Pics #8









Update #8



We slept well & were ready to take off about 10 the next morning.  Our Airbnb host, suggested we go to the Shurijo Castle & the Udon Palace gardens.  We always like to get recommendations from the locals.  The castle had been the home to the reigning kings from the early 1400's until almost 1900's.  It had been almost completely destroyed during WWII.  It is currently being rebuilt…again.  It had been almost done several years ago when it was destroyed by a fire.  It was very similar to the castles we've seen in China & VietNam.  The gardens that surrounded the very simple & sparse Udon palace were lush. A pond with stone bridges was the centerpiece.  I could just picture elegant ladies in bright kimonos crossing the bridges.  We still had some sunlight & so we hopped on the monorail to see a bit more of the city of Nana.  It is full of tall apartment & office buildings as far as you can see.  I'm struck by the simplicity of buildings.  Usually cement & boxy with little to no decorative detail.  The cars too are simple & boxy and small.  Traffic was steady but hardly heavy.  Streets were clean but did see some storefronts that were not well kept.  It's hard to imagine what this island looked like just 75 years ago.  Virtually flattened.  We've only seen a small pockets of prewar buildings.  A big part of our draw to Okinawa was that my Dad was here during WWII.  I thought of him a lot today.  Especially when we saw the remains of a dug out tunnel used by the Japs (as he called them).  The tunnels were almost impossible to see dug into the roots & plants.  It's hard to wrap my head around what my Dad probably experienced here.  History books say it was the largest & most deadly in the Pacific front.  The castle we visited as tourist was actually the main fortress used by the Japanese in WWII.  My dad was also on Iwo Jima…where they famous picture showing the US flag being hoisted happened.  So imagine how strange it was to see the US flag flying next to the Japanese flag?  It's so difficult to see anything but politeness, kindness & peacefulness in the eyes of the Japanese people that surround us now.  How is it possible?

 

Update#7

We took a pause in our travels to visit with Jake's family near Pittsburg for a few days. We'd rented a room in a hotel with a pool & hot tub waiting to be used…which the kids sure did. For afternoon fun, we strolled around Cosco munching on the samples & then ate lunch there. Who knew that's what they'd want to do?? Sun night we took the kids home so they could get ready for Mon. Addie had to go to the hospital for her monthly infusion (to treat MOGAD) so Rog dropped us off around 7:30 & then took off to do some errands. He meet us back at the hospital around 1. Addie was finished an hour later & we all went back to Jake's so she could rest. We spent the next several days doing odd jobs & evenings enjoying Jake's family. It has seemed really weird to still be in USA this time of year! We are ready to dive into a new country!
On Valentine's' day, we were up at 3:00 to catch our 6:30 flight to Chicago. From there we climbed aboard our 13 hr flight to Tokyo. It was long…but fairly easy. That's when the craziness started. First our tickets to Okinawa did not show a gate number so we waited for the Departure board to tell us. An hour before our flight, we finally headed toward security. They said we needed to go to another terminal via a shuttle bus. Got there and up to security and found out our luggage, (which was clearly marked Okinawa) had been sent to customs in the first terminal. (Somebody should have mentioned to us that the bags would need to go through customers in Tokyo when they put the tags on our bags!). So back on the bus where we were went to info counter to help us. Luckily, two clerks walked us the back way to customs so we could get our luggage. By then of course, we'd missed our flight so we had to go to the airline counter to get new tickets. It happened but took another hour. Off to our gate we headed. Whew. Finally. Nope. Gate was changed so off we went again. We were exhausted by the time we loaded for the final less than 2 hour flight. Our Airbnb host picked us up promptly and soon we were in our room in his home. Two mats, low table, lower chairs & two kimonos. We definitely were dropped into real Japan…exhausted!
It was a Valentine's Day to remember cause it lasted over 30 hours!