Tokashiki Again (May 2012)

We love the Kerama Islands... so we went back! Tokashiki Island is just an hour ferry ride away. We stayed in a cabin with our friends Mike, Jessie, Brian and Andy. Chris' cousin Travis and his two friends joined us for just the day as well. This trip is not quite as picturesque as the last 2 Kerama Island experiences, but it was surely just as fun!! Our weather was just so-so, but with this group of friends, there are always good times to be had regardless of the weather!

Our cabin = awesome!

Our cabin was buried in the woods. One of the two little wooden peaks. 

We spent the first day just hangin out in the cabin and snorkeling. One of the most exciting parts of the trip was that we saw a sea turtle! Of course I have no photos... our underwater camera pooped out on us at some point this year... maybe this was when. The turtle was so awesome. He just meandered around in the shallows, so I followed him around for awhile. 

We cooked up some food that night and headed down to the beach to hang out. As secluded as our cabin looks in the photo, it was only about a mile and a half walk uphill to get back to it from the beach. That night was probably one of the clearest nights we have seen since moving to Okinawa. There are no lights by the beach, so the stars were just unreal. Jessie and I decided it would be a great idea to go for a night swim. Needless to say, we didn't have our bathing suits since we didn't plan on getting in the water. But since we were the only 2 girls on the trip and the only ones getting in the water, we figured we could walk down the beach a bit and go with the bare bones minimum since it was so dark out. We were in for a couple surprises... 1) Getting in the ocean at night is really creepy but REALLYcool. Like I said, the stars were unreal and the moon was setting. It was like straight out of a movie awesome! And it was also phytoplankton season! So every time we splashed or moved in the water, little fluourescent phytoplankton started glowing all around us. By far one of the COOLEST experiences ever. 2) You never know when a Japanese tour group is going to come strolling down the beach. Enough said. We didn't have on a whole lot of clothes... our friends/husbands thought this was quite hilarious. Again, like straight out of a movie... we were the only people for a half mile stretch of this beach and along comes the tour. Jessie and I have laughed about this for months. She's been one of my best buds here in Oki :) She's like my Andreea of Optometry school... when we get together, somehow we end up with the most rediculous stories and having the best time doing it!

The next day we rented scooters and scooted around the island. (Travis and his friends rented them the day before and got stuck in some torrential rain!) Chris decided he wanted to rent a tricycle scooter. It was like being in the movie Dumb and Dumber on that thing. :)

Travis and scooter

Trapped in the rain :(

The trike...

 We hope this isn't the last time we'll see the Keramas! Love this place :)

Dragon Boat Races (May 2012)

Every year, there are traditional Dragon Boat Races in several cities around Okinawa. One of the more popular races is near the capital city of Naha. We knew that traffic might be crazy, so we decided to drive part of the way and then ride down to the races on our bikes. We love our van for this reason :)

Julie, Chris, our 3 bikes, and one PB&J sandwich...soon to be devoured by Chris.

The 3 of us had a ton of fun exploring the area between Camp Kinser and Naha on bike. We rode on all sorts of small back roads.

Some pics of the boats,  acting like Japanese police officers and walking with 'beer goggles'. Great activities by the Okinawan police! :)

Our Van

Let's just say the cars in Oki are usually somewhat less than desirable... but we really lucked out with this van!! Chris looked for something like this for months... something to haul people, bikes, dive gear and all sorts of good stuff. It's even a yellow plate since it's fuel efficient. (In Oki we have white plates for 'normal' engine cars and yellow plates for fuel efficient/small engine cars) The van's engine is in the back, the battery is under the passenger seat, and it pretty much sounds like it's going to take off when we go over about 60km/hr. Our van has been involved in many great events: Van parties with the girls (Nicole, Diana, Jill, Lyndsey and Julie), naming Candy, the little dancing hula girl on the dashboard (w/ Mike, Steve and Chris), and loading it up with camping gear to take out to IeJima Island on a ferry with Chris' family! Here are some pics of the infamous van that we wish we could bring back with us to the states!