A New Friend

Friday morning I met another NCIS wife named Stacy. She is very energetic and the official "I Love Okinawa" welcome wagon! She picked Brady and me up Friday afternoon and took us on a tour off the beaten path. We went by an animal refuge center that had an ostrich, Llamas, goats, sheep, rabbits, and although we didn't see Friday, she said there are bulls that just roam through the farms. Very random place in the middle of nowhere! The parks had beautiful waterfront views, however the playgrounds were interesting. They had a small wooden playhouse, but the main attraction was a concrete ditch that ran down the mountain with rollers inside. Basically, it was a giant slide, so you sit at the top and the rollers make you slide very fast. Greg and I will have to try it sometime! We stopped by a lighthouse (the only one I have seen) and it was awesome. It sat up on jagged reef with the waves crashing below. It was fairly busy with people milling around everywhere, and with no sense of embarrassment a man stepped by a few trees and relieved himself. I'm not really sure why he didn't use the facility bathrooms just a few steps away. I guess he really had to go! Stacy has a history degree and she was spouting off all kinds of history details during our drive. It was very interesting to hear all she had to say, but I don't really remember much of it! Old age, I guess! The graves here are free standing structures for each individual family. They are made of marble or concrete and are clustered together on different parts of the island. Apparently, the first born daughter or the wife of the first born son has to clean the bones of the decomposed body, then the bones are cremated, put in a vase, and set on a shelf inside the family tomb. Glad I'm not the wife of the first born son!!