Weekend trip to Nago City

This weekend us girls decided to plan a trip to Nago.. a city just about an hour and a half north of Foster Camp where we live. A guy we work with volunteered to drive us, so we could save money on city bus and taxi fares. We woke up early Saturday morning, and all 6 of us packed into an 8 person van. On the way there, we had to pay toll to get on and off the expressway, which was very weird beacuse we don't have tolls like that in Iowa. When we got to Nago, we weren't exactly sure where to go. We stopped and asked directions to our hotel about six times, and after getting lost about ten times.. we finally found it.. but we couldn't check in til 3. So we left.. and after that, we went and attempted to find these castle ruins to go explore. We found where they were but it was huge and would take too long to venture through it.. and it was also like 95 degrees and we were all dying of heat. Then we visited a beach under this very pretty bridge! They were snorkels and goggles that people could rent, sooo Shelby, Sarah, and I decided to go rent some goggles and check out the coral reef nearby. The water was very shallow at first, and I almost scraped my stomach on the coral several times. We saw tons of fish like Trigger fish, sea cucumber, sea slug, sea urchent, star fish, clown fish, angel fish, butterfly fish, and some neon blue fish! It was so awesome expecially cause we weren't even very far off shore. Shelby stepped on a sea cucumber, and she got white gooey stuff all over her foot and was freaking out. It was so funny! Then, Sarah got attacked by a Trigger fish because it attacked her watch thinking it was bait. It was a really exciting experience, and we were probably out snorkeling for two hours. 

After that we went and got some food up at the shack on the beach. Everything was in Japanese so I just pointed to a picture that looked like Chicken and rice. Turns out it was curry and rice. YUCK! I hate curry, and it's very popular in Japan.. and I don't know why it's so nasty! After lunch, we went to go to this pier nearby and take pictures because the bridge was in the background so it was a really pretty picture. Then, these two Japanese boys jumped off the pier as we were taking a picture! So, obviously us girls all wanted to. The others were too scared to go first, so me and Shelby decided to go! I was a little scared to hit the bottom.. because I'm so tall. Me & Shelby held hands and I didn't hit the bottom! It was so fun, and pretty far down! We jumped off a few more times and it was a lot of fun. A couple of the girls scraped their knees on the rocks at the bottom but they were okay! We then went and looked at shells on the shore and found so many cool ones! I grabbed a lot to take home. I'm planning on grabbing shells at every beach I go to and putting them in a jar as decoration. After the beach, we traveled back into downtown Nago City to Pineapple Park. When we stepped out of the car the air smelled so delicious like pineapples.. obviously haha. It was 600 yen to take a tour and we got in this golf kart that drove itself.. bummer. I was so excited to get to drive. It took us through the pineapple fields.. from when the pineapples were the size of a quarter until they were full size. There were also lots of pretty flowers and plants, but the favorite part came after the tour! We got to sample pineapple juice, lime juice, and different berry juices. They were so good! The pineapple juice was so delicious and sweet so I got a bottle to give to Mom & Dad for 900 yen. If I don't drink it before it gets home ;) Then we got to sample pineapple cakes and they were so good also! After pineapple park Haley wasn't feeling good so we started to head back to the hotel. She thinks she might have tonsilitus for the third time... Yikes! On our way back to the hotel .. our chauffer.. Jess.. called his Japanese friend who lives in Nago. She invited us to dinner with her, which means we had to hurry and change then head back into the city. Sarah stayed home with Haley to keep her company. When we got back to our hotel we checked in.. finally! and.. we opened the door to a giant room with 6 tatami mats laying on the floor. We were all so excited! I will attach a picture at the bottom so you all can see what they look like. The room also had a low table with cusions for tradition eating. We had a toilet, sink, and no shower.. which sucked! It was still super cool! And way different than any of us had ever experienced!

Instead of eating at a Japanese restuarant like we had every other night.. Ayumi (Jess's friend) invited us to a taco restaurant which I was happy about. I ordered a few tacos and we chatted with Ayumi for awhile about things to do in Okinawa since she is a local. She told us a lot of fun activites and also taught us a little bit of the language. Like how you can say Domo which means a lot.. and Arigato means Thank you. So when you put them together it's thank you very much! You can also just say Arigato which means simply Thanks. We learned that Mosh Mosh means Hello, and Hi means Yes. When I was reserving the hotel for the weekend I had to talk to people who hardly spoke any English.. and he kept saying Hi to me when I would ask him questions. So I would say hello back. Now, I feel really stupid because he's probably wondering why when he said Yes, I said yes back. That was really helpful to know! After dinner we headed back to the hotel and crashed. We were all so exhausted!

The next day we got up early at 8am.. and headed to the aquarium which I was super excited for!!! It's the second largest aquarium in the world, so we knew it was going to be super sweet. We got there and it was super sweet. The first thing we walked into was a main area with a touching area where there were lots of star fish, sea cucumbers, sea slugs and we got to touch them all! It was super cool and the star fish were massive! The aquariums were sweet and had lots of colorful fish. We saw sharks, whale sharks, sting rays, manta rays, huge fish, crabs, sea snakes, shrimp, devil fish, bio-luminescent fish, and a lot more! It was all very cool! After we got through the aquariums it took us outside to go to the outdoor part of the park. We saw manatees, sea turtles, and then a dolphin show! The dolphin show was amazing.. except we couldn't understand the announcer so everyone kept laughing at his jokes and we had no idea what he was saying. Ha Ha.. Oh well! We really wanted to pet/feed the dolphins but couldn't figure out how to sign up and we kept asking people and they couldn't understand us.. sad. :( After the dolphin show we decided to go check out the beach! It was so pretty! The sand was so white but there weren't any shells so I was kinda bummed out because I wanted to collect some from every beach. We swam out to a docked hard raft and Me, Shelby, Breanna, and Kenzie layed out for awhile. I got a really bad sunglasses burn on my face and I know the kids are going to make fun of me tomorrow! After the beach, we left and got some lunch then stopped at a random beach to look for shells and Jess told us he was going to take us to a different beach but we couldn't find it! We were all tired out and kinda just wanted to go home so we just told him to go home. It was a very successful weekend, and I can't wait because we are going zip lining next weekend!