Okinawa in October

Sydney, Miranda and I recently met up with Brian in Okinawa for a mini-vacation after he finished up two weeks of working at the hospital down there. It was a fabulous time to visit Okinawa. The weather was perfectly warm without humidity. The beaches were empty because it was "off season." My only weather-related complaint is that I couldn't find a shovel and pail to save my life since the PX employee imformed me these items are "seasonal." At which point my first thought was, "Isn't it always warm in Okinawa?"

We got down to Okinawa a tad earlier than desired (thanks to the inconvenient "mac" flight schedule, more on that in a later post), so I had plenty of time to explore some things with the girls while Brian was working. And Sydney had plenty of time to accidentally lock herself in the bedroom of the BACHELOR Officers' Quarters (BOQ), which nearly got us kicked out. (I tried getting her to unlock the door and failed, so called the Japanese manager, who was more concerned about the fact that no children are allowed in the BOQ than he was that neither of the master keys seemed to open the door. After much deliberation about what to do, I tried one more time to get Sydney to open the door and voila! She listened to me and let herself out, solving only one of our problems.)

But from then on, it was mostly fun. I took Sydney to the "pirate ship park" and beach on her birthday. The girls and I also took a ride together in a ferris wheel for the first time. And we took our fairy princess and fluffy duck trick-or-treating for Halloween on the base.

Then when Brian was free, we drove up the western coast of Okinawa to Okuma, where there's an Air Force recreation center on a tiny peninsula. We stayed in one of the cabanas that overlook the beach and we enjoyed several activities including the buggy bike, go-carts, trampoline jumping (with a harness), a glass-bottom boat ride, and the beach, of course.

We also visited the second largest aquarium in the world, Churaumi aquarium. It was really fascinating and we most enjoyed the huge whale sharks and the dolphin show.

Now we can check Okinawa off our list of places to see. It was our last big trip within Japan, which is probably good since traveling is increasingly difficult with two children. But it is a little sad too, that we've really entered our final stretch.