their tours being full - so we will try again another day for this! (Side note, we spent lots of time on Saturday driving - check out how trippy it is to be driving on the LEFT side of the road!)
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| The two smaller pictures are of the countless road-side tombs that seem to be everywhere around the island - many look like small villages. I am super fascinated by them! |
Nago Pineapple Park
When the brewery was a no-go for the day, we headed off to our next stop - the Nago Pineapple Park. Before going, we knew that it was supposed to be a pineapple winery and farm. When got there and actually experienced it we found out Nago Pineapple Park had a little bit of everything, this to our surprise and amusement, included a multi-room shell museum! Upon arriving we got to board a Pineapple cart (that drove itself!!) and take a tour of the pineapple fields and growing areas. We then toured the shell museum and then headed to their store area where we tasted several different kinds of pineapple wines, champagnes, and juices. Also got to sample various pineapple cakes, cookies, actual pineapple pieces, and even pineapple chocolate. Overall, very entertaining and fun to see all of the various pineapple EVERYTHING here!
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| Our Pineapple Cart ride adventure! |
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| Some of the variety of pineapple products we tried. Sweet pineapple, pineapple chocolate cookies, and pineapple/lime juice are pictured here! |
To conclude our Saturday, we headed back from Nago down south back to Camp Kinser and enjoyed a laid back evening. Grilled BBQ chicken for dinner and got to meet some of John & Allison's friends/neighbors who came over afterwards. We were not the most exciting group of people to necessarily meet at this point, since most of us could barely keep our eyes open after our day of adventures + still working through adjusting to the time change!
Sunday - June 3rd - My Birthday :)
Sunday for us had a more laid back schedule, it was also my birthday here in Japan. I was woken up with coffee & birthday breakfast cooked by my wonderful fiancé before we headed out to John & Allison's church here on the island.Okinawa Lutheran Church
Church this morning was a bilingual service, their church holds this service on the first Sunday of every month. It was very interesting how the service worked. Their pastor has been in Japan since 1984 and on the island of Okinawa for the last 13 years - as a result he is very fluent in Japanese. Most of the liturgy he would say the english first & the congregation would respond, then the Japanese and the congregation would respond. Some parts he would say the English, then the Japanese, and then we would all respond together - everyone in their preferred language. This is also how singing worked. We sang everything in English, but those who wished to sing in Japanese sang the Japanese words at the same time. For the sermon, the pastor would say EACH sentence or two of his sermon twice in a row. Once in English, then again in Japanese. We also had the readings read in Japanese first, and then again in English.
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| Our bulletin/order of service for the morning. |
Sunday Afternoon
After church, we headed home to being packing/getting ready for an overnight trip to Okuma (a military resort base on the island). We were at first not sure if we were going to be able to go up to Okuma because of an incoming typhoon - however the typhoon was not to hit until Monday or Tuesday so our trip stayed on schedule. Before leaving for Okuma we rented snorkeling gear so that we would have it whenever the weather calmed down enough to snorkel.
Okuma
Much like our adventures on Saturday, Okuma is north of where John & Allison live, so after packing the cars we headed north back up the island - this time going past the Nago area where we had been the day before. At this point, it pretty much down poured rain for the remainder of the drive and day. We got to Okuma, checked into our cabins, and thankfully the rain calmed down enough to spent a little time that night walking on the beach. We shared drinks and dinner at the resort that night & ended our evening playing catchphrase (at which I am TERRIBLE!! haha)
Monday - June 4th
OkumaMonday morning, due to the incoming typhoon, the weather was not going to be snorkeling friendly - so instead of snorkeling we spent the first part of the morning packing up from our stay at Okuma, and exploring a little beach of the beaches and rocks there before checking out and heading to hike for the day. Again - cannot stress how BEAUTIFUL it is here!!!!
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| North Beach at Okuma! |
Our big event of Monday was hiking Tadake Falls - this is another of John & Allison's favorite places on the island - and after hiking it together we could understand why! Due to the overcast weather for the day we pretty had the entire trail to ourselves. "Trail" is a bit of a relative word for our hike, since most of the trail consisted of wading through water, climbing up and over rocks, and even climbing through various parts of the jungle/forest surround the water. We had a lot of fun with this hike!! At the end of the hike you reach an awesome waterfall which was really amazing to see. Bonus - there is a path to climb to the top part of the waterfall, so after enjoying the waterfall itself and taking some pictures of course, we all trekked up the side of the mountain surround the fall to get a birdseye view from the top. Again it was BEAUTIFUL - seriously - can't get enough of the scenery here. It's no wonder John & Allison love being outside here as much as possible!
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| Tadake Falls hike! |
Last adventure for our Monday was a ladies only event! Allison made appointments for us 3 girls to get pedicures at her favorite place here on the island for this - Cocoks (pronounced like co-cos).
[While we got pampered the boys chose the more manly activity of going to the gym and working out - I think the girls got the better end of the deal!]
Cocoks was AMAZING!! Every aspect of our time there was so relaxing and fun! When we arrived, we were lead to huge comfy lazy-boy type chairs, given a glass of cool and refreshing green tea, and immediately had our feet soaking. (This was especially great after our hike from earlier today). We each had a 20+ page book to go through and select our nail design from (each page had about 24 design options on it). We also got to select the oil they were going to use on for our leg/foot massage. The whole pedicure took over an hour and was the best from start to finish! About half of that hour was the massage alone. Check out the finished product!! |
| So much attention to detail and patience the ladies at Cocoks have!!! |
So far this morning - we all woke up to watch the typhoon roll in - this consisted mostly of a lot of high wind gust and rain! Now we are all getting ready for the day and going to head off to visit Okinawa World! Please continue to keep all of us in your prayers - it is such a blessing to be able to all spend time together and we are thankful for every minute!
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