Okinawa Day 12 - 14

We went South to go to the Naval Underground (Japanese Headquarters) and then to the Peace Memorial Museum. 

 The Naval Underground was interesting in that it was the last bastion as the Japanese retreated South from US forces. The headquarters was formally more central in Shuri. They used the Okinawans as forced labor to excavate the tunnels. It was all done by hand.

 Then we were off to the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum. Photos were not allowed in the museum proper.

There is a field of monuments with the names or the people (including the Americans) who died during WWII on the island. This was a proper lead in to our Memorial Day.

Link to photo album pass = Okinawa

Okinawa– Day 13

Pack it up. We also went over to the neighbors for dinner. It was enjoyable. It finally decided to rain steadily. We have been so lucky in that the weather has been agreeable the whole trip.

Okinawa– Day 14

Off to the airport. I understand the Japan had a 5.2 earthquake about the time we were landing in Narita. We did not even feel it so we were probably in the landing process.

We got the house about 4PM Tucson time and everything was fine. I ran off to the grocery store for lunch supplies after unpacking. I needed to get a few things before I sat down and passed out!

Okinawa Day 11

This day was a loaf around day. We went to the mall for dinner at the Kunigami Fisherman’s Wharf. I had the one person seafood course that had Salad Bar, Garician Boiled Octopus, Seafood Sausage, Seaweed and Anchovy Focaccia (bread), Kunigami Fresh Seafood Paella, and Homemade Teppan Crepe Suzette with Vanilla Ice Cream. All the courses were great! The chef decided to give me extra ice cream helpings probably figuring that I would have help. He was right!

Every so often, I would some teenager snicker behind me as I walked through the mall. I'm not sure why. Couldn't be the hat or that I am 6'7".

Okinawa Day 10

 The Ocean Expo Park was our next stop which contains the Churaumi Aquarium, Manatee Pool, Sea Turtle Pool, Dolphin Lagoon, Native Okinawan Village, and Tropical Dream Center.

There was a large flower shark and many other displays put together with flowers of other sea creatures. Not to worry, I broke that shark so we could ride him around.

We started out heading for the aquarium which is huge and is the only one that is big enough to house whale sharks. 

There are divers in the tank with the rays and whale sharks. One was filming and the other was cleaning the acrylic surface. I wonder if they draw straws to see who scrubs? The big whale shark is 8.5 meters long. The acrylic is laminated to about 60 cm thick. The aquarium introduces an open system in which sea water that is scooped from the ocean enters the aquarium tanks and then is returned to the ocean once again.

 Another aquarium section was the Journey to a Coral Reef which had sections on the Coral Lobby, Life in Inoh (touch pool), the Coral Sea, the Sea of Tropical Fish, Coral Reef World and Freshwater Life.

 No petting the sharks.

Journey to the “Kurosh” exhibited the Shark Lab, the Kuroshio Sea, and Aqua Room. Journey into the Deep Sea was the last exhibit area for the aquarium building with sections for Deep Sea Gallery, Small Marine Life in the Deep Sea, Deep Sea, Ocean Planetarium, Aqua Lab and the gift shop (of course!).

Next we were off to the Manatee section, Sea Turtles and then the dolphin show.

Lastly, off to the Tropical Dream Center! The entrance/gift shop is the Stained Glass Hall.

This is the ceiling!








This is one wall inside the hall.

The grounds were impressive with all the tropical flowers and displays. It rivaled the Botanical Gardens but in a different way as this was a much more intimate arrangement that invite leisure and contemplation.

The view from the top of the Observatory was impressive as it is about 6 stories tall and is already up on a cliff. You did not realize that the courtyard area flowers were in a heart shape until looking down at them.

This was a long but wonderful day.

More photos. pass = Okinawa

Okinawa Day 9

It is raining a bit this morning and mom is still sleeping. We will most likely blow off the Oceanic today and go to a museum to stay out of the rain.

We made it over to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum. It is split into two section with individual fees for each. 

They had a Disney section on the art side that was quite comprehensive. No further pictures were allowed in the Disney or the art exhibit.

There was also an exhibit on how some of the prints are made using a one-time mold of plaster. The steps involved were interesting:

·       Take a block of plaster

·       Carve it
·       Color with oil based crayons
·       Paint with oil paint
·       Set the plaster in water to loosen the oil
·       Remove from the bath and press the paper to it

There was a large expo on one of the famous artist that used this technique. There was another exhibit that was more permanent featuring a variety of artists.

The other side of the museum covered archeology, mythical, history, and other items of Okinawa. This was very interesting and some pictures were allowed.

Gods that visit villages!

We then went off to Gen to have sushi. They have a whole bunch of Shisa on the roof who all appear to be drinking or partying.

More pictures for your entertainment. pass= Okinawa

Okinawa Day 8

I haven’t found a formal name for the sports park we visited today. 

Daughter #2 goes there to walk the dog, feed the fish and collect coral/seashells. It was large and quite nice.

Time to water the dog.

We cleaned up and went over to the commissary followed with a trip to the AEON Mall Okinawa Rycom. This is a five story large mall with the fifth floor being all restaurants and great views. The mall has everything except large clothing. I have yet to find a t-shirt or anything that I can wear. Largest size is XL in most things. Waist size goes to 38. There were the usual plethora of women’s shops so Justin & I found a restaurant with a bar and had very nice hot Hakutsuru sake at Red Lobster. I don’t know if that is supposed to be a good sake but it hit the spot. Yes, go figure, Red Lobster. I understand that the food is not good compared to the other restaurants. The upside to the restaurant being empty was that the bar was also empty!

We then proceeded to see if we could walk all the floors of the mall. I think that we succeeded! The girls were quite busy shopping. I finally found something to purchase.

Awamori is a distilled version of rice wine that has some black mold in it. I had no idea if any of these will be good. We sampled the one on the right and I do believe it is an acquired taste!  

Trying to do a selective decipher from a translation app.

Middle bottle - Mizuizumi old wine 43%

Left bottle - Rui Izumi Shofuru – serve at 25 degrees.

Right bottle - Rui HR Izumi 30% recommend to dilute with hot or cold water. We forgot to dilute it!

We had dinner at the Wild Ocean Grill & Bar at the mall which interestingly enough had more steak than seafood. I had the Atlantic Salmon which was done very nicely. That was the best offering but seemed odd as we are surrounded by the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Oh, well. I also had some corn and potato wedges that came with it. I haven’t had either of these since August on my Diet of Nope. They really tasted good!

More photos here. pass=Okinawa

Okinawa Day 6 & 7

Day 6 (Sunday) was a lazy one. We went to the new five story Aeon mall and got to drive around it as all the parking lots were full.

It was a beer and barbeque day.











Now, day 7 was a bit busier as we went to Shurijo Castle in Shuri overlooking Naha and the bay. This castle was fairly trashed in WWII and has been and still is being restored to original condition. This was THE seat of power for the RyoKyo Empire for centuries.

Traded cameras with an Okinawan gent so we could take pictures of each other.

Long winding trail on the palace grounds,

Castle entrance

I found some new friends on the roof!

More pictures to browse. Password = Okinawa

One fantastic place after another!

Okinawa Day 5

Someone was a bit tired after hiking up and down the hills at the botanical so we went for easy today.

We went to the beach to hang out. The floaties are for the jelly fish net so that there is an established swim area. Most did not seem to car if anything was posted or not.

I found some rally large jacks along the breakwater. The ends of these "jacks" are about 6' in diameter. Some of the more adventurous teenagers were hoping from one to the next. I peeked over looking at them and you could definitely fall through gaps and become trapped. Hmmmm. Natural selection in progress. Nice artwork on the wall along with some graffiti. 

The sunset was cloudy but still nice.

The company was great!

On the way back we stopped at Tenkaippin for some traditional Ryokyo ramen noodles. Yum!

I found someone game enough to let me take a picture in the prop outside of the restaurant!

Okinawa - Day 4

Day four was a trip to the Southeast Botanical Gardens. On the way I spotted this, a Masonic Lodge not far from base. They are everywhere!

The botanical gardens were beautiful. Take time to smell the flowers! It was a series of one outstanding area to the next. They had an area to go view and play with some of the animals there. Pure tourist but still fun.

Daughter #2 found a new friend.

Let's see if this Photo Bucket works OK. Click here to see more photos.

Password is required for this folder. Password = Okinawa

Enjoy the photo album. Don't worry, there's more!

Okinawa!

Konnichi wa!
We are in Okinawa enjoying ourselves. Daughter #2 and her Marine husband are living here for another 1 1/2 years so we came to visit. The travel here was fairly uneventful. We made a mistake in terminals at LAX but had plenty of time for correction. I think that the US airports and airlines could take lessons from the Japanese on courtesy and helpfulness. Immigration and customs involved the a wait in line but it wasn't bad as it was only about 15 minutes. They were well staffed to move the crowd through. I remember waiting well over an hour in Santiago for the two rude men to process everyone.

We left the 11th and arrived the night of the 12th as Okinawa is 14 hours ahead of AZ. Our return is on the 25th, so we will arrive the same day. Our daughter wanted us to stay with them as they have an extra bedroom in their dwelling at Camp Foster. Mama and I we pretty tired from the travel but it quite nice to have someone pick you up.
We stopped at CoCo Ichibanya (Japanese curry house) in Chatan for some carry out on the way to the base. You can get your curry with a heat level rated 1 through 10. I was warned to try a lower number so I ordered #3 heat. The 24 hour temporary passes we needed were obtained on the way onto base. Once we unloaded every, we had a nice meal. Spicy! Glad I did not order a number 7 even though I like hot food.

The first day we went over to get our real visitor passes and stocked up the pantry by going to the Commissary and then offsite to a local grocery store (San-A). I spent time gawking around at the myriad of things I haven't seen before just like typical tourists then returned and just visited as we haven't seen out daughter in about a year and a half. I will have to find someone that can read Japanese to find out what this says.

It was in the section that looked like sake and tasted like sake. This department/grocery store had everything including a 100 yen section (think dollar store). I picked up a few veggies that I had no idea what they were along with recognizable stuff. I have a book on Japanese vegetables. Now I had to actually look at it!
The same goes for books on Japanese for Dummies and Japanese Phrases which I did not time have to look at prior to departure. The usual guesses at what the veggies were turned out to be pretty close. So we did not pick up something thinking that it was dragon fruit and find out it was some stinky ole thing.
This store had very little in English so you were on your own.

Day two was still pretty laid back as far as the tourist things went as Mama was petty tired, probably with a little jet lag. So she slept in while I set my alarm figuring that I will get on local time asap. A late lunch was procured at Sushi Go Round, a local restaurant where the food comes around on a conveyor. If you see something you want to try, just take it off the belt and go for it. Your bill is totaled up by the color of the plate.

Note the one plate sitting on top of a bowl. That is something that someone ordered special and you should not take it.

You use the touch screen to order drinks and special items. Drinks and soup are the only thing delivered by a waiter/waitress.

I started with a clam miso soup that was very good and had the best salmon and tuna ever. I tried a few other items and all was good except I have never developed a tasted for the bean past stuff (aside from miso) and probably won't. We spent two hours there and were pretty full by the time we left. Most items on the belt had a leading placard with English subtitles if you couldn't figure it out. The touch screen for special ordering had language choice. The screen would announce when your special order was nearing so that you could watch for the plate on top of the bowl. Slick! This concept is of delivery by conveyor is not unusual.

Yes, there are a few plates there and they aren't mine. We left with the equivalent of a $50 bill for four people. Very inexpensive compared to the US.
There are some higher end shushi joints that are substantially more expensive.

Day three was a trip to the Southeast Botanical Gardens. I will post that separately as there a lot of nice photos to review.

I will probably be head bowing for a week after I get back as I have already gotten used to it.
Ja mata.

Diet of Nope, Part V

Woohoo! 112 pounds down!

I am at my target weight which is the good news. The bad news is that I should probably lose a few more pounds to be where I should really be at.

The Dr. Gann’s Diet of Hope group only counts weight that you have lost since you started their program so this means that their log shows an 87 pound loss. The other weight was lost prior to starting this program. It would be a shame not to go for another 13 pounds because then they could get all excited about having another person with a 100 pound loss and the BIG GOLD STAR to put up on the bulletin board with your initials on it. I phrase it that way as they do get excited about it and I go, meh. I love the weight loss and the program but a gold star, even a BIG one, does not represent anything to me. This additional loss would put me at 250 pounds. Keep in mind that I am 6’7” so this is a good weight.

I will then be able to start bringing in some carbs and other foods that I like. It also means that weighing yourself every day is still mandatory to ensure that you stay at a stable weight. I had a cold frosty beer the other night to celebrate and it really tasted good! I will save the other Lone Star in the fridge for final weight. Yes, I said Lone Star. You know, “The National Beer of Texas”. I will pick up some more when visiting daughter #1 in San Angelo.

Now for some food comments……

Salad Dressings

Salads are a big part of your diet and I like salads. However, only being allowed 1-2 tablespoons of light type dressings per 4 quart mixing bowl of salad does not hardly wet the lettuce. I am kidding as to the size as my lunch is only a one quart bowl. Ranch dressing is out while on the diet along with Thousand Island and most of the “thick” stuff. I found some dressings by Walden Farms that are zero calorie so that you can actually put enough on to wet all the pieces!

·       Balsamic Vinaigrette – Good

·       Asian – Good

·       Zesty Italian – Good

·       Bacon Ranch – How could you screw up something with bacon? Apparently easily, as you can’t taste any bacon and the white part is water thin with very little flavor. What flavor that is there bears no resemblance to ranch dressing.

·       Blue Cheese – See above. That was the end of trying anything that was “white or creamy”.

There are a couple I would try if I find them at the store. One would think that the Raspberry Vinaigrette and the Italian Sun Dried Tomato would be suitable. The rest of the so called low cal are not as advertised. Look at the labels and they are only marginally better than their regular counterpart.

Bread/Tortilla

White flour is considered a no-no (white poison) while on the diet and there is no bread that I have found that qualifies. By law, bread advertised as “whole grain” must be 50% whole grain. Guess what the other 50% is, white flour of course. Bread made without white flour becomes quite dense. I made some bread one time for backpacking that was 100% whole grains. They were made like the shape of a large cookie to make them easier to pack away. You could face-off on the ice a couple of times with one of these before it broke! JK, you could actually break them up alright. The taste was OK but the texture was like sticking your head in a grain bag and having a bite. Don’t ask how I know this but it does involve horses and older siblings/relatives. None of the breads I have seen are qualified during the diet. Bread will wait until final weight and then only as a treat.

Regular tortillas are off the diet but there are some of the lo-carb smart ones I tried as a Sunday treat. It doesn’t matter if you are looking at Mission or La Tortilla as they are equally bad.

·       Carb Smart Tortilla – Plasticized texture with no taste. They even feel like plastic. I was going to throw the bunch of them away after one bite but my better half insisted that they might be OK and she would try them. She threw them away after her taste test.

·       Carb Smart Multi-Grain Tortilla – Slightly better than the above ones. You’ve got to have something to dip in your Huevos Rancheros on Sunday morning. They still suck.

I will look forward to a real hand made one from St. Mary’s Tortilla Factory as a treat. You can’t beat a large tortilla that you can see through made with all the traditional ingredients.

Pasta

Same as bread in that this is off the diet. I have found that I do like having spaghetti made with spaghetti squash instead of pasta. This is on the diet once in a while. This is about the only squash aside from zucchini and summer squash that is allowed. I do not like zucchini. This is just a prolific overproducing weed that I learned to dislike growing up in MI. In peak season you had to lock your car doors so that someone didn’t fill up the back seat of your car trying to unload this stuff. We did not have much money growing up so my folks would view this as free food and we would be fed a steady diet while in season. I have had it prepared every way possible, I think, and do not care for this tasteless veggie. Did I mention that I don’t buy zucchini?

I make a spinach lasagna that actually turns out quite good. Substitute heavy layers of spinach for the lasagna and use about half the ricotta normally used and use a low fat one. Layer the spinach, ricotta, meat/sauce, and reduced fat mozzarella as you normally would. Drain that spinach as much as you can as you don’t need any added water. The spinach brings enough moisture on its own. Also make your meat sauce thick for the same reasons. If you do not do this, it will taste ok but it will be sloppy.

Potato

You are out of luck. Potatoes are off the diet. An occasion (once a week) portion of yam can be OK but that is as close as you will get.

Sugar-Free

Regular sugar is considered another white poison on this diet and SF substitutes are to be used in moderation. I learned to tolerate the yellow SF packets of sweetener but have never liked the pink and blue. Splenda (Sucralose) was an accidental discovery that took place while trying to find a new pesticide so the molecular structure looks more like bug poison than sugar. I try to use it in moderation as I believe that all of it is rat poison. I tried the all-natural one Stevia. It is only so-so but still better than the pink stuff.

Watch out for sugar alcohol in the ingredients list of so called sugar free foods. It is not listed in the nutritional data so you actually have to look at the ingredients. If you are diabetic, this stuff can still cause a blood sugar swing. Overuse of these can lead to bloating, diarrhea and GAS because they are not absorbed in the small intestine. Let you give you a tip. You really don’t need anything promoting diarrhea and crepitating while on this diet as you already can never trust a fart to be just gaseous. TMI?

Examples of sugar alcohol include Erythritol, Glycerol (also known as glycerin or glycerine), hydrogenated starch hydrolysates, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, and xylitol.

I like black coffee but not all the time. It is sometimes nice with some of those flavored creamers. The good tasting ones have way too many calories in carbs.

·       Coffee–Mate Powdered Creamy Chocolate SF – Good but can only be used once in a while when still on the diet. Contains erthritol.

·       Coffee–Mate Powdered Vanilla SF – Good but same as above without the sugar alcohol.

·       Coffee–Mate Powdered Hazelnut SF - Ick.

·       Coffee–Mate Powdered Vanilla Caramel SF – Ick.

·       International Delight Liquid SF and FF Vanilla – I like it but my wife doesn’t like any of the International creamers.

·       International Delight Liquid SF and FF everything else – not so good.

·       Heavy Cream - Good but can only be used once in a while when still on the diet.

Butter

There is no substitute for real butter. I don’t normally like oleo and other petroleum distillates. The only thing that even approached the taste is the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. This is OK once in a while for some petroleum distillate.

Just don’t use so much of the real butter and enjoy the flavor.

Bacon

I can have a couple of slices of turkey bacon once a week. This I do not understand as turkey bacon has no dietary benefits above real bacon. You should go ahead and compare the two items for nutritional data. They are basically the same except that the data for turkey is two slices and for pork is four slices. I just have the regular bacon in moderation. Nope! You can’t have a ½ pound.

Salt

Another item to modify. All salt substitutes taste awful with most having a distinctly metallic taste. I suppose that you could get used to it but why? Unless you have a medical condition that says no salt, I would suggest that you severely limit your use of regular salt and at least get to enjoy a bit of the taste of the real thing.

I do not receive any remuneration, compensation or anything else from any company mentioned above. I doubt they would retain me after reading any of my evaluations anyways! Bon appetit! 

I Like Old 22s

I found another piece of history, or so I tell myself, to pick up and play with. A High Standard Sentinel R-103 is now mine. This is a double action 9 shot 22lr. It is calling me from the safe saying that we need to go out and shoot!