A few things worth mentioning...

(FYI, if you hit shift and click on the pictures you can view them larger.)

Here are a few pictures of some random things....t-shirts with English writing on them; a no skateboarding sign; Habu sake (poisonous snake in wine); interesting car names ("Naked" is the model of the car!); a pizza from the grocery store (yes, that IS mayonnaise on half of it...they love this stuff here); what we think are potato pastries (we tried the purple one and it tasted like sweet potato); a fountain in "American Village".





Here are some updated photos of our aparment. We bought a few things and got some stuff from a student who is leaving



And finally, here are a couple of shots of "Devil's Cove" where we went snorkeling today.

A foray into Japanese grocery shopping

(FYI: If you hold shift and click on a picture, you can view it larger.)

At every grocery store there is at least one parking attendant with an orange wand wearing a blue vest. This is incredibly helpful when looking for a parking space in a very crowded parking lot. Here are a few pictures of a typical grocery store on Okinawa. You'll notice that everything is packaged very nicely. Packing is very important here. First, a "goya", which is an Okinawan cucumber that is very bitter and healthy. Next, the tofu section; the octopus section; very tiny fish that you put in "Onigiri" (Rice balls); the potted meat section (they love their potted meat here); the miso soup section; the weiner section' the prepared meal section, including sushi and fried snacks; the tea section; bread section; and, of course, the rice section (which oddly enough is very expensive here too).


If you don't bring your own bags you have to pay 3 yen for a plastic one. This is a delicate situation that we haven't figured out just yet. If you say "Iie" (No) they give you a bag. If you say "Hai" (yes), they give you a bag. The only safe way to do this is bring a bag and hand it to the cashier before she rings things up. While checking out, the cashier yells out the amount of everything you purchase just in case you want to dispute the cost (this is what we can figure anyhow). Then, you put your money in a tray (never hand it to the cashier!), the cashier double checks that you know how much you put in the tray, hits some buttons and puts your change in your hand while holding your hand from the bottom with her other hand, bows and yells out "Arigato gozaimasu" (Thank you very much) along with twelve other sentences that all end in "gozaimasu."

Exploring the islands

This weekend we went exploring near the north end of Okinawa and we got gas for the first time in Japan...the attendant had to come out and tell us what kind of gas to put it. Luckily for us, he spoke a bit of english. We need to look into these Japanese classes. It would make life much easier.The second pictures is Hamahigajima (a small island that you can drive to). We found some pods in tunicates on Hamahigajima. The third picture is the view of Nakagasuka Bay from the top of the mountain near the University.


We were very excited for this morning because we were getting our internet installed at our "internet ready" apartment. Come to find out that the internet company could not install the internet because they need a key from the housing company, who is on summer holiday until Thursday. After strained English/Japanese discussion we learned that we will have to wait until Saturday to get our internet. Things can be very frustrating when everyone is so polite all the time!

Here is a video of people drumming...this happens often around the island...we're not sure what the deal is yet.

Rollin'

Ohayo gozaimasu! We received our car yesterday evening and are now somewhat independent! Here are a few pictures of it:


It is a powerful 660 cc so going up hills with two Americans in it should be fun! We may have to ask our visitors to meet us at the tops of hills. We are off to the fishing store and to explore a bit of the island for the first time without translators! We'll buy a map first, not that we will be able to read it, but the pictures should help a bit.

On a side note...new drivers and people over 60 have to put special stickers on their cars as a warning to other cars on the road. Military yankees have to get special license plates with a "Y" on them, too. Unfortunately for Japan, we are not required to have any signs that we are Gaijin. Look out, here we come!

Gettin Settled

We've had a busy weekend. We moved into our place on Friday and it is really nice! We won't have internet there until next Monday, so we have to come into the lab to use it. It is a 12 minute walk from the apartment to Kris' office.
Here are a few pictures of it.
On Saturday Jamie took us car shopping. After two stops, we were very disheartened by the high prices of cars we found. In Japan, you insure the car, not the people driving the cars. This is called "Chakan" and every two years the car needs to get inspected. This costs about $300 for a Kei-car and about $800 for a larger car. Kei-cars are under 1000 cc and are very popular here. The taxes are also lower on Kei-cars. But, as they say, the third time was a charm. We bought a 660 cc Kei-car for 30000 yen without test driving it! Apparently, it is not ok to test drive cars here...you can sit in them and turn them on, but you just trust the person you are buying from. If there are problems with the car after you buy it, you can bring it back and they will fix everything. We will get our blue Subaru Pleo on Friday or Saturday after they change the timing belt and oil and replace the battery (which is as big as a motorcycle battery).
Once we have the car we can go back to the two-story fishing store that we checked out on Sunday. They have everything you can imagine there and most of the gear is affordable too! So, finally Nate can begin his fishing here on Okinawa. The fishing store is near the "American Village" which is just outside the big military base here. We saw a lot of Americans for the first time on the island. Here are a couple of other random pictures: Nate petting the horses outside the guesthouse (probably part of the agriculture program); some cool flowers; and Jamie, Micah, and Nate eating ice cream cones from the vending machine!

I think I'm turning Japanese

We are getting more familiar with the area...Nate went on a 20 mile hike yesterday. None of the streets here have names, so any maps you see just have landmarks written in Japanese, which, as you can imagine, is not exactly helpful for us at this stage.

As we mentioned earlier, Japanese culture is very polite. The expressway that runs through the middle of the island here was a tollway until recently. They removed the tolls as a way to make up for not removing the military bases. However, drivers still have to stop and take a ticket and return a ticket when entering and exiting the expressway so that the toll booth workers could keep their jobs. People here do their jobs very well and provide excellent customer service. This is true even though no one works for tips. You do not tip for anything here!



This is a poisonous African snail. These guys are all over the place.













This is the lake on campus and the bridge going over the lake. Check out the turtle and huge carp in the lake.
This is my office in the new Rising Star building.

Our new address

Konbanwa! We now have cell phones which you can call us on...who knows how much this will cost, but it is an option. Kris' number is 080-6493-1946 and Nate's number is 080-6493-1948. I believe to call from the states you would enter 011-81-80-6493-1946 etc., but best to double check.

As of Friday, August 13 (good luck!), our address will be:
S Court Manor 102
Shimashi 1-9-12
Ginowan-shi
Okinawa-ken
JAPAN
901-2213

Progress

Well, we are slowly making progress with settling in. When I say "we", I am actually referring to Reimer-Sensei, who has to translate everything for us. We will move into the apartment we wanted on Friday after we do about an hour of paperwork this evening. It is rather large, so we will have plenty of room for company! We'll send pictures once we move in. We were also able to extend our reservation at the University Guesthouse so that we don't have to move before we move on Friday.

We are also very close to having cell phones after going back to City Hall to get proof of our proof of alien registration. Once the paperwork was finished by Yuka (a masters student), we were told we just have to wait one and a half hours to set up the phones. So, in between typhoon bands we will walk over and use our best sign language to get the phones.

Yes, there is a category 1-2 typhoon just west of us, but it is business as usual here. No one is concerned until it is a category 5, and even then, everything is made of concrete, so only loose things will fly around.

We plan to go diving Thursday pending weather, and have spotted a potential car to buy, but again we'll need a translator to help us with this. We took a drive over to the Americanized side of Okinawa earlier and Nate spotted a two story fishing store that we will have to go to as soon as we have a car.

Manza-a great diving and fishing spot

We Made It!

Well, here we are in Okinawa, Japan after a 13 hour flight to Tokyo and a three hour flight to Okinawa. The trip was uneventful, but very long. We were greeted at the airport by Jamie Reimer (the professor I will be working with) and six of his lab members. We are staying at the University Guest House, which is essentially a nice hotel room. Jamie and all of his lab (he has 12 students!) have been super helpful and friendly.

Day number one consisted of a tour of campus (we're sort of getting the hang of where everything is now), a lot of paperwork, ordering an inkan (signature stamp, apparently White-o is not a common Japanese name), and eating sashimi (raw tuna) in the cafeteria...the best cafeteria food on earth (we plan to eat there often). Contrary to everything we were told, prices are very reasonable here. It is often less expensive to eat out than to buy groceries. The bonus trip was to the clinic to get Kris some antibiotics for the bacterial infection she acquired on the whirlwind tour before leaving the states. Jamie had to fill out all of the paperwork in Japanese and then translated what the doctor was saying. Sitting in a dentist-type chair surrounded by strange instruments and three nurses, the doctor was very intrigued by her condition. He pulled out picture books and spoke with Jamie in Japanese while Kris looked on. Talk about getting to know your new boss! We got the medicine needed and will have to go back for a checkup next week.

On day number two we took a holiday. Nate is essentially a member of the lab, as he went SCUBA diving with the others at Manza, a beautiful reef off the cliffs in the middle of the island. Kris just went for a swim because of her infection. Later we watched a seminar about barnacle sex and then went to dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant. Sitting on the floor, eating whatever Jamie ordered for us, and drinking 100 yen ($1) beers for about three hours.

On day number three we set up Kris' office and spent an hour at the bank exchanging US dollars for Yen. Several of the bills were unreadable by their exchange machine, so if you visit, make sure to exchange ALL of your money at the airport. We then spent about two hours at the cell phone store trying to get phones via translators. At first it seemed relatively simple...just as in the states. However, our address was not on our alien registration paperwork, so they would not give us cell phones despite hours of discussion about it. The Japanese way is to be very polite, so rather than just tell it like it is, they prefer to smile and go around in circles for quite some time. Later, Nate and Kris walked into town and got Tacos Rice at the local Taco King. It was delicious! Essentially a taco on rice instead of a taco shell. On the way back to the guest house we spotted the giant fruit bats flying overhead. They are as big as ravens! Super cool.

Today we are going to look for an apartment, which I am sure will prove to be an interesting experience! More to come...