December 28, 2008

Yaejima Park
Yesterday we had so much fun finding different parks, that the boys and I went out again today. Mike had to work so we were on our own. We stopped by a park just outside Kadena- Rebecca and Angie had both told us about the park and the fun roller slide and drop slide.
This statue is along the street edging the park- I have no idea what it says, I just liked the style!
Posted along the fence to the park was this sign. I puzzled over it for quite a while.... I have to wonder about it- what exactly is the sign saying?? Does this mean you can't walk your dog here, under penalty of being shot?? Nothing written on the sign seems to match the picture, and the red X is next to the man walking the dog...not the shooter. Hummm....don't think I will take Ty to this park!

Here is the play structure you climb to go down the roller slide. This roller slide was great- long and fast! Most of the kids were using cardboard to sit on- I think it helped them go faster. This roller slide had smaller rollers than the slide at Wakamatsu Park- think that helped it be a faster slide too. One little girl had a plastic disk she was using- it looked like it was designed just for these types of slides. It was just big enough for her bottom and had a small handle in front to hold onto. Almost like a mini snow disk.

Here is the slide from the top- I'm ready to head down!You can barely see David in this picture- he is just coming around the curve on the left.
Matt had to try it head first.

Next stop at the park- the Drop Slide. I have to admit, I did not try this one! The boys were not impressed...I guess they were expecting more. David ended up twisting his ankle on his last try- but he did in the lower part, not the drop part.







After the Drop Slide Matt and I walked up to the top of the park (David opted out of this since his ankle hurt). There was a mini shrine up near the top.


A final set of stairs led to a little spot with a nice view of the city.

December 27, 2008

Comprehensive Park in Okinawa City

The second park we went to today was awesome! Definitely a park we will be heading back to soon. In the few hours we were there, we just saw a fraction of the park- it is huge.
There are miles of running and biking trails (including marked 3K, 4K & 5K courses), a track, a stadium, a carp pond, water slides& water park, paddle boats, miniature golf playgrounds, tennis courts, picnic areas....so much!

Our first stop was eating our picnic lunch. We felt like giants- all the tables (and other seating too) were LOW to the ground.

After playing football and Frisbee in the big open field we went through this torii gate

and checked out the carp. We didn't see any of the turtles, but LOTS and lots of carp! There were a couple of families feeding the carp so we hung around and watched.

They come right up- David was even able to touch one. They were almost cute as they begged...

but at the same time they are a bit freaky- they open their mouths really wide and make weird sucking noises...a little eerie sounding! I am hoping I don't have nightmares from that sound...




Next time we are going prepared with popcorn or bread to feed the fish (apparently you can also buy food from machines there too).

We followed the trail up over two bridges and found this in the middle of the tail. Looks like a sundial and compass.



This playground was wonderful- we had a great time climbing on this rope jungle gym. It was huge!








the trail we were on T'ed into a trail following along the coast line. These benches were sheltered by huge "oyster shells"- pretty wild looking.

By now the sun was setting and we called it a day. Heading back to the car we stopped by some soda machines to check out some of the different sodas- there were several we had not seen before. You just can't believe all the choices you have here for drinks out of vending machines! As I said before, the boys claim this is their favorite thing about Okinawa. We loved the look of these three...unfortunately we couldn't try them as we only had 90 Yen and a 500 Yen coin, and the machine would not take the 500 yen coin for some reason.