ウリカの旅行記: January 2015

Since I've come to Japan I've worked two jobs. One of them was the English Café, which I stuck out for two months and then dropped because the travel expenses were not worth the small pay. The other one, in stark contrast, is pretty much a dream come true!

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Since the beginning of December, I've been working at a private little nursery school in Neyagawa, about one hour away from my dorm. Unlike my other job, this one pays for my travel expenses so that's not something I have to worry about. I go to the nursery school 2 to 3 times every month to teach the children Engish in a playful manner and it's so, so fun!

I teach a class of 3 year olds and then a class of 4 to 5 year olds and I do it alongside my friend Sofia, who's from England and who lives in the dorm with me. We usually prepare little themed lessons with a bit of easy vocabulary, some songs and some pictures for them to color in and they seem to enjoy it.

The fact that I managed to get a job at a Japanese nursery feels like a tiny little miracle. I mean, people who know me know I adore cute little children so honestly, this job is like heaven to me. The children are really nice and aside from me teaching them English I feel like I'm learning Japanese from them as well.

The thing with these young children is that they don't really realize that me and Sofia aren't native Japanese speakers. These kids see us as people, just like everyone else (except they're mesmerized by my 'Elsa' haircolor). So when they talk to me they don't hold back whatsoever and when you've got 3 kids trying to get your attention and tell you a story at the same time, you can bet that's a great listening exercise!

After teaching our class we eat lunch with the kids as well (and it's actually really good food!!!) I'm pretty sure this is quite a rich school, judging from the food and the very generous paycheck I get. And on top of all that, the staff there are really, really nice! Our boss is even so kind to drive us to the station on our way back most of the time. I really hit the jackpot!! ♥♥♥

Okinawa seems to be one of those destinations in Japan that everyone wants to go to. I would call it something like 'the Florida of Japan'. Prior to going there all I knew about the place was this:

Initially I wan't planning on going there since it's quite far and I'm not much of a beach person, but one of my closer Japanese friends figured out a way to go incredibly cheap so it became an opportunity I couldn't refuse! The reason we managed to go really cheap was not only because we used the best websites for our booking but also because December is not a popular time to go to Okinawa.

Okinawa is all the way at the bottom of Japan, so the weather is good pretty much all year around. In the summer it's blazing hot, expensive and packed with tourists and in winter it gets to about 17 degrees celcius, cheap and not many tourists. So if you're okay with not swimming in the water during your stay I suggest going to Okinawa in winter. Seriously, the price difference is huge!!!

So, Okinawa!

The four of us took a plane at noon and arrived a mere two hours later. We took a bus to get a rental car and drove towards our first hotel. We were all pretty tired that evening so we had some nice chilling time at the hotel.

The next day we drove to Okinawa castle. It was a pretty hot day, I'm sure it was over 20°c! We walked around the site collecting stamps on a map and enjoying the sites. The view from the top was beautiful and I was really impressed by how gorgeous the nature was!

Collecting stamps! If you collected all of them you got free stickers so obviously we were on a mission.

HUUUUUGE SPIDER

We drove on a little further then towards Amemura (アメ村) which literally translated means: American village. I'd say it's sort of a strange equivalent to the China towns you have in a lot of Western cities. Okinawa used to belong to the United States, which is why the place is really foreigner friendly. There's a lot of Americans or Japanese-Americans and pretty much everyone there speaks English. As for what you can find in Amemura? American junk food and very kitchy American shops where they sell cowboy style clothes and other overpriced American brands, old records of American artists like Elvis or Michael Jackson, things with the American flag on it and even old McDonalds toys. It wasn't exactly my kind of place but it was definitely worth taking a walk around for.

Our second hotel in Okinawa was quite the upgrade from our first hotel. There was even an Onsen (public bath house) which I was in desperate need for since, despite the warm weather, the cold I'd caught back in Osaka had progressed into something more bothersome. The steaming water did my aching throat wonders!

We awoke the next day to the most beautiful view! I can't believe how cheap we got this hotel because it was seriously amazing!! We went for a long walk on the beach and found some shells and other sea things that I'd never seen before on a beach.

We then had to drive quite a far end but we made a pretty random pitstop along the way that turned out really cool. You see, my wonderful Japanese friend, Akifumi, who was our leader on the trip had found this place in his trusty Okinawa tourist guidebook. It was a restaurant that had really typical, authentic Okinawa food. We thought we'd just arrive at a restaurant like any other but the location turned out to be absolutely stunning!

There were all these little shops with yummy authentic Okinawa products (WITH FREE SAMPLES) and there was a beautiful pathway you could walk up towards a view of the valley below. We were a bit worried about the price of the food when we saw how fancy the restaurant looked but it actually turned out just fine! I call that place a very lucky strike!

Ice cream made with special Okinawa products: Brown sugar and pineapple vinegar!!

It was actually delicious!!!

Worried for the price of our lunch

But satisfied in the end!!

Our third hotel looked kind of odd but we weren't complaining. We toasted to another good day and went to bed (although by now I was feeling very sick, I was really happy and content).

Where we went next is.. well.. it was an od place, let's be real. It was called Okinawa Pineapple Park! We had no idea what kind of thing it would be but we figured it might be for children. Not letting this stop us, we drove up to the place with excitement. It was pretty hilarious.

Bacisally what happens at this park is this:

1: You drive a little van from the parking lot to the park itself while a really obnoxiously cute song about pineapples is played

2: you stand in line for half an hour (I can imagine it'd be 3 hours in high season) while that same song is played over and over again

3: you get to ride your own pineapple car through the pineapple plantation while a voice tells you everything you'd ever need to know about pineapples

4: you get to the giftshop which took us longer to get through than all the rest of the stuff because there was just so much!!

this song will be stuck in your head forever

I didn't even know how pineapples grew before I came to the park! On the way there we kept arguing whether they grew on trees like coconuts or in the ground like potatoes. We were all idiots. They grow on weird bush-like things like this!!

But anyways, the gift shop had pineapple EVERYTHING!! And they had free samples of everything too! First we tried out every single fruit wine they had to offer, then every type of pineapple juice, pinapple vinegar, pineapple cake, pineapple cookies, pineapple chocolate, pineapple sugar and oh also PINEAPPLES!! Needless to say we were stuffed by the end of the giftshop. We did end up buying some fruit wine for our last night together.

Our last day was spent first at the Okinawa Aquarium. It used to be the largest aquarium in the world until it was surpassed by an aquarium in Georia. Now, I'm really not a big fan of aquariums because I tend to get really emotional and sad for the fish (I know, I know, here she goes again haha) but seriously, these fish have no space to swim whatsoever it's so depressing!! So yeah.. I went because my friends were really excited and I didn't want to rain on their parade but I felt extremely conflicted being there (especially since I've been eating fish occasionally when I'm in restaurants here since there's no other choice and it just made me feel like a terrible human being)

But okay, enough about that melodramatic stuff! We went to the beach again after that which was once again beautiful, plus I had pancakes and that always makes me a happy camper!

We ended our last day with some souvenir shopping and went to bed after a relaxing evening together.

And that's about it ^^

It's been almost a whole month since I was in Okinawa and I'm already thinking lovingly back to that time! Even though I was pretty sick, I felt so relaxed and at ease. They say that's the Okinawa spirit you know? They say people in Okinawa generally live the longest out of everyone in the world because their way of life is so laid back. It truly feels like a different country too, to be honest! There's palm trees and foreigners and English everywhere! My favorite part was probably just how beautiful nature was. The sky was a perfect blue, as was the sea! I can't imagine a place like Belgium would ever have water as clear and blue as in Okinawa (seriously the Belgium sea looks like literal shit compared to Okinawa water).

Anyways, I'm really, really happy I went and I'm really thankful to Akifumi for organising the whole trip so well and Marianne and Matt for being such great companions! It was awesome!!!