Tokyo II

I am finishing up my week of traveling by returning again to Tokyo. After two bullet trains and innumerable bus and subway rides, I would say Japan has lived up to its reputation of stellar public transportation - sorry Boston but it's going to be a little  painful waiting for the greenline after being able to spontaneously jump on a train that runs (on time) every 30 minutes - to a city three hours away.

Over the past week we have meandered through the temples of Kyoto, fed the deer that wander the parks of Nara, and  at delicious food in Osaka. Though I am missing being with family for thanksgiving I am so grateful to have had the chance to see some of this awesome country with great friends. Can't believe I have less than 3 weeks left in Okinawa.

Write more soon.

Tokyo

Okinawa and Tokyo could not be more dissimilar. I have been loving the smell of autumn, crisp air, and bright city lights. No really, the streets are lined with TV screens and there is music for everything from getting on the train to ordering Ramen.

I met up with my friends Alex and Mackenzie (also NU peeps) on Thursday and have since been making small tracks across this enormous city. From where we are staying in the busy neighborhood of Shibuya, to the older city and temple filled park of Ueno -we have ascended Tokyo tower, wandered through Tsukiji fish market, and got lost and wound up in Akihabara - a neighborhood filled with arcades and anime.

Headed to Mt. Fuji and then kyoto tomorrow!

(Longer post to come with pics)

Busy week

I only have a month left here :|

There are still so many things I want to do in Okinawa and a lot I want to get done in the lab before I leave. Highlights of the week: Delicious ramen, and I finally made some progress on the model I have been working on at co-op.

I'm leaving Thursday for 10 days on mainland Japan!-- Lots of updates to come.

Diving

The highlight of this week was definitely today’s dive trip. I ended up not going to South Korea with some of the other interns, but diving was my (really awesome) consolation prize.

Okinawa is known for its reefs and water visibility. I’ve been trying to get out snorkeling as much as possible but the good days have become fewer as the winter winds have picked up a bit more. It was gusting 40mph for most of the week so I wasn’t sure about going but I couldn’t have been luckier with the day –calm, sunny—really everything you would want.

I went with Reef Encounters, one of the dive shops around here that supports an English speaking staff, and hoped on a boat for a 1.5 hour trip north. In total we did three boat dives, mostly in the area between Okinawa Honto (the main island of Okinawa, where OIST is) and the Island of Iejima –which is awesome in itself because I would have never made it here snorkeling.

At the first two sites, the corals themselves were amazing.  We swam through the canyons between massive coral walls, watching fish schooling above and around us. I had forgotten how much I love diving, you can float inches above a coral, inspecting the individual polyps (sorry I started at NU as a marine bio major), or you can look out at the whole community, observing how far you actually are under the rippling surface above…50 minutes of awe.

Though we were warned of sea snakes we didn’t see any, but the third site was sandier and certain areas were full of garden eels! Also some overly friendly parrot fish.

Sorry I don’t have pictures, no underwater camera L but here is here's a video of a group of garden eels... because they’re pretty cool.