Irasshaimase...to Okinawa!

Tropical island, palm trees, fishing boats -- just a few of the immediate words that sum up Okinawa. My sister is stationed in the US Naval Base on the island, so I came out here to spend a month with her. She has a cool little rice rocket for a car, and she lives in an apartment two blocks from the sea wall in Chatan (a short 15 minute or so drive from Okinawa's capital, Naha).

After spending the first couple days getting over my jet lag, I now divvy up my time between walking around the little city, trying out the various sushi and yakitori spots, and attempting to pick up some Japanese. I've learned that basic tasks are alternatively frustrating and amusing - I spent a good hour and half at the store just trying to find 5 ingredients because I can neither read labels nor recognize most of the goods on the shelves! The Okinawans find a way to package everything in neat little sterile packages. Doesn't matter if it's a couple tomatoes, a garlic clove, or a pound of meat -- it all gets covered in plastic. Then decorate all that with Japanese writing, and you'll understand why I can't recognize a thing.

View to the ocean from our porch
I can't be too upset considering this is my daily view, though. I take the dog out and we walk along the beach a couple miles until we reach the convention center and baseball field. The Okinawans love their baseball, by the way. There are always tons of kids playing and a good group of onlookers no matter what day it is.

My partner-in-crime, Scooby dog
Scooby has been my willing exploration companion and everyone loves this little dog. The poor thing does get pretty hot on our walks in this humidity, though, and I always end up carring him on our way home.

Lunch on the beach doesn't get much better than this

Napa - what?

Life has been uneventful (in a good way) after all my Chicago happenings. You might be happy to know that a) I got all my stolen wallet and credit card issues worked out finally, so now I just have to look forward to opening entirely new foreign accounts once I get to France, and b) I managed to get on that flight home to LA just fine. I realized that if I just wore the excess 20 pounds of luggage, I could actually lighten my load quite significantly and spare myself the embarrassing problem of finding other passengers to carry on my other bags....so yes, all those winter coats and jackets I had shoved into my overloaded suitcases? I wore them.

So for the past 2 weeks, I've been spending time in LA and taking some West Coast road trips. There must be some heat wave going East to West because I left NY on one of the hottest days in the summer (we hit 103 degrees), to land in Chicago which never fails to be hot and miserable no matter what time I show up, and then the day I flew in to LAX we hit triple digit heat that entire week. Ends out working pretty well because no job = ample time at the beach. So I've been practicing my boogie boarding skills in the meantime, eating legitimate Mexican food (which somehow I still couldn't find in NYC), and seeing friends and family.

I decided to spend a few days in San Francisco with friends. Because I always make travel plans last minute, I had to take a combination of flights, buses and trains to get myself up to SF. Taking a train at midnight always seems like a simple process, until I'm sitting in San Jose train station in the middle of nowhere, and wondering if I'll make it onboard since I forgot to print my ticket..


The Embarcadero and Market Street shops in San Francisco
Anyway, we were planning on spending time in downtown SF, hiking around Golden Gate park and doing a Napa vineyard tour. Luckily a friend of ours had a pass for a tour and tasting at Concannon Vineyards and we were all excited about finally getting to Napa country....only, it just so happens that Concannon is nowhere near Napa and is actually in Livermore. Now I've been up and down the coast of California and I've never heard of Livermore before. And who wants to say they went wine tasting in Livermore anyway? Sounds like a poor excuse for a real California wine tour, so we were close to ditching Concannon and heading up to 'legit' wine country.
Thank goodness we didn't change course, because Concannon is an absolutely beautiful place. It was founded in 1883 by an Irish immigrant, James Concannon, and is one of the few vineyards in the state to remain in continuous operation since its beginning (most vineyards ceased operation or completely shut down during the Prohibition era). So not only does Concannon have hundred year old vines, but they also have historical wine-making equipment and 16 of the original 20 oak barrels that James Concannon shipped from France so long ago. The vineyard has a spacious front lawn where the Livermore Historical Society holds summertime Shakespearean plays in the park...there's an old Victorian manor on site which also functions as lodging for vineyard guests and employees (it was bought by Joe Montana's wife, who was big into buying historical buildings and remodeling them)...and a nice restaurant for the touring groups in town. Who needs Napa anyhow? Livemore is the place to be!









Entrance to Concannon Vineyards

Chi-town mishap

Before we get to the exciting part and moving to France, I had quite a bit of troubles just moving within the US. You'd think I'd have the traveling part down within my own country, and be able to handle just about every situation after living in New York for a couple years. In my two years in the city, I had moved from uptight Wall Street to uber-clean Chelsea, managed a brief stay near bustling Union Square, and then rounded out my experience in Lower East Side. I loved the restaurants, side streets, and shady nooks of that pocket of Manhattan, but it's still struggling and I still wasn't entirely happy about the thought of walking around that area on my own.

Which brings me to my first travel stop after leaving Manhattan: Chicago. I manage to emerge safe and sound from two years in New York, and what happens?? I get my wallet stolen by a couple high school punks in Chicago. Chicago of all places! Where only 30 minutes before this incident, I had witnessed a random lady turning in an iPod to the bus driver because someone had left it on the seat next to her. You'd never see the same thing happen in New York, that's for sure. So I was definitely shocked when not only was my wallet stolen, but the thieves had actually reached inside my purse to take that wallet. Needless to say, the following week was spent visiting all my banks, sitting in the Social Security office downtown, and filing a variety of federal credit bureau reports to document the incident. Not exactly the best vacation, but it got the job done.

Other than that unfortunate episode, Chicago did have some interesting points:

1) The policemen ride four wheelers around town...not police cars, but four wheelers! Check it out:

2) People are also obscenely friendly here. Example: random people I don't even know will say hello when they walk by on the street. My response? A stare of disbelief, or perhaps a scowl. You never know how much New York is in you until you get tested by a stranger's hello.

3) The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is one of the best aquariums I have ever been to. They had a new baby beluga whale! And the penguins are one of my favorite animals to see...


4) The city smells like a giant brownie. After waking up to the scent of chocolate for the first couple days, I found out that there is a huge chocolate factory right outside of downtown Chicago. Waking up and falling asleep dreaming of chocolate is not too bad...

First post!

When I first decided to set up a blog, I didn't realize how hard it was to just write. It seems like such an easy task in retrospect, but I realized that I've never been one to write when I could just talk, so it figures that I haven't had much practice blogging since my phone was always within easy reach. Come to think of it, no one has complained that I'm too quiet since I was in grade school.

It took a country apart and huge ocean between for me to finally start writing, so bear with me and you might get a couple good pointers here and there. I promise I'll find some funny pictures to post for you as well, and I'm committed to getting my thoughts and photos online for you all this time.

It's officially the start of a new adventure, and I'm hoping this blog will be a great way to keep in touch with all my friends and family during this time away.

So here's to the open road, the new places, and the urge to JUST GO!