We woke up early, stuffed our faces with our hotels all-you-can-eat breakfast, and were off to Okinawa’s Rizzan Sea Park Hotel located near the northern part of the main island.

Turns out that taking a taxi with 4 people is cheaper than taking the bus in Okinawa.

1 hour cab ride = $100/4ppl = $20

2 hour bus ride = $20/person

Taxi Shot!

Our driver for 1 hour... we had some good conversation!

It also turns out that the further you go up north, the more beautiful Okinawa’s scenery becomes. The area near the capital city, Naha, is very populated, so it difficult to see the islands natural beauty.

Driving along the sea

Essentially, our new hotel was like the one’s you see in the pictures. It was a beautiful resort, located on a beautiful beach, in a beautiful area of Okinawa. Our view was also spectacular!

7th floor ocean veiw

Anyway, as soon as we dropped our bags off in our rooms, we were off again. This time, snorkeling was on the menu!

Yup, remember the other groups I was talking about in my last post? Turns out a group of them were staying at the same hotel, so a couple of Kansai Gaidai’s joined our snorkeling team!

Welcome, Stephanie (Quebec City) and Victor (Sweden) !!!

Going Snorkeling for my first time!

Snorkeling was awesome! Lots of fish, warm water, and poisonous sea snakes. Yeah, thats right I swam with a poisonous sea snake. Ok… maybe not WITH it, but I definitely swam AWAY from it.

A good chance to use my waterproof camera!

Whooooooa!

Getting prepped to go under

Lots and Lots of fish

Fun!

Fish and coral reef

Check out my diving skillz

I fed some fish, fish.

So, after the 2 hours of snorkeling we washed our bodies and chilled in the hot tub at the snorkeling HQ. It was nice to have all that salt water washed off.

Salt water BE GONE!

We returned, took some more showers, and then all met up again to walk on the beach.

Darrel really wanted to have a beach bonfire party, so me, him, Prudence, and Liz searched for a prime location. Not even 5 minutes walk from the hotel, we found a little beach alcove with washed up logs perfect for sitting. We had found some prime bonfire making real estate!

Next, we gathered the wood, and decided to leave the beach cleaner than when we found it. We picked up enough washed up garbage to make two large heaps.

What good samaritans we are!

We just forgot to bring that garbage to a garbage bin…

Oh, well, at least the garbage was left in two large noticeable piles on the beach near the hotel. My guess is that Hotel will see them, and have a bit more incentive to pick them up.

Anyway, we prepared the wood so it would be ready for the night. One pile of kindling, one pile of burning wood, and finally three really really long unbreakable pieces of wood.

We then ate… at a really overpriced restaurant. It makes me angry just thinking about it. Damn tourist traps! We had too cook our own delicious meat, which there was very little of… ARGH!

We had to cook our own food... for a high price

Anyway, it rained. So, we all drank in the other Kansai Gaidai groups room.

It stopped raining at about 10, and I really really wanted to get that fire going, so I had to motivate nearly everyone to come with me to the wet outdoors. Most people are not willing to go sit outside for an extended period after it rains, I realized.

Finally, after a little convincing, 12 of us headed for the wet piles of wood that would soon be evaporated by flame.

Took me a good hour to get that fire going. No gas or nothing. Just wet wood, wet kindling, and dry paper.

People complimented me on my fire making skills, a skill, I told them, that I learn’t from my father.

Dad is always the one tending the fire!

Beach party!

MMM... Fire...