From landing to the Present

It all started when we landed in Yokota Air Base in Japan just outside of Tokyo. It was so humid and hot, but the heat and the humidity were not near as bad as it was in Okinawa. After we got off the plane in Yokota we had to go through customs. After we got our passports checked we had to wait in a big room while the plane got refueled and more food & drinks were put on the plane (it took a little longer than usual, because they couldn’t find the part to hook up the fuel tank to the airplane – minor details). We then got back on the plane and flew to Okinawa. It was raining when we landed, but it was a warm rain, not like the kind we have in Seattle. We were then picked up by my dad’s principal and taken to the Hamagawa Lodge, which was our temporary housing for the next two weeks. In those two weeks we got military ID; you have to have it because you can’t get on base, go in any stores, and basically can’t do anything without it, registered us for school (which started on Monday the 27th), got a car, and got cell phones for my parents.

Also, while we’ve been here, my dad had his birthday, on the 16th, and I turned (drum roll please)…13!!! Yes folks, I’m 13 – officially a teenager now!! We ran errands all day on my dad’s birthday, and that night we ate at a restaurant called Okonomiyaki. It’s an extremely tasty and really cheap restaurant in American Village. American Village is a bunch of American style shops (very big and very crowded) that sell Japanese products. We thought it was kind of funny that it was called American Village, but we were the only American’s we saw there.

For my birthday we went to Churaumi Aquarium & Emerald Beach. It’s on the northern part of the island and it takes about an hours drive to get there. The aquarium was crazy AWESOME! It’s split into different levels, like the different levels of the ocean. When you first enter you’re in the coral reef. Then you go to deeper into the ocean and you finally get to a HUGE three-story high tank that’s full of giant fish and manta rays that are so big that Jess, Rachel, Tanner, and I could sit on them Indian-style! It also has, not one, not two, but three whale sharks! When we got out of the aquarium we got lunch and then walked to Emerald Beach. Emerald Beach has some of the whitest sand I have ever seen and the water feels like bath water. You don’t have to slowly go out into the water so that you can get used to it like in Seattle, you can jump right on in. That was on the 17th and we really didn’t do much until the 23rd when we moved into our house.

Our house is a duplex on the corner about a block and a half from the elementary school that Jess, Rachel, and Tanner go to. The street we live on (it’s actually a cul-de-sac) we call “Mormon Hill” because six families in our branch live on our cul-de-sac. Four days after we moved in (scary music) SCHOOL STARTED! I was so freakin’ scared because I knew nobody, and when I say nobody I mean nobody. I only knew a few of the deacons in our branch. We started school on Monday and on Friday a couple of the guys in our branch had a “We Just Survived the First Week of School” party at one of the deacon’s house. It was awesome! We played Super Smash Bros. and Naruto from 7:00pm to 11:30pm, and we got PIZZA! Then we had another week of school.

On Saturday for the Labor Day weekend we went snorkeling with my dad’s boss’s family to Zanpa Beach. Zanpa Beach is a really cool beach where the water is about the same depth for couple yards. There is one spot in the water where there is a big patch of seaweed with a big rock in it that had three sea urchins and a couple of fish living in it. As your swim farther out you get to see some other cool fish. Zanpa Beach was cool, but on Labor Day we went to Maeda Flats and that is more awesome than awesome. We also went snorkeling there with a family in our branch. We swam out about a quarter of a mile and under you is a huge drop-off. If there were no water it would be a big cliff, but since there is water it feels like you are flying over a canyon. There are tons of brightly colored fish and urchins and if you look off into the distance it just melts into a blue nothingness. As you look down, the water is crystal clear and you can see some amazing coral. We also walked over to Maeda Point and snorkeled there. When you get in the water you swim to a cave that’s a few yards away, and as you swim you can see scuba divers swimming under you. When you get to the cave it has a low entrance but then it opens up into a cave that has a lot of scuba divers and people snorkeling. As you go farther back it stops and you can get out of the water and walk up a path. I’m guessing that it leads up to the top of the cliff that the cave is under, but I don’t know that for sure because we didn’t go up the path. Later that night we went with a couple of families to a park that’s off base. It has two really cool slides; one of them is like a conveyor belt, it has little rods that spin as you slide down them, and the other is really fun because you hold onto a bar and drop about six feet and then the slide catches you and you slide down it.

On Tuesday we had to go back to school and on Saturday we saw “Aga-Boom.” Aga-Boom is a live performance that has clowns in it. Some people don’t like clowns, but these clowns are super funny and I can’t begin to describe how funny it was. It is based in Las Vegas and it’s a Broadway production so I’m sure it will be easy to find a video of them. Today is my mom’s birthday and we are also being hit by a typhoon right now. So she’s had a fun birthday. That’s it for now, check in later.

Reed (a.k.a Agent Dragon)