This is a little late, but I figured I could summarize what I was doing last week. May 3-5 were holidays in Japan, known as Golden Week. It's not a full week, cause work started again on the 6th, but most JETs take off Thursday and Friday to get a nice long vacation. Since all my money is going towards bike lessons and getting a new car, I didn't go anywhere, but that doesn't mean I didn't do anything.
Will, my friend from UF who is studying in Tokyo for a year, came to visit me for three nights. Because Okinawa is awesome, lots of Japanese tourists come to Okinawa during that time. The beaches get filled up with tents and the roads get crowded, so for us 'locals', we have to just ride the wave until everyone leaves. Will, thankfully, didn't really want to do anything. He was content just hanging out in the north away from all the crowds. When I went to pick him up in Naha, we stopped at Shuri Castle and Okinawa World (yes, Okinawa World), but the rest of the trip was in the north.
On Sunday, we went over to my friend Rick's place and bar-b-qued sausages and lounged around (drank) for most of the day.
On Monday, we took the 58 up to Cape Hedo, came down again along the east side of Okinawa to avoid the traffic in Nago, went to Motobu to see the aquarium, then past through Nakajin to avoid the Nago traffic again. When we got back to my place, it was almost dark, but we had driven completely around the perimeter that is the Yanbaru. That night, a few more friends came over and to play Street Fighter 2.
On Tuesday, I took Will to the airport and then met up with my Japanese teacher and her niece to go see the Ryukyu Kings playoff game. She is a 'Gold Member', which is something pretty cool I guess, cause it got us awesome seats on the ground floor and we were let into the building about 30 minutes before everyone else (it was really hot that day). As I was walking into the building, I passed one of my principals who was sitting on the sidewalk (I later found out for 2 hours) in the 'General Section' line. The opponent was Rizing Fukuoka, so I was cheering extra hard for us to win.
And win they did, so now they are off to Tokyo for a Final 4 equivalent. The niece also gets into all the after parties where the basketball players and, more importantly, the dancers sometimes show up.
On Wednesday, I went canoeing around Shioya Bay with one of my student's family. I put on sun screen, but my shorts road up, and I had a bad sun burn on my knees for a couple of days.
All in all, nothing too exciting, but that's the point of a holiday, I guess.
But if you want to know what is exciting (and a bit scary), check this out:
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