Typhoon Update

by Pa Rock 
Cultural Explorer

Current View from My Apartment

It is approximately 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Typhoon Kompasu is still dancing out at sea somewhere.  She was supposed to have hit at 9:00 a.m., but slowed.  I went to bed last night with instructions not to go into work today.  Just before midnight, one of our sergeants called with the weather update and said the plan was now to report to work at the regular time.  I got there early, a quarter before seven, and by 9:00 a.m. we had all been sent home again.  Now the projection is that Kompasu will hit Okinawa just a few miles north of Kadena at 7:00 this evening.  We'll see!

I sat through a major typhoon on Okinawa in 1972.  That one, Typhoon Rita, danced around the island for several days before finally coming ashore in the south and working its way up the center of the island.  We were hunkered down in a secure building on base when the eye of the storm passed directly above - roaring, then scary quiet, then more roaring!

Waiting for a hurricane is somewhat like the anticipation of a snow day.  Will it happen?  Will we be out of work or away from school?  When will life get back to normal?

Right now it is very overcast, but no rain.  I may get out and snap a few photos before the fun starts.

Typhoon Preparations

The Big Golden Arches

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


The sky is still a bright blue with scattered white clouds, but all  of that is fixing to change.  A typhoon is out in the Pacific preparing to blow across Okinawa at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow - fifteen hours from now.  It is now such a certainty that we have been told to plan on staying home tomorrow.  Our last appointments were cancelled this afternoon, and we spent some of that "free" time wrapping our computers and electronics in large garbage bags.

The typhoon was being referred to this morning as "Number Eight" by the local press - and I have no idea why.  Now it has been given the name "Kompasu" which apparently refers to some type of drafting instrument.  I had lunch down by the Sunabe seawall with a friend today.  We could see rain storms out at sea, and the surf was already picking up.

McDonald's at Araha Beach

I was able to leave work one hour early this afternoon.  I skipped the urge to drop by the commissary on my way home (it would have been hectic as people stocked up for the storm), but I got home and decided that I needed a few things.  There is a large grocery/department store about five blocks from where I live, so I took a stroll down there.  I found eggs, diet soda, and English muffins without any assistance, but I had to ask two different people about cooking oil (and am hopeful that I purchased the right thing), and I also had to be led to margarine.  One of the Okinawan shoppers who helped me stopped me on the way out to make sure that I had found everything that I had been hunting.  Nice lady!

The store is called Hamby Town.  It is five or six stories high with elevators and escalators.  I stayed on the ground floor which is where the groceries are located, but I want to go back in a few days and explore the rest of the place.

Meanwhile back at the apartment I am waiting to watch "A Touch of Frost," a British detective show, on the Japanese mystery channel.  Unfortunately I am having to sit through a half-hour Japanese infomercial on special rags that are used for wiping up dog pee.  Ugh!

I took a couple of pictures of the local McDonald's as I walked to Hamby Town.

A Walk to the Beach

Serenity by the Sea

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


This afternoon, following a day of laborious and monotonous unpacking, I gathered up my camera and a bag of cracker jacks and headed to the beach.   Along the way I met up with Bob, the bob-tailed cat that scrounges around the local restaurants.  He let me pet him so that he could get close enough to investigate what I was eating.  He chased a cracker jack down the sidewalk - it was fun to play with, but didn't ring his dinner bell!

Food Advertisement in Front of a Cafe

The tide was out, and the beach was quiet - almost serene.  A young Okinawan man was walking along the railing of the bridge that serves as an entryway of sorts to the sea.  I snapped a picture of him from a distance.  When I actually got up on the bridge, he was sitting in a folded position on the railing, contemplating life.  I chose not to be rude and snap another picture - which is a pity, because it would have been a great one!

An American family was walking along the shore hunting crabs, and two older Okinawans were sitting on the seawall fishing.   There were a few people swimming further on down the beach.

Shortly after arriving back at home, one of the Captains in my unit called and said that a typhoon is bearing down on Okinawa and could arrive tomorrow.  It might also just turn into a summer storm.  He told me to get prepared.  (I have plenty of groceries and books.  What else is there?)  The Captain told me that my friend from yesterday's medical drama is still in the hospital - ICU - and hopes to be released tomorrow.  (If the typhoon is coming, he needs to stay right there and let the staff wait on him!)

Araha Beach

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the typhoon update.

Island life!

Revisiting Camp Kue Hospital

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


Today I drove to Kadena to accomplish a few errands.  My first stop was at the post office.  Little did I know that it would turn into a medical drama that would last the better part of the afternoon, and also serve to reconnect me to some old memories of my stay here in the 1970;s.

Walking toward the post office, I discovered one of my co-workers sitting on a small wall outside in the sun.  I spoke to him and was surprised to find that he was disoriented.  The man has some serious health issues and has not been feeling well, so I was concerned,  After unsuccessfully trying to get him to let me take him somewhere, I was able to contact another co-worker and we sat with him until a passing physician got involved and called an ambulance.  My friend was taken to Lester Naval Hospital, the military's only complete hospital (the others are just clinics) on Okinawa.  Lester is situated about one mile from where I live,  When I was here before it was known as Camp Kue Army Hospital.

Later this afternoon another co-worker and I went to Lester to check on our friend.  We found him being treated in the emergency room and mercifully doing much better.  He will be in the hospital at least for the night.

As we were preparing to leave, the friend that I had ridden to the hospital with asked me if I would like to take a tour.  I told him that my oldest son, Nick, had been born in that hospital thirty-seven years before, and I had not been in there since we checked out  with him in July of 1973.  We found a diagram of the hospital and learned that Labor and Delivery was still on the fifth floor.  Arriving on five and stepping out of the elevator, I walked directly into the same waiting room where I had waited for Nick to get here those many years ago.  The furniture was new, and there was a flat-screen television on the wall, but it was the very same room!

The day Nick arrived I sat in that small waiting room, by myself, for about an hour and watched Sanford and Son on an old, large television.  I'm sure it was funny, but to this day I can remember a thing about that episode.  I had other things on my mind.

The Three Car Rule

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


I was on Okinawa almost a month before I started driving.  A lot of the delay was due to raw fear.  The traffic is slow, about 35 m.p.h. is the top speed for most of the island, but traffic is heavy, and many of the side streets are very narrow - and the little cars are everywhere!

Then there was that whole driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road thing, but that is just a question of practice and remembering where your hiney is supposed to be.

When I was going to orientation classes we were warned about the motorcycles.  Okinawan cyclists routinely drive between rows of traffic, so if there is a long double line waiting at a stoplight, multiple motorcycles will race up between the stopped cars and head to the front of the line.  They even zip between cars while traffic is moving!

And car drivers who are at the front of the line at the stoplight have more to worry about than just cyclists cutting in front of them.  There is apparently an unwritten "three-car rule," that says after the light turns green, a driver at the front of the waiting line can expect three Okinawan vehicles to run the light in front of him!

Driving may be slow here, but there is still plenty to worry about while puttering around this small island!

A Beautiful Day

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


The rain falls here, softly, quietly, unexpectedly - while the sun is shining.  It was one of those days today, with light showers weaving their way through the blue skies of Okinawa.

I am learning some new procedures at work, and several people have been very patient in teaching and reteaching me how to record complicated information into an inefficient and cumbersome software program.  I am starting each day earlier than normal, and staying much later.  But by the end of today I was beginning to feel some mastery of the process.

Maybe by this weekend I will be able to get out and stroll along in beach where I can soak up some of these beautiful island showers - and sunshine.

The Japanese Locked Door Mystery

by Pa Rock
Cultural Explorer


I have a car and an apartment, and I am enmeshed in a foreign culture.  Back home, in the good old US of A, I had this crazy habit of locking my keys in my car or in my house.  The habit got more pronounced as I aged.  Coming to Japan, I had a distinct fear of getting locked out of  my car or apartment, and I suspected that it would be much harder to gain entry in a land where people routinely refused to learn my language.

But I was wrong.

Istanbul Kebab House - a local business

Oh, the language barriers were real enough - and then some!  But what I have learned here is that Japanese technology, especially regarding locks and keys, far exceeds the minimal standards that are so common in the United States.

First, let's look at the difference in locking systems between the car I have now and the POS Chevrolet that I drove for the last few years in America.   Many times I opened the Chevy's door, flipped the lock, jumped out and slammed the door only to realize that my keys were still in the ignition.  It got so bad that I hid a set of keys in my unlocked out building at home and another set in my desk at work.  The Japanese solution:  My car here, an old Nissan Cube - older than my Chevy - has three door with locks.  If I jump out and lock the driver's door manually as I am exiting, the passenger door unlocks itself.  In fact, it is impossible to lock all three doors at once without using the key on the driver's side door.  It is so simple - wake up, Detroit!

My apartment has two exits, a door facing the elevator and stairwell, and a balcony with a six-story drop.  The apartment cannot be locked from the outside by any means other than using a key.  I cannot set the lock on the way out and slam the door behind me.  Granted, there are similar locking units in the United States, but they ought to be mandatory - especially for our fogbound senior citizens!

Simple solutions that work.  Of course, simple solutions cut down of the income of locksmiths, carpenters, and car glass companies.  As Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something!"