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December 17, 2004
Here I am in Naha, Okinawa. Arrived Tuesday, and the flight that morning from Haneda was the closest I've almost missed a plane ever. I lost some time somewhere (I still can't figure out where) and arrived at Minowa station at 5:40 AM for a 6:50 flight. Fortunately I made an excellent connection at Ningyocho and managed to get to the airport at 6:30. RAN up the escalator and through the lobby (which is not easy with three bags) and breathlessly handed them my credit card. They pushed my ticket back at me and I RAN to the plane, where someone was waiting to grab my luggage and shove me on. It occurred to me after I was seated (in the front row-- woohoo leg space) that no one had ever checked my passport or any form of ID at all other than my credit card. This sure ain't the states.
Takeoff was like a commercial for the airline. We rose into the sky and lifted above the first thin layer of clouds to a lovely view of Tokyo Bay and then lifted above another layer of clouds to watch the sunrise shine down on Mt. Fuji.
When I arrived I had lunch at A&W (BECAUSE IT WAS THERE) and wandered around for two hours looking for the hostel. By the time I arrived I was totally exhausted, and I think I reached some sort of psychic limit because I just kind of wandered around the city in a daze for the rest of the day.
Wednesday went to the Prefectural Museum. It was small but good. They were actually renovating about a third of it so on my way out I spontaneously offered to edit the translations of the displays if they needed help with that. I told them I was writing a thesis on Okinawa and blah blah blah and left my contact info. I don't think I freaked them out but I'm not very good at perceiving when I'm freaking someone out and when I'm not. Even when everyone speaks English.
Next was Shuri Castle (or at least the reconstruction; the US destroyed the original), which was very cool and I have tons of pictures. I'll post about it later.
Yesterday I took the snail bus to Itoman for the Peace Memorial Park and Museum, which was stunning and fantastic and I'll post about that later too.
Today was Okinawa International University library, which Jess Berlow (the KCJSer Fulbright scholar) recommended to me for research. So I researched and researched and oh boy did I research. Reading Japanese is VERY, VERY hard. You'd think I'd get tired of realizing that over and over, but every time I try to read a book in Japanese it hits me all over again.
Ate some very tasty donburi at a place across the street from the University called Restaurant Makishima. Everything on the menu was ¥350. Wish we had that at Northwestern.
Now I'm back in the Internet cafe in Naha, taking care of business. Man I hope the program takes my receipts for all this stuff.
Posted by Ben at December 17, 2004 06:20 AM
Comments
Are the root beer floats the same?
You usually freak people out initially, but that makes you memorable.
Posted by: Bagmom at December 17, 2004 12:10 PM
Hey Ben, mind if I use that Fuji sunrise picture for a new index? I think we need a little change to keep things interesting.
I'm sure reading Japanese is as hard as you say, but try reading Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio in old italian... I had to do that for a class I had last spring. It probably wouldn't have been as hard if I hadn't only taken one level of italian at the time, and the class hadn't been made for people who were taking italian 5 or above. However, I had and it had, but I managed to sneak my way in and convince the professor to let me stay, and even got an A(minus) in the end. Take that, academic system!
So the moral of the story is: don't read Dante in old italian and take advantage of the college system as much as possible.
Posted by: Nathaniel at December 17, 2004 01:55 PM
Original Dante? Yikes. I can only imagine. I'll remember that bit of advice.
Though I'm already following the second bit of advice to the letter. After all, who's paying for this trip again? Oh right, not me... ;)
Posted by: Ben at December 18, 2004 08:13 AM
The root beer's the same, though I didn't have a float.
If nothing else I'll take comfort in the fact that I scar the memories of every person I meet. ;-)
Posted by: Ben at December 19, 2004 07:15 AM