I thought that some of you might like to hear about James and my travels over seas for the holidays to Okinawa Japan .  Overall it was a very nice and relaxing vacation.

One of my biggest fears in getting there, was getting James through the Japanese Quarantine system.  It took me over a year to get all of the necessary paperwork and vaccinations for James in order.  We got off the plane in Osaka Japan (main land japan), went through quarantine without a hitch!  A HUGE relief!  We then flew from Osaka to Okinawa .

Okinawa is an island that is part of Japan , yet separate.  After the war, the Okinawas did not want to become part of Japan , they wanted to be themselves, but the Americans gave Okinawa back to Japan so Okinawa is part of Japan .  There are many many US marine and air force bases on Okinawa so there are lots of Americans and many of the Okinawans know some English.  I did not know any Japanese other than the few polite greetings I remembered from when I went to Okinawa when I was about 14, which was 8 years ago.  But my aunt and uncle who I stayed with knew Japanese functionally and so we went places with little hitch.

Once on Okinawa I learned that James and I were one of the 1^st NON-blind service dog teams.  Because of the way that restaurants are set up there with tatami mats and no chairs, and after a few refusals from proprietors of eating establishments, we decided to just go to meals at times where there wouldn’t be a lot of people so was ‘safe’ for me without James’ assistance.  But other than that we had little trouble going places.  There were even some signs at some grocery stores saying ‘no dogs except service dogs allowed’!  I thought that that was wonderful.  And many of the larger things like the aquarium and castles had signs that accepted service dogs as well.

So here are some high lights from our very memorable trip. 

Visiting castles and castle ruins.  There are many old castles on Okinawa, though many were destroyed during the battle of Okinawa in the war by the Americans.  But the castles that did survive are being refurbished and really beautiful.  One of the 1^st castles that we went to had been totally restored and showed the intricate details of the roof tiles and the gorgeous shisha.  Shisha are a favorite of mine.  They are little clay dogs that people put outside their homes to protect the home against bad things.  We went to 2 places that made Shisha and I even got to paint on of my own which they are going to send to me in a few months!  That was very exciting!  But to get back to the castles.  They were very nice and very educational, gave me a real look at the history of Okinawa .

Visiting museum villages.  There are a few places that are dedicated to preserving Okinawa ’s past and its peoples rituals and art forms.  One of these places had reconstructed old Okinawan homes, grain storage sheds, burial shrines, and much more.  They also showed the old way to extract sugar from sugar cane (produced in Okinawa and used in everyday life by these people) using a water buffalo (who was very friendly).  And there was a place that showed old glass blowing techniques which was truly fascinating.  And of course there were the Shisha and pottery making places as I mentioned before.  Nearly all Shishas we saw were hand made and had painted.  Gorgeous!  

We also went to a place called ‘Expo” which was a very large aquarium center.  They had a very large and very cool fish tank that they could fit WHALE SHARKS in!!!  It was huge!!  They also had Manta Rays which were fantastic to watch.  We at lunch sitting by the tank and that was very cool.  Got to see all of the sea life up close and personal.  Another great part about Expo was the dolphin and pigmy orca show.  They had about 6 animals doing all of their tricks, all taught by clicker training (which as we all know is a fascination of mine and I LOVE playing the game with my animals).  That was a very fun day!!!

We went to the beach twice while I was there.  It was too cold to swim (for me at least, James had a blast in the water!) so we waited for the tide to go out and reef walked instead on parts of the coral reef.  That was truly fascinating.  Seeing little colored fish, crabs, sea urchins and annenomies, cucumber something or others (some slug like creature) and just seeing the coral itself was awesome.  A funny story from the beach-  James was following my aunt and me as we walked along the reef looking for animals.  He was bouncing along, jumping around, being typical James.  So anyway he is running along full blast in the water to catch up with me and didn’t see the deep about 4’ wide hole in the coral.  Running running running, whoosh, down he goes.  You should have seen the look of surprise in his face!  It was so hilarious.  After that he was a bit more cautious to say the least. 

Also at the beach I found a glass ball.  With my aunt & uncle and their friends on Okinawa , finding glass balls is a fairly rare find and therefore a really fun hunt.  Glass balls are hand made net floats made locally and used by the fishermen.  When one breaks off of the net, it is then tossed in the sea and either broken there or on the beach rocks or lands on a beach and from there found.  Since the sea can be so fierce it is really a gem when you find one.  The one I found is small so was easily packed home J

Christmas was very quiet which was wonderful for me.  The children got a piano and other toys, that made noise.  So for the 1^st week they spent banging on that piano and figuring it all out.  But other than that the holiday was nice and quiet.  As a present to me, my aunt is making a scrap book of all that we did on my vacation from knawing on sugar cane, to the beach to the shrines and castles, and of course the cuisine.

Japanise/Okinawan food is a huge favorite of mine.  It is very hard to fine good japanese food in the states, so I waited 8 years to get another good meal of SOBA!!!!!!!  Yeah for SOBA!!  Soba is a noodle soup with a special broth and hand made noodles made fresh that day.  It is simply to die for!!  That 1^st day I was there we went to soba and I said “Ok I’ve had soba, now my vacation is complete’ J  Right before I left, we found this shop that packaged soba to go!  So now I have 5 meals of it in the States!   Way cool!  Another favorite of mine is Sushi!  With fish so fresh and rice and sea weed and ginger slices, it is all just so good!!  One fun sushi expedition was to ‘sushi-go-round’.  It is this place where you sit down at a bar like area and plates of sushi go around on a conveyer belt past you.  Each plate is a different color, indicating the cost of the sushi on it.  So you just pick what looks good or interesting and put it down in front of you and eat it!  Then, here is another cool part, when you are done you stack your dishes and a waitress comes around with a scanner that just scans the stack and comes up with how much you owe!  Totally great!!

For New Years we went to a local shrine where they had set up kind of like a festival of vendors, food and then the temple itself.  The temple was newly refurbished and gorgeous.  Even though it was pouring rain that day, and we only stayed a little time, I thought the temple itself was terrific to see and also to see the devotion these people have towards their religion.

Trying to get home was a nightmare though.  I got all of the paperwork, check off from the vet and the quarantine office, then I arrive at the airport ready to leave and they won’t give me a ticket.  “You can’t take the dog on the plane”.  Yes, I can, how do you think I got here in the 1^st place.  “well you didn’t fly here’  I did.  “ok well then they shouldn’t have let you on it was a mistake’.  Arrgg!!!  6 hours of this.  Finally we take out the exact law written in Japanese and they accept that they must let us on the airplane.  BUT because of all of this, I have missed my flight and there isn’t another until Sunday, which they didn’t want me to get on, but it worked out with United and I did get on so got home Sunday, not Saturday like planned.  Just another point in pioneering for future service dog teams out there I guess.

Through out the entire vacation James was a true gentleman.  Took good care of me during the few anxiety attacks that I did have (like the major one in Logan airport trying to get to Japan, that was a nerve wracking mess to say the least) and was just there for me the rest of the time.  He is such a goof ball out of harness and he had a really good time at the beaches.  But right back to work once the harness was on.  He was a great ambassador for future service dog teams, I feel.

Definitely a trip to take if you ever get the opportunity!  Hope everyone had a great month as well!

Katrin