- Life on an island.
- Having the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea literally a stones throw from our apartment building.
- How the ocean water surrounding the island was so shallow with all the reefs and rocks that you could walk for a mile out to sea never submerging past your knees.
- Walking out to the old clipper ship wreck that was visible from our porch. In fact, the clipper was our elementary school mascot.
- All the sea creatures we'd see on our sea-walks: Big fat, black sea cucumbers, those bright, electric blue fish and the spindly, skinny black sea stars that always creeped me out because I felt like they were reaching for me.
- The amazing and unique parks that Japan had.
- The slides. There were these enormous, smooth concrete slides that you would fly down and there were also roller slides that just consisted of tons of rolling bars that carried you down as they turned.
- The giant net climbing contraptions.
- Vending machines EVERYWHERE and for EVERYTHING.
- Always getting that strange soda from the machines called Pocari Sweat. Sounds gross but tasted great, sort of like Fresca.
- Getting my picture taken by random Japansese people because I was an oddity with my bleach blonde hair as a child and they didn't often see people like me.
- The abundance of beautiful temples and castles we visited.
- Visiting the caves from WWII that Japanese civilians hid inside during bombings.
- How, now, they are filled with long, colorful chains of origami cranes that were made in memoriam.
- The Japanese sextuplets who would come over for English lessons from my mom and doing crafts with them.
- The Christmas trees we made out of sea glass were my personal favorite.
- Walking to the Momma San store with my sister and always getting delicious blue bubblegum ice cream for a quarter.
- The fact that a 4 year old and an 8 year old could walk to a store together, completely safe.
- Home-stays.
- Which were young Japanese girls interested in learning English and living with an American family for a week or so to practice the language and learn more about the culture.
- Roller-blading on the roof of our apartment building. Or playing hide-and-seek with my dad and sister in the fading daylight.
- Hermit crabs everywhere! And getting one as my first pet ever. But thinking they were so gross when they came out of their shells to find a new one.
- Cowry shells everywhere too. They were so common on our shell hunts that we stopped picking them up.
- Finding conch shells and my mom taking them home and boiling them in hot water in case those poisonous little creatures were still living inside them.
- Almost daily earthquakes. But they were usually so small we hardly noticed.
- Typhoons and how we sealed the doors and windows with rags and duct tape from the flood waters and how the massive winds would still sneak through the cracks and make eerie whistling noises.
- Taking planes to mainland Japan and Korea.
- Snorkeling and coral reefs and white sand beaches that rivaled anything in Hawaii.
apr 5 2009 ∞
jul 19 2009 +
jul 19 2009 +