Going to Okinawa

I had to get up at 4:30am to get ready and go to Okinawa today for the 7th grade school trip. It’s not all 7th graders since there are two 8th graders going too, but 99% of them are 7th graders. I realized that I didn’t need to get up that early too. The rendezvous time was at 8am at a place at the airport. I figured that since I haven’t been to this airport by train before, I should go early in case something were to happen and I’d get lost or something. But everything went smoothly and since I left my house around 6am, I arrived at Haneda airport at 7am. That’s a bit early to be honest with you. I arrived there wearing a full on suit with jacket and all, and saw some students in t-shirts and shorts instead of their school uniform. Then I saw another teacher, kind of the leader of the pack, dressed in a casual buttoned up shirt with jeans. I realized quickly that I was overdressed. I guess I had heard the instructions incorrectly at the orientation meeting, but it was ok since I had a chance to get changed in the bathroom into a more casual shirt and casual pants.

I was the first teacher to arrive at the location, but the leader of the group arrived soon thereafter and we had something to drink in the morning before the trip, like coffee and tea. The students were all at the waiting spot already, by the time I went back to the meeting place. It was weird to see my students in casual clothing and not in their uniforms. I didn’t know how they dressed outside of school, which was fascinating for me. It’s a completely different attitude than that of the United States. Everyone’s style is important and even more so in Japan than in the U.S., because they don’t get a chance to wear casual clothes usually. Anyways, that’s a whole other topic. Then we got ready and making lines before we entered the gate for the plane. All the parents were there taking pictures and everything. It was weird and I really didn’t understand why parents would do that, but it’s interesting and nice that so many parents came out to see their little girls go off to a new place. Soon after that, we all boarded the plane. It was about a 2 hour flight to Naha airport, which is on the main island of Okinawa. I got stuck in the bitch seat next to the leader of the pack, KSra, and the tour guide, Mr. Yamaguchi. So I couldn’t get any pictures of the sea when we were in the plane over the ocean and over the island; which really sucks because it was awesome. During the plane ride, most of the people were sleeping since they all had to get up early to get to the meeting point.

The plane trip was pretty quick and seemed to go by pretty fast. There weren’t any problems and we arrived as planned. That was a good way to start my first time touching the sands of the tropical paradise of Okinawa. When we arrived, we were quickly herded to the baggage pickup and then to the bus. The baggage place was interesting because they had little figurines, actually big figurines of people on boats and other tropical things as the baggage was being unloaded. I was assuming that we’d be dropping our stuff off, but we were actually no where near the hotel we were staying at. We drove about 2 hours to a place called Nago Pineapple Park, which the name implies, its all things pineapple. And if you know me well, I love pineapples. So I certainly enjoyed my time there. At first we just had lunch. It was a nice Okinawan meal with rice and soba noodles and a few side dishes. Wasn’t incredibly stellar, but it was good enough.

Then we took some time to walk around the park. The teachers and students took a little tram ride around the place and saw the different varieties of pineapple. Then we went to the gift shop to buy souvenirs. I bought a ton of stuff and had it shipped back to my house. I didn’t want to be carrying it the whole time I was in Okinawa even though it was only a few days. It didn’t cost as much as I thought it would have cost, so I should have bought more. I spent around $50 in total for shipping and the products and got about 7 things to give away and eat. After I made the purchase, I thought that I should have bought more since it was cheap and it was delicious. It looked very good too. They had a table where they were giving away free samples of freshly cut pineapple and you could find me there with other teachers and students chowing down on that. It was nice because the tour guide gave everyone discounted coupons for things that we wanted to buy, so it made everything even a little bit more cheaper.

Then we jumped back on the bus and went to Churami Ocean View Park on the northern side of the island. It’s a big aquarium that has some fishes and things that you can touch and other things. To me Sea World is a tad bit better and there are more things to see and do in Sea World in San Diego. But then again, I’m just spoiled like that coming from San Diego. But one thing that this aquarium had that Sea World doesn’t is the HUGE SHARKS and OTHER SEA LIFE CREATURES. I swear they were the biggest things I’ve seen in my life. I think that’s their claim as the world’s largest. They were fucking huge. The size of one shark had to have been double my size, at least. And that was just one of them; there were a few of those huge sharks in the tank. And there were huge sting rays there too. It was just absolutely amazing. Right after that, we went to see the oki chan show. I think it was a dolphin show that lasted about 15 minutes. Really wasn’t worth the time to see. Not impressive at all. It’s something that is unique that animals can do, but still, nothing I would spend 15 minutes to watch. But other people were impressed. But once again, I was spoiled by living next to Sea World for about 99% of my life. After that, we needed to round up the students to go back to the hotel.

The ride to the hotel took forever. I think it was about 2 hours to get there. It was at the tip of a remote island attached by a bridge to the main Okinawa Island. I think it was called Ikejima. We were at the very top tip at a place called Big Time Resort. I was surprised that the school would pick a place like this, not meaning it’s bad or anything, but just that’s it’s so far from everything, which was a bit nice since we pretty much had the hotel all to ourselves the whole time we were there. I mean there had to have been only about 15 other people at the hotel. I mean it was very remote. As soon as we jumped off the bus, we took our stuff and dropped it off in the lobby and went straight to the hotel restaurant to get ourselves dinner. It was chicken and rice, and a rather large chicken too. It wasn’t the best, but it was good. It was enough to fill me up too, so that’s important since Japanese food isn’t always enough.

When we finished with dinner, we went back to the lobby of the hotel to round up all our stuff and go to our rooms. Some students wanted to go swimming in the pool, but I think tonight, not many people did. I took a shower and got ready for the teachers’ meeting at the end of each day. I was watching a lot of TV too. The Japanese girls’ volleyball team was getting beat by China’s team. I was also watching a bit of the Air Force Network, that brings entertainment to my room via English. It was interesting to watch American TV again. I almost couldn’t get adjusted to it, and it was something strange to me. I was watching a bit of a drama called Las Vegas. Interesting show, I guess.

Then the male chaperones for the trip met at 9:30pm to go to the bar. It was only the guys at first because the guys wanted to drink a lot before the female teachers came. The female teachers didn’t come till 10:30pm and that’s when all the food arrived. I didn’t know that the other guys liked to drink Beer that much. I mean they drank a lot. The food that the bar served was pretty good. It reminded me a lot of Chinese food that I would eat when I was in San Diego during wedding ceremonies. So I ate that all up and really stuffed myself. I tend to do that quite a bit. We left around 11:30pm to go to bed and get some rest for the next day.