March 18th '06- Evening in Mihama
We asked the clerk at the desk where to go shopping - where locals shop, not tourist trap areas. Based on his advice we headed out to an area called Mihama. It was formerly known as Camp Hamby, a helicopter base but when the U.S. Military closed the base and turned it over to the Japanese it was turned into a huge modern shopping area. Unfortunately, Rob forgot to bring the camera which I thought he did on purpose and didn't remind him that it was next to the front door so we don't have any pictures from that night. First impression was a big fairgrounds. We just started wandering around in a daze, most definitely looking like the tourists that we were. (I was kind of glad at that point that Rob forgot the camera or we would have actually looked even more generic than we already did!) The first place we wandered by seemed to be a home depot - the sign was orange but in Kanji so we could only guess. We wandered around some more jumping over mud puddles to carnival looking buildings. We checked out a bowling alley. It was noisy and colorful and I instantly felt out of place because people were staring back at us. It looked like a bowling alley at home except for the orderliness. The bowling balls were grouped by size and color in organized clumps almost like clusters of grapes since most of them were purple. My OCD friends would have really appreciated it! Each ball seemed to have enough holes drilled in for the entire hand. If I hadn't felt so uncomfortable we might have stayed longer to see how they actually bowled with them.
We went outside and into a bigger building where the crowd seemed to be an equal mix of American military and Okinawans. On the tiny island (60 miles north to south) there are still in inordinate number of U.S. military bases, mostly Marine, but all four services have some type of facilities. Inside we found huge karaoke places and a store with giant stuffed pokemon, hello kitty's and even a Bob's Big boy. I never quite figured out what the store was supposed to be about. It was a candy/junk/souvenir/sake store. There was so much in there that it was overwhelming. They even sold packets of Hello Kitty curry! And there was a whole store dedicated to cell phone straps. We decorate our keychains, the Japanese decorate their cell phones. Everyone has a cell phone and they are bigger than ours because they are designed to do everything - even watch videos! If they do laundry I'm in ;) Vending machines and arcades are everywhere! The Japanese are nuts over vending machines. There are whole stores dedicated to vending machines, completely unmanned - just vending machines. It's kind of unnerving. Like Hal is watching. You can win everything from stuffed animals to noodle bowls to big bags of potato chips in the arcades. Picture booths are also a favorite past-time. There was a huge area of the mall dedicated to picture booths - you can even rent costumes to wear for the pictures. It seemed cruel to make the kids just "window shop" in an arcade universe so we walked outside. At the top of one of the buildings was an enormous ferris wheel but with a storm coming we figured we'd pass on that ride. The wind is really whips in Okinawa!
We decided to walk across the street to where a crowd had gathered. As we waited to cross a scooter went by with two people riding it blasting rap music. It seemed so out of place amongst the little shoebox cars that we started giggling. Rob commented that no matter how you soup it up it's still just a scooter :)
The crowd had gathered around a street performer. He was very funny even though we could only understand a word here and there. He had a rope and this bowtie shaped rubber weight that he would toss in the air and catch on the rope. It was pretty impressive. For his next trick he dipped some wands into gasoline type liquid. He jumped on a unicycle. The most amazing feat of this trick was that he managed to light the wands in the whipping wind before juggling them. Just when we thought we was finished he hopped off the unicycle and drank down a huge gulp of the nasty oily looking liquid. He must have accidentally swallowed it or waited too long because he went back to the jug and took another mouthful. It had to have tasted nasty! Then he climbed on a railing which was scary because if he had fallen backward he would have been toast. But he managed to keep his balance and breathe fire. It was definitely awe inspiring!
We were all hungry but not feeling terribly adventurous we decided to eat at McDonald's. The girl showed us a menu that we could point to. It closely resembled what we were used to with a few exceptions. There was a teriyaki burger and something that looked like a hamburger with an egg on it. It seemed that eggs were part of every menu we saw- overeasy on noodles, etc. Rob ordered a Happy Meal and was directed to pick out his prizes from the bins behind him. Can you imagine that at a McDonald's at home?? I get to keep his hello kitty toy :=)
Before jumping into one of the waiting cabs we stopped by Starbucks because we collect Starbucks city-themed mugs. Rob started this when he bought us a couple in Qatar. The Starbucks was entirely patronized by Americans. While the Japanese will drink iced coffee like it's going out of style they don't seem to care as much for hot coffee drinks. They just don't know what they're missing! We found what we were looking for and jumped in a cab leaving the bright lights behind. Robert's head rolled around next to me in the back of the cab as he fell asleep. When we got to the hotel he woke up enough to walk inside and get in the elevator. Some Japanese girls got in after us and I noticed them looking at him and nodding at each other to look at him. I looked in alarm to see if he had something on his face as any mother would, but Rob told me when we got to our room that they were admiring him. He does kind of look like a Japanese cartoon with his big doe eyes! I think I'll hold tighter to his hand when we go out from now on.
We went outside and into a bigger building where the crowd seemed to be an equal mix of American military and Okinawans. On the tiny island (60 miles north to south) there are still in inordinate number of U.S. military bases, mostly Marine, but all four services have some type of facilities. Inside we found huge karaoke places and a store with giant stuffed pokemon, hello kitty's and even a Bob's Big boy. I never quite figured out what the store was supposed to be about. It was a candy/junk/souvenir/sake store. There was so much in there that it was overwhelming. They even sold packets of Hello Kitty curry! And there was a whole store dedicated to cell phone straps. We decorate our keychains, the Japanese decorate their cell phones. Everyone has a cell phone and they are bigger than ours because they are designed to do everything - even watch videos! If they do laundry I'm in ;) Vending machines and arcades are everywhere! The Japanese are nuts over vending machines. There are whole stores dedicated to vending machines, completely unmanned - just vending machines. It's kind of unnerving. Like Hal is watching. You can win everything from stuffed animals to noodle bowls to big bags of potato chips in the arcades. Picture booths are also a favorite past-time. There was a huge area of the mall dedicated to picture booths - you can even rent costumes to wear for the pictures. It seemed cruel to make the kids just "window shop" in an arcade universe so we walked outside. At the top of one of the buildings was an enormous ferris wheel but with a storm coming we figured we'd pass on that ride. The wind is really whips in Okinawa!
We decided to walk across the street to where a crowd had gathered. As we waited to cross a scooter went by with two people riding it blasting rap music. It seemed so out of place amongst the little shoebox cars that we started giggling. Rob commented that no matter how you soup it up it's still just a scooter :)
The crowd had gathered around a street performer. He was very funny even though we could only understand a word here and there. He had a rope and this bowtie shaped rubber weight that he would toss in the air and catch on the rope. It was pretty impressive. For his next trick he dipped some wands into gasoline type liquid. He jumped on a unicycle. The most amazing feat of this trick was that he managed to light the wands in the whipping wind before juggling them. Just when we thought we was finished he hopped off the unicycle and drank down a huge gulp of the nasty oily looking liquid. He must have accidentally swallowed it or waited too long because he went back to the jug and took another mouthful. It had to have tasted nasty! Then he climbed on a railing which was scary because if he had fallen backward he would have been toast. But he managed to keep his balance and breathe fire. It was definitely awe inspiring!
We were all hungry but not feeling terribly adventurous we decided to eat at McDonald's. The girl showed us a menu that we could point to. It closely resembled what we were used to with a few exceptions. There was a teriyaki burger and something that looked like a hamburger with an egg on it. It seemed that eggs were part of every menu we saw- overeasy on noodles, etc. Rob ordered a Happy Meal and was directed to pick out his prizes from the bins behind him. Can you imagine that at a McDonald's at home?? I get to keep his hello kitty toy :=)
Before jumping into one of the waiting cabs we stopped by Starbucks because we collect Starbucks city-themed mugs. Rob started this when he bought us a couple in Qatar. The Starbucks was entirely patronized by Americans. While the Japanese will drink iced coffee like it's going out of style they don't seem to care as much for hot coffee drinks. They just don't know what they're missing! We found what we were looking for and jumped in a cab leaving the bright lights behind. Robert's head rolled around next to me in the back of the cab as he fell asleep. When we got to the hotel he woke up enough to walk inside and get in the elevator. Some Japanese girls got in after us and I noticed them looking at him and nodding at each other to look at him. I looked in alarm to see if he had something on his face as any mother would, but Rob told me when we got to our room that they were admiring him. He does kind of look like a Japanese cartoon with his big doe eyes! I think I'll hold tighter to his hand when we go out from now on.
posted by Melanie at 9:03 PM
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