This post was recovered from an old blog that I had while studying abroad in Japan. I’ve only updated misspellings or dead links, but left any cringe worthy things or immature thoughts. I’ve decided to leave them as a snapshot of who I was and to see how far I’ve come. Any photos have been freshly edited and so are not the same as what was originally posted. Over the years I had several blogs, most lost to time, and I wanted to recover some lost memories and reflect on my life.

he next day we woke up got our things together and headed for the beach. A couple of friends went to get the rental car and it took longer than expected so we decided to have lunch before leaving Naha. When Travis and Ryohei went to get the rental car they saw a place that had Okinawa Soba for pretty cheap so we went there to eat. The place was kind of like a Matsuya, where you go in, put money in a machine, press the button of the dish you want, and give the ticket it dispenses to the staff. After sitting down I realized I hadn’t ordered Okinawa Soba but a fried chicken rice bowl. The chicken turned out to be pretty good though and I was satisfied with the food. The Okinawa Soba did look good though.

With bellies full we piled into the rental van, just as the clouds began to part. With the sun shining the air became very hot and humid, making us want to swim even more. The van full we set off through Naha, heading north towards the beach. Everyone was in better spirits as the weather had cleared up. We had the windows of the van down, letting the hot air blow on our faces. After an hours drive we began to smell the sweet ocean air. All around you could see sugar cane fields, the long green stalks blowing lazily in the ocean breeze.

Along a straight length of road a couple roadside fruit stalls appeared. As we drove by the girls in the back yelled “Stop!” Their voices had a seriousness to them, as if we didn’t stop they would murder someone. Ryohei quickly put on the brakes and we all jumped out of the van and ran to the fruit stall. There was actually only a watermelon and sweet potatoes at the stall, but one friend, Aiya (pictured), loves watermelon. We asked the old man tending the stall for one of the melons, he bagged it for us and we were about to leave. Then we realized we had nothing to cut the watermelon with so we asked the man to slice it up for us. He quickly went to work chopping and slicing the melon, then passing the pieces out. We all devoured a good bit and then tried to figure out where to wash our hands, which were by now sticky will watermelon juice.

The man walked us over to nice roadside ditch, full with clean water and sketchy little wood platform. One by one we climbed into the ditch and rinsed out hands off, some of us nearly falling into the little pool of water. With our hands cleaned and huge watermelon smiles on our faces we thanked the fruit stand man. Everyone hopped back in the car laughing about the girls screaming and talking about how good the watermelon had tasted. Then we saw clouds in the sky and decided it would be best to not stop again until the beach, just in case the sun sprinkles decided to make another appearance in our Okinawan story.