Adventures in Wellonsland: Time is running out

Sadly, this is our last full month on Okinawa and the days are just flying off the calendar. Too Fast!!!

It is pretty safe to say that Yoshi has had a pretty life altering experience since we picked up him crawling with only 2 functional limbs in front of the car 8 months ago. He has had his hip repaired, gained a canine brother, three human siblings, learned how to use a litter box, been micro chipped, suffered through several rounds of immunizations, plus neutering and next up will be having his front claws removed. Maybe we should have named him Steve Austin instead. We have gone round and round with this last procedure. No one is in favor of it, however, since we are living in houses that we don't own full of furniture/furnishings that we don't own, we also don't feel that we really have a choice in the matter. Catching him hanging from the patio screens don't really help his case. Enjoy it while it last Yoshi.

I have been trying to get a picture of the GIANT bats here in Okinawa since arriving on the island in August. They are pretty much everywhere but usually we see them flying and it is extremely hard to get a clear shot of them against the night sky. This one however landed in the tree next to the house as we were out one night walking Wesley before bed. I wonder if they eat the GIANT worms or snails?

As I stated in last month's blog, Lucy has been really concentrating on her artwork. She very graciously shared these with us. I am sure the vending machine and ramen bowl are directly influenced by Okinawa. I told her I wanted to figure out a way to have them printed and framed!

This brings us to Golden Week in Japan. I have been told it is the last week of April early May. It encompasses several holidays beginning the Emperor's birthday and ending with Children's Day. It is also generally a week of stores being closed and lots of people traveling back to their home prefectures (counties/towns). This year was more of a subdued celebration due to Covid-19 in that there wasn't the mass influx of travelers to the island. Children's Day is a day set aside to respect children and to celebrate their happiness. It is also a day to fly Koinobori or carp shaped windsocks. There is a special way in which you are supposed to fly them. The black carp (Magoi) is at the top and represents the father, the red carp (Higoi) is next and represents the mother. The blue carp represents the child (usually a son) and if there are other children then you can add a green, pink or orange carp on the pole. These windsocks are EVERYWHERE! Outside of stores, homes and especially schools.

So, Yoshi had his front claws removed. He seemed to take it in stride. The first couple of days he was a great patient, but as the week wore on, he began to lose his patience with both the collar of shame and the bandages on his feet. The Vet encouraged us to leave the collar on for 3 days and then to let him slowly pull the bandages off. Well within a 12 hour period of removing the collar the bandages were history!

Next up is Jim's 50th Birthday!!! Last month Jim felt that we focused too much on him with the hair and the hike and the injury but I can't not NOT mention this mile stone birthday. Sorry Jim! Unfortunately he had to travel on his birthday and didn't get home until after nine and the celebration was a tad less celebratory and more sleepy. He loved the awesome presents we had gotten him, but it was a bummer we couldn't do something more fun because of Covid -- maybe next year!

Poor Jim, not only did he have a less then spectacular birthday, he has to basically share the weekend with me because it is Mother's Day! This doesn't happen every year, but it does happen quite a bit. So we decided to splurge and go to the socially distancing brunch at the Officer' club. We haven't been able to eat out in a month so we felt very appreciative to be able to do this. Of course we still have to wear a mask when entering a building but once we were seated we were allowed to remove them. Since we were the last seating of the day we thought it would be OK to remove them to snap a few shots.

The school year is winding down for us here in Okinawa with really the only big thing left this year is the AP testing. Since it was announced that all test will be administered at the same time WORLDWIDE Lilly has been prepping to not just pass the test, but to acclimate herself to taking it at 5 am. Her teacher recommended she get up at 3 am to take a shower to wake up and have a healthy breakfast and then log in at least 30 minutes early to ensure she is ready for the exam. We were all surprised the College Board didn't change the time of the test for the students who were outside the United States. But I suppose the
"small percentage" of students it was affecting outweighed the trouble of them changing the test time to make it more fair for everyone. But I digress. The morning of Lilly's test, she followed all of the advice given and was up and ready to take it. We won't find out for at least a month how she did, but she feels pretty good.

One place that is consistently mentioned as a must do in Okinawa is the Peace Park. It is on the southern end of Naha where the final battle of Okinawa took place during WWII. Sadly (or happily depending on which Wellons family member you ask) the museum wasn't open due to Covid so we walked around the impressive grounds and tried to fill our knowledge gaps by referencing Google. Even though we did not get the full experience we (or at least Jim and I) were glad we made the short trip down to check it out.

Next we went in the opposite direction, all the way to the northern most point of the island, Cape Hedo, located within Kunigami Village, It is where the South China Sea to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east merge. It is also a pretty popular tourist attraction. There is a monument commemorating the end of US Occupation and the return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty. On super clear days you can see Yoron (Yoronjima) 14 miles to the North. We could just make it out in the distance.

There are several statues in the area, one of which commemorates the Friendship between Kunigami and Yoronjima. It is a "Kariyushi" which is a legendary animal (head of a rooster and body of a fish) native to the area. While we were out on Hedo, we saw a Giant bird statue on the nearby cliff, turns out it is an observatory (Yanbaru-Kuina) in the shape of a designated endangered species and symbol of the area, the rail bird. The bird was discovered in the 1980's and is very rarely spotted. We didn't know what it was or else we would have for sure gone over there. I am bummed to have missed this because the views are supposed to be incredible. Guess we will just have to go back!

We also saw this guy. Wish I had some info on it to share, but I don't.

You can't go north on Okinawa without hitting up a hike/trail. The kids enjoy a water hike best of all so we made sure to find one that allowed them to get wet. This one did not disappoint. The kids had a blast! After we let the kids wade around and jump off some rocks, we called it a day.

Ever seen a hermit crab out of it's shell?

We are trying to pack the schedule with seeing the sites, but there is no way we can see everything. We really are being cheated out of a year here and there is just so much more we need to see! I do hope we can come back and check off a few more boxes.

Lilly is 15. She will turn 16 while living in Japan. She can get her license at 16 but will be restricted to only driving on board a base. She is not anxious to get her license like I was at the same age. I have been trying to get her practice in the areas where no one lives on our housing development. She has reluctantly agreed. She did very well up until it was time to park! And even then she parked perfectly although she got a bit confused between the gas and the brake but she was going pretty slow so it was all good.

Next on the list is the Former Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters. This place has a pretty sombering feel to it. It is the site where the Former Imperial Japanese Navy made their last stand during the Battle of Okinawa at the end of WWII on June 13, 1945. The US forces were far superior and essentially the Japanese didn't stand a chance. The sparse literature available in English paints a pretty grim scene. Outnumbered by the US, the Japanese retreated to this secret bunker and never emerged. When the tunnels were unsealed in the 1950's, the remains of about 2,000 soldiers were found.

There is a museum on entrance level with pictures and relics of the battle. We then proceeded to go down the stairs into the tunnels.

The brightly colored paper is actually origami cranes strung together.

The tunnels have been largely left as they were found. You can clearly see where the pick axes hewed away at the rock. Also you can still see the pockmarks in some of the rooms where grenades were used by the Japanese to commit suicide. It is pretty gruesome.

One of the last things we needed to check off our list was to visit Heartbreak Ridge. It is only fitting that Jim has really made a concerted effort to increase our knowledge of WWII while we are living over here. Since this particular site is just a few miles away from our house, we definitely needed to see it.

On a much lighter note, the next day Jim took Ben and Lucy for a Memorial Day fly over of Okinawa with one of his friends. Ben got to get behind the controls and it totally made his day!

There just isn't enough hours in the day or days on the calendar to do everything we want to do. But we are trying!! Since the restrictions on groups has just eased up a bit, we decided to hit up Mermaid cove with some friends to get some last minute snorkeling in. We weren't able to make a family dive trip happen so this will have to do. I believe there is some go pro video out there, but I was not able to secure it.

Since Lucy's birthday is in July and we are either on vacation or moving during the summer, we usually celebrate it in May. This year we teamed up with two other families that also have some summer birthdays and did a joint bowling party! These kids all seem to genuinely like each other and relish every opportunity to hang out regardless of what crazy ideas the moms have. We will really miss these guys!!

Well, they did it! We finished out the school year. Some stronger then others but we finished none the less. It wasn't always pretty but 2019-2020 is in the books!