me at manza-mo, wearing the free bus pass

this morning i woke up late, at a whopping 7am. i showered, dressed, and then went upstairs to check out the second floor. i could not do this last night as there is no light in the very steep stairwell. after the sisters were ready, we went to the small supermarket right next to my grandmother's house for breakfast and snacks for later in the day. then we used our uchinanchu taikai name badges/free bus pass to take a bus to manza-mo cape in nearby onna-son village, ("son" in okinawa means "village", standard japanese would be "mura"). i thought today would be a great day to go to the beach as my mom is not around and she is not interested in going to the beach. all i do is blab about how wonderful the beaches are in okinawa and now it was time to prove it.

okinawan tombs--the ashes of families for generations, paternally

as we walked to manza-mo, i noticed there were some okinawan tombs. from tokyo tower we could see japanese graves and i pointed that out to the sisters. now i was showing them okinawan style graves up close, which are quite different. they took pictures and we continued to walk uphill to manza-mo and boy it was hot/humid. what a difference a short flight within japan makes! manza-mo cape is just really a lookout. i'm not going to go into the history of it but without any story behind it, it's really just a nice view, that's it. you can see the various blues of the water, the cliffs, the sand of the beaches afar, the grass around you, etc. it's a chance to breathe okinawa. plus, it's free. there are a lot of souvenir stands there too, which is great for the tourists. the sisters loaded up on presents for familly back home. the guy they bought them from was really friendly and funny. he threw in a free shirt for us and made us promise we wouldn't tell any of the other vendors. we promise!

moon beach, onna-son

then we took the bus heading back but got off to go to moon beach, also in onna-son. moon beach is famous. it's been one of the most popular beaches for years. my mom went there growing up. i went there. japanese and americans go there. it's at a hotel but it's free for all. we didn't bring any beach towels and i thought we could buy them there. wrong! they hardly had any towels for sale in the gift shops and none of them were beach towel size. ok, maybe one of them was but it was really expensive. instead, we rented them real cheap and paid a lot for renting a parasol and 2 chairs set. there have tons of these parasols and chairs on the beach now. they didn't when i was a kid. they used to have tons of floating devices in the water chained down but now there are only a couple of them. times change but the sand texture still hurts! too much shell/coral debris. i didn't see anybody with shoes on going into the water so i figured i didn't need to either. wrong. *ouch* twiddle thumbs and i did go in the water! woohoo. i can't believe after talking about the beaches all these years that we are finally here. wow! too bad it's not nice hot summer weather though. that's when the water is like a bath. today it wasn't that cold but it wasn't that warm either. i had the underwater camera with me as i still have film in it. it's at least 2 years old, probably 3. it has pictures from new zealand on it and god knows what else. i finished the roll at moon beach.

ishigantou, a stone marker found at certain intersections in okinawa

we didn't spend that long in the water, especially for the price we paid for renting that shit. we had a late lunch at one of the restaurants inside the hotel. i had a rice pilaf with no shrimp/egg and shikwasa juice. my order perplexed the waitress but they accommodated us and made it only with oil too (no butter). the waitress came out to explain that to me. very nice of them. it was pretty good, really more like a fried rice. we then took the bus back to kadena and shortly after my mom arrived. my aunts, her older and young sisters were already there. then my uncle (who owns the house we're staying in), his wife and daughter arrived. wow. so many of us all here. this has never happened before! if just my brother was here, my uncle didn't die, and a couple of other people were here, then it would be everybody! my mom and her older sister who lives in georgia have not been in okinawa at the same time since they both moved away from the island in the 1970s! this is so amazing and cool to witness. i'm sure the sisters were perplexed to all our blabbering in japanese but now they know how i feel at their family functions! *evil laugh* as it is customary in japan, we brought presents for my uncle and his family, especially since we get to stay for free at my grandmother's house which he owns being the eldest male. they were simple things we (the sisters and i) brought, plus i had some things i bought in new zealand that i never mailed to them.

my own style vegetarian tacos at oblee restaurant

i don't know who mentioned it first, but everyone started talking about where we could go to have tacos for dinner. yeah, mexican food in japan! they suggested we go to oblee restaurant in yomitan. it used to be very close at the kadena rotary but the rotary is under construction and all those businesses had to move. the restaurant is actually called obrigato (thank you in brazilian portuguese) but the yomitan location is called a shortened oblee. anyway, we got into a couple of cars and the core 4 of us from los angeles plus my mom's younger sister had dinner at oblee. i ordered tacos, with guacamole but no meat/cheese. they got so confused by that that they didn't put the lettuce or tomatoes, only guacamole inside. so i put the side of rice/beans into my tacos. i was going to pay for my dinner but my aunt insisted she pay for me. she said because who knows when the next time she will get to see me will be.

towards the end of dinner, my uncle walked into the restaurant and said that he heard i need to use the internet. uh, word travels quickly! (i forgot to bring a friend's address with me to send a postcard so i need to email her.) me and twiddle thumbs's sister rode back with him to his house, which is very close by. he fired up his laptop and it took forever. he put on some music, "hotel california" by the eagles, and we checked our email. we both felt this pressure to do it quickly because my uncle was right there sitting in the room, waiting. it took longer to start the computer than it did for both of us to send off our emails! as we were leaving his house, i pointed out to twiddle thumb's sister the japanese style room they have since she has never been in a japanese house proper. i showed the scroll my uncle has, the butsudan, and where the photos of dead relatives used to be (i didn't know they took them down!). my aunt then insisted we pray a the butsudan for a safe journey back to america. she lit the incense for us and we prayed or at least pretended we did--i can't speak for others! [author comment: i guess the praying worked because we arrived back safely! thank you!] my uncle then dropped us back off at my grandmother's house. twiddle thumbs and i went across the street to do laundry at a tiny laundromat. as we were waiting for our clothes, we just hung out there, sat on the sidewalk, drink some drinks from the vending machine, and talked about our trip thus far. this guy started calling out to us and neither of us looked towards him. i thought it was some drunk japanese guy using his english skills. turns out, it was my cousin johnny! "you don't answer when people call you?" he said something like that. if he had shouted out my name, of course i would've looked over and answered. he was just walking around to the different bars on the street, having a good time at night. his mother told us that he recently received new orders and is waiting to ship out. 4 months in thailand and 7 months in iraq. ai yai yai. she said she is doing her buddhist prayers so everything will be alright.

tonight i had originally planned on seeing bleach in concert but i decided against it once we returned from the beach. i thought it would be cool to see a band in japan but it's just not going to happen during this trip.

today's expenses in yen:
¥576 snacks
¥3885 parasol/chair rental at beach (on me)
¥1500 lunch
(¥1540? dinner paid for by my aunt)
¥550 laundry
plus a couple drinks from vending machines throughout the day to hydrate