The Story So Far: Part 1


I need to do some catching up, so these first couple of posts are from when I first got on Okinawa. I arrived here in the afternoon of 9 October, 2009, after a 23 hour flight. I immediately went to bed in my room at the Barracks. The next morning, a friend of mine woke me up at 9am. "Let's go to Naha, and see the Tug-of-War Festival!" So we left and drove the 12 miles to Naha. The festival was crazy. There were street vendors galore and massive amounts of people. They had shut down the main intersection of Naha for this festival. You see, Naha is not a small town. I think the population is the same as Washington DC. So when they shut down this intersection, no cars were going anywhere.

One team was on one side of the intersection, and the other team was across from them. In the middle was this huge knot with a big ball above it. The team who pulled the knot to their side of the intersection wins the contest. As these teams are tugging against each other, the Town Elders are cheering them on from the Grand Stand. Sometimes these distinguished people were louder than the crowd! Once the team who pulled the hardest got the knot to their side, the big ball opened up and spewed confetti and other party stuff. This signaled the end of the competition. Now the crowd got involved and were allowed to pull on the rope. Eventually the rope was cut up and pieces of it were given to members of the crowd.

After the Tug-of-War festival, we walked down Kokusai Street. It is a street in Naha that can be considered their "Main Street." While there, we went into a market place that was "Underground." The most memorable thing I saw was a jar of Habu-Sake. Habu-Sake is were they put the Habu snake, which is very poisonous, in a jar of Sake. Upon leaving this marketplace, we saw one of the Tug-of-War teams putting on a show.

All in all, I have to say my first weekend on Okinawa was a blast. You can see all the pictures I took that day by clicking here. As always, a link to the ever changing map is provided below.

The Okinawa Expedition

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