The Beginning of our Island Adventure

Today begins the fifth day of our Okinawan adventure so we'd thought we'd catch you up on some of the happenings so far, starting from the beginning. (Be prepared for multiple writing voice changes as we co-authored this one). 

After saying goodbye to Rachel and Jenn at the airport, we began the long multi-stop trek to our new home--San Diego to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Okinawa. We left SAN at 9:30am on Sunday and finally arrived in Okinawa at 9:30pm Monday night. The trip was about 20 hours of travel/layovers and then you have to add in the +16 hour time difference from the west coast. The LAX-->NRT leg of the flight was the long one, at 11+ hours in the air, but it wasn't too bad.

And we're off!

 The coolest part of the flight was the Dreamliner plane itself.  Initially flummoxed by the lack of window shades, we soon discovered that we were living in the future when the windows...TINTED THEMSELVES!!!  You touch a little button at the bottom of the window at it goes from completely clear to almost entirely dark.  Fortunately we weren't sitting right next to a window or the entire flight would have been spent playing with this fanciful future-tech.  The flight attendants were great and brought us a drink, snack, drink, meal, and drink in quick succession.  They then auto-tinted all of the windows and turned out the lights to simulate night-time even though it was roughly noon and we were following the sun across the globe making it perpetual day.  The quick combo of food, booze, and simu-night was clearly designed to make all of the passengers go sleepy-bye.  However, there was quite a bit of television and film to be watched, and it wasn't going to watch itself (although on a dreamliner, it might just be able to do that).  Multiple movies and TV shows (and a few naps) later and we arrived in Japan.

Cheers!/Kanpai!

In the Tokyo/Narita airport we made quick progress getting through customs, grabbing our bags, and then progressing to the domestic terminal.  The Japanese airport workers were as polite, efficient, and helpful as advertised.  We arrived at the new gate and explored our first location in Japan a bit.  There was a Udon noodle shop and we got to grab some noodles and a beer.  We then settled into some seats and were immediately mesmerized by Japanese television (cute and/or weird mascots for everything!).  The lack of sleep and the fact that it was now midnight in San Diego finally caught up to us and we dozed a bit.  We then got on the flight to Oki and slept almost the entire 3 hour flight.

Tokyo/Narita food kiosk

A much needed snack

After arriving in Oki and retrieving all our of checked baggage without a hitch, we were greeted by by the smiling faces of our friends Amy and Eric to take us to our temporary lodging/hotel. Amy and Eric have been here for a year already and are both Navy physicians who we hung out with in San Diego, so we were immediately spoiled to have people we know help us with our transition from square one. And if that weren't enough, we have four other close Navy doctor friends from San Diego that are here too--MJ & Andy who have also been here for a year already, and Melissa & Jonathan who are starting this journey with us at the very same time. It might be corny but #blessed is a very appropriate way to describe how we feel to be here right now with all of these awesome people that we already know!

We loaded up the tiny cars (more on those later) and drove up the island to our temporary digs.  Our awesome sponsors (Adi and Amy) got us reservations at a hotel right on the sea wall!  It's a beautiful walkway/wall that holds back the East China Sea.  The hotel is was painted blue but otherwise blended in with it's surroundings.  Okinawan buildings are built to withstand typhoons (mighty smitings of the wind gods) so they are blocky and a bit weathered on the outside.  We were expecting a tiny Japanese room inside but we entered into a huge sitting area backed by a large dining table and expansive kitchen. Luxury!  It also has windows all along the seawall side so we can look out on the water.  We were duly impressed, but also duly tired.  So after much hugging, exclaiming, and laughing; Amy and Eric bid us good night (it was now midnight local time and....some other time SD time) and we hit the sack.

Our hotel during daylight hours

Then next day Brian began the extensive multi-day check-in process while Maureen went to get Japanese cell phones, hence the earlier post on how to communicate with us while we're here. Having phones made us immediately feel more connected and normalized so it was a good first step to get done. We didn't have to wait long to get our first full Japanese meal fix as we went to the restaurant Gen that day for lunch. Just like many restaurants in Japan the building is small with not much parking. This one is quite noticeable though as its roof is lined with cartoonish shisa in a variety of poses (more on shisa later, too).  We stuffed our faces with fresh rolls, gyoza, and sets (or combo platters), and left entirely happy and full.

The many shisa on the roof of Gen

That's all we have the stamina to catch up on for now, but promise to keep you posted. Take care, friends! We miss you!