Haunted Hill

A little over a block away from our house is a hill, surrounded by a fence, that sits right in the middle of the neighborhood. We wondered what it was, so soon after we moved in, we asked one of the locals about it. He told us that it was called "Haunted Hill".... dun dun dun! There are usually kids playing around it during the day, so obviously it isn't that threatening, haha. We heard that they do tours of it around Halloween, which might be something fun to do in October. We were warned though, not to go wandering up there at night because it's a good habitat for (not just ghosts) but Okinawa's own little poisonous snake, the habu. Good to know. Anyway, I looked online to see if there was any actual history on this place and there actually was quite a bit. Here's the scoop on our neighboring hill....

"Close to the memorial on Hwy 329 is a hill which juts out of the ground like a monument, which in a sense, it is. The land was used by the U.S. military as a base; after it was closed, the land was turned back to the Okinawa government, who decided to use the land for a residential and commercial area. The large hill was to be torn down, and the demolition went smoothly until one section of the hill was reached. Bulldozers and trucks reached this portion of the hill, and things soon went wrong. On four separate occasions, someone died at the hill or there was a fatal accident during the demolition. The final blow was when one of the bulldozers rolled over and killed a worker. A tomb was later found in the hill, and there are now stairs that lead up to a shrine, and a fence was built around the now landscaped area"

Schan and I walked up the stairs to the top of the hill earlier tonight and we saw the shrine, but lucky for us, no habu snakes. I took a few pictures of the hill and I really wanted to take one when we got to the top, but my camera went dead... dang those batteries! Strange, because I had just replaced them yesterday afternoon. So we wander back down the stairs and took a walk around the neighborhood to find somewhere to eat... which ended up being McDonalds, yumm, haha (not really). When we got home, I took my camera out to replace the batteries and surprise! .... there was a nice fully-charged battery symbol on my camera screen. Hmmm, creepy :)

Other places in Okinawa that are said to be haunted- http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=3509

More house stuff...

We've been in our new house almost a week now, and so far things are going well. It's really strange being here without all of our furniture and other belongings, but hopefully our stuff will get here soon. The faster shipment with our kitchen gadgets, my computer, and other random small items should be here anytime. The bigger (sloooower) shipment will get here mid-to-late June. However, we won't have to wait much longer for living room furniture, yay! We went to a furniture store on another military base today and found this great leather living room set w/ sofa, love seat, chair and ottoman! I cannot wait for them to deliver it on Saturday :) We didn't expect to find anything this soon, but it was exactly what we wanted and it was on sale. So we'll have a nice furnished living room soon and will sit there and stare at our blank wall where our TV will soon be, haha.

I posted a few more pictures of the house and also one that shows the view of our street from the upstairs balcony. The neighborhoods are definitely different than what we are used to back home, but it's growing on us. The houses are mostly constructed of concrete to make them "typhoon proof".... good thing, because we're entering the start of typhoon season. Eeek!

Okuma Beach

Last Sunday (May 4th) we drove up north to check out the Okuma Beach Carnival. It was held at a beach resort/recreation facility about 50 miles from the base. A lot of events are held there throughout the year and they have camping sites too, so we figured we would check it out! Unfortunately, what we thought would be a hour's drive took just over 3 hours... yikes! Bad traffic had piled up on the main highway/toll road that afternoon, so we didn't get to the beach until 3pm or so. We had some pretty decent Thai food from the vendors... actually, it probably tasted better than it was because we were so hungry from the long drive, haha. By the time we finished eating, the weather started to get a little chilly, so we didn't do any swimming while we were there. But the beach was gorgeous and we were able to see a lot of the island during our drive. I'm starting to see why they call Okinawa the "Hawaii of Japan". :)

Houses and cars...

We found a house to rent and will be moving in on May 8th! I'm really happy with this place because it has the 3BR-2Bath we wanted, American appliances (whew), good closet space (very rare) and an awesome little landscaped yard... perfect for our patio stuff and a grill, but not so big that it will be a pain to mow, haha. The people who live right next door are Americans (can tell from the military license plates) but it looks like everyone else is the area are Okinawan locals. So it should be fun to see what life is really like away from the base. Oh, there's also a KFC about a block away, so that helps to make it feel a little more like "home".

We found a car too, a '99 Mazda Millenia, nothing exciting but it had low miles and was cleaner than most used cars around here. Later next month, we'll start looking for another one for me. I'm hoping to find something smaller because the Millenia is pretty big compared to what else is on the roads here.

Day trip to Naha

We had nothing planned for today, so we decided to venture off the base and drive south down to Naha, which is one of the major cities on the island. This was really our first little road trip into the "wild" and so we took a few pics along the way. The first amusing thing we saw was what looked like a Christmas shop with a little Santa guy, but if you look closely and enlarge the picture you will see the Bridgestone tire sign. Yep, it's just a tire and car repair shop that randomly decided to advertise using a holiday theme, haha. We've seen this everywhere in Okinawa.... random cartoon bunnies, cats, even Sonic the Hedgehog on electronics stores. Too funny!

Our next little mini adventure was trying to find somewhere to park our car. We found many parking garages, but no attendant in sight... darn! But then we see a parking lot that seems to have a machine resembling a parking meter by it. Hooray!! We can now park and find someplace to eat. So we park the car in a space that has a speed bump looking thing in the middle of it. Bad idea. Before we knew it, the metal speed bump tilted up off the ground trapping our car in the space. Should have figured out how to work the parking meter (all in Japanese) before we parked our car.... oops! However, after punching the buttons randomly a few (a.k.a around a hundred) times we figured it out and deposited 100 yen into the meter. I doubt I will ever know what prompts the little Japanese voice was telling me, but I do know that the yellow button is the magic one :)


The locals in Okinawa are extremely polite people and provide the best customer service I have ever experienced. The states could learn a thing or two from the people here. However, the "Engrish" is soooo funny. The housing agents have been so helpful, but you really have to hold back a laugh when you hear things like "This house great. You live long healthy time in Okinawa in this house." We also had a phone message from an agency saying "If you get message, we have nice place you rent, ok?" and in the background you hear this person's boss yelling "No, no, no!!" because he almost forgot to leave the phone number and agency's name. It's almost cute to listen to them try to speak English because they just giggle when they are frustrated. Anyway, the absolute best "Engrish" was found while we were walking downtown in Naha where the nightlife is. Rock crazy Okinawa :)







Motorcyclists here are nuts. They will drive right around you on the highway, in between cars... all over the place. That's another thing we'll have to get used to because it's scary when they just come out of nowhere, yikes! Oh, we also found the Harley Davidson store today. My dad will be happy about that :)

Our first week

We have officially survived our first week in Okinawa, yay!

The flight from Seattle to Okinawa was very long (about 16 hours including a short stop in Tokyo), but our anticipated flight boredom ended when we discovered that the plane had a nice little tv screen with movies on demand and trivia. Good times, good times.... especially for someone like me who is not a fan of flying.

Our first few days on the island were spent mostly with our sponsors, who were very helpful in showing us around Kadena Air Base. They also showed us what the local life was like off-base and to no surprise, it was overwhelming. Driving here is going to be quite the experience. I have never seen so many miniature Scion-looking vehicles in my life! But, very small 2-way streets = the need for tiny vehicles. We have already purchased one car here which will be Schan's.... a '99 Mazda Millenia. Another challenge here along with the smaller roads is that everyone drives on the left side of the road. It feels really odd at first, but after our 1 hour powerpoint slideshow on driving in Okinawa, we now have licenses and are expected to be "professional drivers". Hahaha, right.

We have done a little sight-seeing so far (Nago Pineapple Park and a neat Japanese antique store), but for the most part our week has been spent car shopping, house hunting and attending newcomers meetings on base. Things are settling down though, and the jet lag is gone. Hopefully next week, we'll start to explore our new home a little more :)