Beaches and Birthday

Araha Beach with Bride in Background  

We’ve been spending time at the beach in anticipation of returning to the Key where all the beaches, boat ramps, and the state park are closed because of the virus. We walked over to Araha for some exercise, then spent the next day back at Sea Glass Beach.

Bella has turned into a great beach comber, willing to wade in deeper than her pants will stay dry.

Doorway of Lanterns  

At night we went to Murasaki Muri to the Ryukyu Lantern Festival. Besides hundreds of lanterns in the trees and across walkways, there were contest lanterns, some cute, some serious. Dancing pigs, historic castles, cartoon characters.

This evening the entertainment was hula dancers, including a group that danced to “Amazing Grace” being sung in Japanese, truly cross-cultural.

Hermit Crab Choosing New Home  

Today, we visited Sunabe Beach which has flat seaweed-covered rocks with shallow pools where we watched little Gobi-like fish dart around. Some were cleaning out their holes, then backing into them. In the sandy area farther out, I found quite a few cone shells which had hermit crabs in them. One was checking out a new house. I think it was cleaning the potential shell, then it lined up and slipped its body over to its new home. Certainly an easier and quicker move than we will have.

Sunabe Memorial

Fighter Ready To Land At Camp Kadena. 

At the corner of Sunabe is a bronze bas relief with a US soldier on one side and terrified people on the other to commemorate, if that is the word, the invasion of Okinawa in World War II and the 150,000 Okinawans killed. The caption read, in part, “Based on the experience and reality of the Battle of Okinawa, we will correctly convey the absurdity and cruelty of war to the next generation.” If only it were heard.

Overhear, fighter jets prepared to land at Camp Kadena.

Yakiniku Grill  

Mary’s birthday celebration was lunch at the Yakiniku restaurant she likes near Kadena base on 58. (Since the name is only in Japanese, that’s how they refer to it.) We had the all-you can-eat in 100 minutes for ¥1500. Using a tablet, we ordered the meat we wanted to the waitstaff to bring, them we grilled it on the in-table grill. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The aged Kobi beef was a hit. As a sop to nutrition, Grant ate bowls of kimchi, and Mary had a salad. Ryan and I had rice. Bella ate little hot dogs and corn.

At the end, we had vanilla, chocolate, and mint ice creams with little waffles. As if we needed more.

Happy Birthday 🎈🎂 

No dinner required tonight. But we did have a birthday toast with Summer Snow, the sparkling wine we bought at Pineapple Park. It tasted of pineapple without being cloying.

It is also Ryan’s father Tom’s birthday so Bella got to sing to him too via WhatsApp. He will have a birthday lunch with daughter Carly in Fort Myers, FL.