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 :)