Monday, November 30, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009-

Tuesday morning started early- very early. Up by 3:45, to school by 4:30. On the bus by 5:00 as we drove to the airport. I stayed awake the whole bus ride but many of my friends crashed. I did catch a snooze on the plane, but it was still a full, full day! Check it out...
The whole school lined up in Tokyo's Haneda International Airport. It was so funny to see all of us dressed alike marching through the crowd. That's my math teacher with the surprised expression on the lower right
What do you know, everyone fell asleep (masks still on) during the plane ride
The beautiful Shurijou Castle of Okinawa
Before 1947, Okinawa was actually its own country. It was known as the Ryukyu nation and its king was appointed by the emperor of China. The king's extravagant, bright red palace is what we visited Tuesday afternoon
Me standing in front of the king's throne. Everything was so ornate and RED
A model of the Shurijou as the Ryukyu king is appointed by the Chinese emperor
After the Shurijou tour, we loaded back onto the buses where we drove a couple hours north to the city of Nago, Okinawa. As we drove along the coast it absolutely down poured. One highlight of the ride though was seeing a large brown island bird spiral above the rough sea, only to stop in mid-flight, plummet straight at the water, correct course at the last second before diving straight in. It came up a second later and flew off. I have no idea if it caught its fish, but in my mind it caught one "this big" (wings stretched out as far as the poor bird can reach).
Luckily, as you can tell from above, just as we rode into Nago city the skies cleared and one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen unfolded. The colors were even more vivid in real life.
A video from our first hotel room
An Okinawan sunset
The incredible sky
Certainly a day to remember

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