Warm Weather

Today we arrived at Naha City in Okinawa. We flew from Tokyo in an ANA 747. It has been a really long time since I've flown in a 747 and (other than landing which I hate with a passion) it was a pleasure. The service on ANA is impeccable and the 747 (despite Airbus' development of the A380) is still the granddaddy of all airplanes. It was a pleasure to once again be on a 747.

Upon disembarking from the plane, it became very clear that our stay here on Okinawa will be a hot and humid one. The weather conditions are pleasant though and we are clearly enjoying this a lot more than than the current conditions on the Canadian Prairies. 

Naha is a typical large Japanese city but it is evident that Okinawa is one of the poorer prefectures in the country. I had read about this in my travel research. If I had not read about this though, I probably would not have noticed this at all - the signs that this prefecture is a bit behind others are subtle. A shabby building here, some litter in a river there - things that one tends not to see to such a degree in other parts of the country. Nonetheless, this is quite a nice place and definitely a sub-tropical paradise.

Cockroaches... ugh... We are definitely in the sub-tropics!

We will definitely see a lot more of rural Okinawa over the next couple of days as we go on two guided tours. One will be up to the north end of the island to an aquarium and a pineapple farm. I am sure that once we get outside of Naha City that we will see the true tropical paradise aspects of this island. We will also be spending some time outside of the city on the south of the island. There is a lot of World War II history here as this south end of the island is where the US invasion forces landed near the end of the war.  Apparently this was one of the most difficult and bloody battles of the Pacific War. It is hard to believe that this beautiful place was once a WWII killing ground.  Thousands of Americans died here and hundreds of thousands of Japanese died. I'm sure that the war memorials here will be very sobering.

It will definitely be an interesting couple of days.