Genkai Royal Fukuoka

... room checking out more robots, including ROBOVIE (a humanoid robot), Miuro (a wheeled robot iPod dock to follow you around... really!), SR-01 (a shallow, tractor treaded surveillance robot), PLEO (an AI baby dinosaur), and last, but not least, Paro (a therapuetic robot).<br><br>Finally, I perused the retail toy section. - LOTS of fun stuff there!:) Some highlights were the "2-LEGGED WALKING ROBOT," the "RESCUE CRAWLER" articulated tank-track robot, the "SOLAEMON-GO" solar-powered ...

... the scale of this tank. Truly extraordinary.<br><br>Our last stop of the day was at the Nago Pineapple farm. Pineapple and sugar cane used to be a couple of important cash crops here in Okinawa but, due to competition from lower cost suppliers in the 3rd world, are primarily grown today for the benefit of the tourism industry. It was interesting to learn more about pineapple (I guess that I could have simply looked this up on Wikipedia but definitely more interesting ...

... have supper there and were greeted by two Russian women who had moved here from Vladivostok to start this restaurant. Okinawa is definitely a very strange place to open a Russian restaurant. Given the difference in weather between Vladivostok and Okinawa, I can see though why these women learned Japanese and made the switch. We had the full course Russian meal consisting of -- what else -- borscht and pyrogies! It was just like being back in Saskatchewan! <br><br>

... it became very clear that our stay here on Okinawa will be a hot and humid one. The weather conditions are pleasant though and we are clearly enjoying this a lot more than than the current conditions on the Canadian Prairies. <br><br>Naha is a typical large Japanese city but it is evident that Okinawa is one of the poorer prefectures in the country. I had read about this in my travel research. If I had not read ...

... a walk to the playground in her extreme stroller. She and another very little girl played on the slides as we and the girl's parents raced around trying to keep them from falling. It was actually not a very toddler-friendly playground, as we had to scale a hill to get up there and navigate the stroller down a staircase to leave. Back at the house, we packed up everything, getting ready to say goodbye to Okinawa in the morning.

... it was a hot day made even worse by humidity.<br><br>The aquarium was very cool (especially since it had A/C, ha ha). There were lots of little exhibits to look at in addition to several big tanks that were chock full of fish. Since we were in Japan, everyone had a camera and crowded around to photograph every fish. Luckily, I was taller than almost everyone there, so I got some pictures too. The big tank with the whale sharks, rays ...

... from there took a train and bus to Kirishima-Yaku National Park, with also a few volcanoes. The closer I got to the national park, the worse the weather looked. In short, I walked five hours in the rain and was completely soaked. The moment I finished my hike, the sun started to appear... grrr! Completely wet I returned to Kumamoto. From Kumamoto I moved to Aso and Aso National Park - and yeah I know this sounds very funny in Dutch (aso being an abbreviation for an ...

... but both got a bit tired after the movie and decided to pick up beer from one of these 24hour shops. However, they cannot sell alcohol late in the evening / night. Our saviour was the vending machin in the lobby of our hotel.. not that we were desperate ;) After a beer each we fell asleep. In the morning we still enjoyed a Japanese breakfast, sticky rice with miso soup. Around ten we took a ferry to Busan, Korea. Surprisingly it takes only about 3hours. Get back to you in Busan.. Nora

... Back to the story at hand, after a few hours we said our goodbyes to the girls and left the bar feeling very good and very tipsy. We searched for vitamins to prevent hangovers, but couldn't find any. We settled on ice cream instead, figuring it was the next best thing. We got about a third of the way back to the hotel when all of a sudden Josh said that he really needed to go to the bathroom. I told him that we weren't that far away from the hotel and he said that he couldn't wait ...

... dinner to our house in Kronberg in June 2004. She displayed the slide show on her computer. While were looking at all these pictures, Mrs Tanaka brought out yet another very special surprise for me. A warm dish of red whole adzuki beans, slightly sweetened, and served with several balls of white shiratame. That was something special, that I had only last eaten as a desert in Kuala Lumpur. It seems to be a dish common to Malaysians and ...