Al Hotel Fukuoka Ohashimae

... presence by the locals was very evident everywhere that we went.

We will miss Okinawa and hope that perhaps someday we can return to visit again. It was well worth it to make the trip down to this place not only for the warm weather and the friendly people but also to learn that, where we come from in Canada, we haven't known (and hopefully will not know anytime soon) the horrors that the ancestors of the people we visited experienced and still feel the pain from today.

... carnage that took place here -- basically a city the size of Regina wiped out during a battle that lasted several months. Let's hope that nothing like that ever happens again in this beautiful place.

To close out the day, we did something quite strange. As we were walking home we came across a small Russian restaurant called Perestroika. The sign on the front had a picture of Mikhail Gorbachev on it -- cheesy but strangely enticing nonetheless. We decided ...

... the US invasion forces landed near the end of the war. Apparently this was one of the most difficult and bloody battles of the Pacific War. It is hard to believe that this beautiful place was once a WW2 killing ground. Thousands of Americans died here and hundreds of thousands of Japanese died. I'm sure that the war memorials here will be very sobering.

It will definitely be an interesting couple of days.

... did all of our shopping in fast forward. On our way home, we stopped at the military exchange, the small American-style mall on base. My mom and I went inside to buy silk robes, like the one Julia gave me for Christmas. We also got books for our respective plane rides, and then went to dinner at Macaroni Grill nearby. It was absolutely delicious, and Riley was very funny. While Julia packed at home, my mom and I took Riley ...

... handled this very gracefully and eventually ended up running back and forth through it in her diaper screaming. If only we'd just skipped all the museum stuff and brought her right to the fountain!

FOr dinner we tried Obbligato, a Mexican restaurant as imagined by the Japanese. It was pretty good; I got chimichangas for the first time and they reminded me of eggrolls. We also had a pitcher of margaritas, so a good time was had.

... and a World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO. The garden had some Okinawan tastes and it was more like Japanese garden than Chinese one. There were twin limestone bridges on the pond: one bridge on the pond was interestingly rock-made and the other bridge was beautifully stone-made, which may have some meaning I don't know. Finally, I encountered Deigo, the Okinawan prefectural flower blowing in the spring. Usually I am not ...

... when we first checked into the room on the afternoon we arrived in Kyoto but having returned to a heat deprived room that evening we certainly did. So I called up the nice smiley manager and had a few questions for him as we stood there with our coats on in the room. "It's a bit cold here bud, what's the story with the heating?, I asked. "Heat here," was his response, pointing to the air-conditioning unit (which we now realised doubled ...

... so I'm guessing this must be a Korean thing. I should have taken a picture. Ashleigh dragged her bag into the line and sat back down. I then remarked that she was the only white person in the whole room. I think she's always vaguely concious of that. I know I was when I was in Eastern Europe and was the only non-white person many times. Ashleigh and I boarded the Jetto-bohtto and found our seats. Shortly after the craft started moving, a ...

... It became clear to me very quickly that nobody would be stopping anytime soon to rescue me from my boredom. I was on my own. I wandered around until night came and didn't have any luck with meeting people, but on the plus side there was plenty to be seen. The women in Fukuoka were so beautiful, and after two and a half months of Korean cars and architecture it was nice to see the variety they had here. Eventually I found myself at the Green Hotel, one of the places I had ...

... organized. And at the traffic lights, the same thing occurs, but here there is yet another feature. At the traffic lights, when the pedestrian light turns green, music is played at both ends of the crossing. The blind person only has to orient himself towards the music, and he will easily find the other side of the street, where the yellow line then continues. Similarly the blind person`s bray script can be found in many ...