TOSHI's DAIRY
2010 .January
2009 October 2010 Ｆｅｂｒｕａｒｙ
January 29th (Fri.)
I went to Kanazawa University to attend the presentation of Dr. Dissertation. As I had a time there, I had a meeting with three students who were preparing for their master course thesis and bachelor course theses. We discussed many items for three hours before Dr. course student’s final presentation. They understood my advices and they made promises to revise their theses before their presentation which they would do in February. They must have been busy preparing for their research results.
Dr. course student’s presentation began at 3 o’clock and ended at 4:20. After that, we had a party for Dr. course student and enjoyed talking in downtown Kanazawa city.
January 26th (Tue.)
I got up early in the morning and had breakfast. This was the third time and we found that breakfast menu was different from other days. We enjoyed eating breakfast. As we ate breakfast around 8 o’clock, there were many people eating breakfast. We enjoyed eating breakfast and returned to our room.
As we had a lot of time by leaving here, we enjoyed drinking coffee and beer and seeing the sea. When I looked at the sea, I found the Zanpa cape far away and the light house.
We left the condominium for Naha Airport by way of the Moon Beach Hotel. As the shuttle bus bound for Naha Airport left the moon beach hotel, the condominium person took us to this hotel. It was fifteen minutes at this hotel and we looked around the hotel owned private beach and saw blue sky and green-blue sea. It looked nice.
When we arrived at Naha Airport, we asked up-grade seats of ANA flight. We had up-grade point which would be expired in two months. We could get wide seats and ate lunch.Trip to Okinawa 2010
January 25th (Mon.)
We got up 6 o’clock in the morning and ate breakfast at the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel. It was very delicious. We could find many foods, such as Japanese foods and western foods with various kinds of fruits and drinks. We made a plan of going to Manzamoh cape which looks like a shape of elephant. We left the condominium at 9 o’clock and arrived 9:30 am. Fortunately we found some vacant parking spaces and parked near the trail. We began to walk and somebody said to me “Hi Kanai san”. I was very surprised to hear that. I realized he was the same company’s person and lives near my house in Chiba. His wife and he walked in the same trail. There were so many people who visited there early in the morning. It was so crowded that we were only following many people. There were many buses parking and many people were walking and took pictures of Manzamoh. I came here about more than 35 years ago and his wife also said that she came here about 30 years ago. It sounded interesting.
After that, we went to Bankoku Shinryokan next to the Busena Hotel. This place was used for the Summit meeting in 2000. The many pictures taken during the summit meeting were displayed in the meeting room. The summit was held by host person Mori. Before the summit, Obuchi who did his best for the summit died. Instead of Obuchi, Mori took host of the Okinawa summit. This place is also famous for the good view point where we can see great coral reef and Nago city. We drank mango juice at the cafe and we were relaxed seeing great view of emerald green sea. Then we drove to Yae-dake which is famous for cherry blossoms in full bloom at the end of January. The weather was not so good, but many cars went up and we found that many cherry blossoms were in full bloom. These cherry blossoms were a little different from Yae Sakura in Japan. The color of cherry blossoms was pink colored. We were very surprised to see cherry blossoms in full bloom in this season.
We went down and dropped in the Jasco Grocery store in Nago city and bought some of foods and gifts. Then we ate Sanuki Udon. We returned to the condominium and took a rest for two hours. The weather was not good and it was raining. Before dinner, we went shopping to Max-Value Grocery store. It was the last dinner of this Okinawa trip and we wanted to eat in our room and drank Awamori.
January 24th (Sun.)
We got a rent car at 9 o’clock at the condominium front and drove to the Zanpa Cape where a hotel person recommended the day before. We could find very beautiful scenery of the sea from the cliff. We went up the light house which was located at the edge of the corner. It was hard to climb up, but it was worth while to going up and could see a great view.
As we understood the scenery of the cape from the top of the light house, we decided to walk along the cliff and saw the green colored sea. There were not many people walking and felt very relaxed. The trail was well maintained and easy to walk. After that, we went to Murasaki Mura. There were many old houses during the Ryukyu era. We felt mood of the ancient Ryukyu era. We had lunch in the village and we went to Ikei Island passing through the road cross the Kadena US Army Base. There was a long bridge between Okinawa Main Island and Ikei Island and took pictures of the bridge and the coral reef sea and then went to the Ikei Island. Before going to the Ikei Island, we passed near the Okinawa Sekiyu which is a subsidiary of our company. The Ikei resort hotel was located in the cape of the island and we could see a very fine view of the coral reef sea. After that, we drove another island which was linked by a long bridge. As we could enjoy seeing the beautiful sea and took time to visit various places, we decided to return to the hotel. After taking a rest in the hotel, we went to an Okinawa restaurant near the hotel. When we were approaching the restaurant, we could hear the rock music. But when we entered the restaurant, the music stopped. We heard that several musicians were practicing the rock band music for today’s live music from 9 o’clock. When we visited there, it was 6 o’clock in the evening and it was much earlier time than the rock live music began.
We ordered some of the restaurant owner’s recommended dishes which were Fu-chample and fresh sashimi and so on. We also ordered Awamori with ice. We enjoyed eating and returned to the hotel and then joined a live folk music concert by a young musician from 7:30 pm.
There were about 10 people attended.
January 23rd (Sat.)
This was the 10th time to visit Okinawa. I remembered first visiting Okinawa just after Okinawa Island was returned to Japan from the USA about 40 years ago.
After that, I visited not only main land Okinawa, but also Ishigaki, Miyako, Taketomi, Iriomote, Yonakuni Islands. During more than 35 years, Okinawa was changed a lot and many resort hotels were built and many transportation systems were developed, so now it is easy to visit Okinawa and we can cut time and cost to access Okinawa. Recently my wife and I visit Okinawa every year.
My wife and I left home for Okinawa in the morning. Our flight was leaving Haneda Airport for Naha Airport at 11:30am, but we arrived at Haneda Airport one hour earlier than leaving time.
We took a rest at ANA lounge for more than thirty minutes. There were many people there, but it was very comfortable and we were relaxed.
We could arrive at Naha Airport at 14:15 on time and then took a limousine service at 14:30 and got off a hotel near the Kafuu Resort Hotel Fuchaku. As my wife made a phone call to the hotel, a hotel person came there and picked us up. It was easy to reach the hotel before 4 o’clock. Our room was on the 9th floor and we could see the great ocean view from our room and found the emerald green sea which was typical coral reef. We were a little tired, so we took a rest in a bed and then looked around the hotel. This hotel had both ordinary hotel and condominium and it was located next to the golf country club.
We went down to the concierge and asked a lady to make a reservation of a rent car. We made a reservation of 48 hours rent a car service. Furthermore we asked her what to see near the hotel and she introduced us very kindly. We decided to visit a few places the next day with the help of her.
After that, we took a walk near the hotel and dropped in a typical Okinawa food restaurant along the route 58 and ordered Goya chample, Tofu chample and a drink Awamori. It cost very reasonable and they tasted good.
We returned to the hotel walking along the beach. After that, we took a bath and then joined a live music concert of Batohkin played by Miss Kaori Suetome from 7:30 to 8:00.
She used to live in Mongol and learned how to play the musical instrument “Batohkin” which is the Mongolian music instrument. It sounded a little sad and Asian feeling, but we enjoyed listening and were relaxed very much. We drank Awamori at a veranda of our room.
As we were tired, we went to bed earlier than usual.
January 2nd (.Mon)
We went to Yokohama to meet my mother in law and took her to Shin-Yokohama. My wife made a reservation of lunch at Japanese restaurant “Hakkakuan” in the ShinYokohama Prince hotel building. The restaurant was specialized for Tofu dishes and it gave us very delicious foods. My mother in law was also glad to eat lunch with us. Before returning home, the road was very crowded and it took a lot of time from Yokohama to Chiba by way of Aqua-Line.
January 1st (Sun.)
My wife and I stayed at Kamogawa GT and got up early in the morning before sunrise. It was fine, but not perfect day for seeing sunrise. We went up to the 33rd floor in order to see the sunrise on January 1st, we say “Hatsu Hinode”. There were many people waiting for the sunrise. We could see the great view of the sea from the top of the tower, maybe 100 meter high above the sea level. While waiting the sunrise, we could drink Ama-Zake, literally meaning is sweet Japanese sake. When the sun rose, we could see a good sun view and many people were very glad to see the Hatsu-Hinode. I took a lot of pictures of the sunrise over the Kamogawa sea. We hoped we would have a good year.
After that, we returned home.