I am finally back on Izena after a bit of an adventure on Okinawa Honto (the main Okinawa Island). I left Izena on Wednesday to attend an orientation in Naha (capital of Okinawa) for new JETs. I used Wednesday to get myself a keiti! It is awesome, its 3G (as all phones here are) so I can browse a lot of the internet and watch TV, it can email (much better than txting), it has GPS and an electronic compass, an LED light, a 1.3 mega pixel camera (the most I saw was 3.2 in a camera here) and what sold it to me was that it is shock and water proof, awesome. Oh it also has some thing called live world which can show u maps and times and star maps etc. of anywhere in the world, random but cool. Anyway suffice to say, I like my phone! Ok so back to Naha and the orientation, well the orientation was fairly boring, it applies more to mainland JETs than islanders like me, but it was very nice to hang out with all the other JETs and speak lots of English! I had a particularly good, long, drunken night out on Friday with Brett and Andy, they are both islanders too and we were making the most of a night in the town! So after the orientation I went on a camping trip to Tokashiki, Brett’s island. I guess about 30 JETs went and it was amazing. The coral was much more colorful than on Izena, the northern island were hit much harder by the el-Nino a few years back. I got a disposable underwater camera so hopefully I can scan the pics once I develop them and show you the wonderfulness. I fell asleep at about 11pm on the Saturday, lame I know but I was sooo sooo tired from the night before and I hadn’t managed to have a nap during the day, for too exited too nap ;). So during the night a mosquito must have bitten me on the eye lid or near by, as when I woke up my right eye was swollen shut, it didn’t hurt but I looked hella-stupid J. I took the early ferry back on Sunday and the bus up to Naha to take the 3.30 ferry back to Izena, but the traffic was so bad I missed it. So I spent the night with Ben in Nago which was very cool as I had only met him briefly on Tokashiki, he is an awesome guy. We went to see a movie on the American military base in Nago with a couple of other JETs, slightly weird, one moment we are in Japan and the next America. Had to stand for the national anthem while the screen showed images of the American military blowing stuff up superimposed on a waving stars and stripes, interesting. The movie was the Ring 2, not quite as good as the Ring 1 but still nice to see an English Movie! I then managed to miss the morning ferry back to Izena on the next day (Monday)! We went to the wrong port and Bens car was having some issues with overheating, anyway it was all good I got to hang out with Roger (another new JET from San Francisco) in Nakijin (where my ferry leaves from) which was very cool. He is also a very cool guy. Members of his BOE took him and I around Nakijin castle, from which we could see Izena, and we also got taken on a tour of some Holy sites during which I got eaten alive my mosquitoes. I really don’t care much for mosquitoes. And then I finally made it back to Izena, met a New Zealand girl on the ferry, she was coming to site-see on Izena, so later that evening I took her swimming with me and some of the locals. Well that’s about it, back to work now, oh I also got my first pay check, so now more being frugal! Sweet. Take care y’all. First pic is of a cool shrine near my hotel in Naha, second is my eye all huge and swollen! Third is the beach on Tokashiki which we camped near by, viewed from the top of a rock I climbed and lastly a pic from Friday night in Naha.
