Happy Halloween!

I have celebrated Halloween many times in the past week. Below you can see: the jack o'lanterns we made in class, volunteers from Meio University dancing to "Thriller," some kids at a Halloween party, a kindergartener trying to look sexy, and my school of 4 kids playing a Halloween game. In case you can't tell, my costume is Japanese Elementary School Student. I am wearing most of their sports uniform- the hat, shirt, and shoes.

Last weekend, I went to Tonaki Island (inhabited by only a few hundred people) by ferry. The ride was a bit rough since the waves were 4 meters high. I almost lost my breakfast. It was really, really close. While I wasn't concentrating on the nausea, I was able to take a picture of the pretty view. Tim calls this water "smurf blue."

The visit to Tonaki Island was much nicer than the ride there. We rented tiny, battery operated cars so we could see the island. Jon gave us a tour in about one hour.

After snorkeling, BBQing, and generally relaxing, it was time to head back home.

I've had enough of these bugs!

I had a bad dream last night. A giant spider, about the size of a large dog, was trying to eat me. Shudder... I decided to do a bit of googling to see if such spiders could actually exist in Okinawa. You never know when there is a sub-tropical jungle in your back yard.


At first I thought I had made a mistake by searching for "giant spider." I found some quite disgusting pictures. Vomit vomit. And one picture (see below) which is surely not a giant spider. I've killed 3 or 4 spiders this size in my apartment.





But the good news is that I think I've identified Mega Spider. Apparently, the biggest spider in Okinawa is called the Giant Wood Spider. Its size is about 7 inches (I assume in diameter) and spins a web that can be up to a meter in diameter. Apparently the web is very strong and can trap small birds and bats (although probably not Okinawan bats since they are cat-sized). Also this spider is somewhat poisonous and has large fangs. Maybe it was this sort of spider that webbed my car to a tree...

Get out! Get out!

I can hear them. Crawling around at night. How do they get in my apartment? I can hear them scuttling and scratching on the other side of my rice paper sliding doors. The other night, one flew at my head. I didn't know they could fly. Everywhere around me I hear the scratching scratching scratching. Why do they take so long to die when I spray them?

It's picture time!

Since a typhoon canceled my weekend trip to Ishigaki, I ended up being a tourist on my own island instead. I headed south with some friends to Onna Village. We had lunch at a restaurant with a lovely ocean view!

Then we went to Ryukyu Mura to see how Okinawan life used to be back in the day. We saw a Habu vs. Mongoose show (my second!). At this show, we learned that Habu have strange eating habits. Sometimes they eat each other, and sometimes they drink cats!

After wandering through the village, I decided to try my luck. There was a small machine that gives you a fortune for 100 yen. When you put the coin in, the machine makes a noise like a doorbell. Anyways... my fortune (lucky number 13) was supposedly "quite good." But it said that in everything I do, there will be danger. So like many people who visited the village before me, I left my "quite good" fortune on the roof of a traditional Okinawan building.

Next I found a funny looking shisa and a water buffalo!

And then, under the watchful eye of a giant shisa, it was time to see the sun set along the coast.