Splish Splash!

The Obon festival begins tonight on Okinawa.  Obon is when the ancestral spirits come back for their annual visit and the (living) families have picnics at the tombs with their “extended” (deceased) family.  Then, after the living families have eaten their fill and offerings of rice, sake, and other goodies have been left at the tombs, eisa dancers dance, chant, and bang their drums in order honor and send off the spirits for another year. 

But the reason I’m mentioning Obon is because its celebration made me realize that we haven’t seen a single eisa performance all summer!  It just goes to show that I’ve been making good on my intention of spending all summer floating my belly in the ocean.  Incidentally, the superstition goes that you’re not supposed to swim in the ocean during Obon because the dead will take you with them into the sea as they depart.  Good thing we’re not superstitious because it was a beautiful day at the beach!

But first, pictures from earlier this week when we had some smaller scale water play with neighborhood friends.



Now to the beach . . .
The flavor of the day was Toguchi.  I was actually voting for a water park with water slides, pools and a lazy river, because we haven’t been there before, but Jake hadn’t been to Toguchi either and the beach is free whereas the water park is not.










I think it was a good choice!


We explored a section of the beach that Logan and I didn’t get to last time we went and found some neat little coves, caves, and rock formations.  It also hit me that, while this island doesn’t offer much in the way of man-made architecture, the natural architecture more than makes up for it.
Of course, there are the turtle-back tombs in the realm of interesting man-made architecture.
  I’m not sure playgrounds really count as architecture, but I am a big fan of the playground-at-the-beach concept.
Seriously, check out the view from the steps leading up to the top of the roller slide!

After playing at the park for a while, we traded the camera in for our snorkel gear and Logan’s float, but again, no underwater pictures.  It was great though—Jake and I could both snorkel while towing Logan along with us in his float.  Jake and I were amused by the fish (and one sea snake!), while Logan was amused by Jake and I popping in and out of the water in our masks.

Not sure how many more weekends we’ll have before the baby decides to show up, but don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated either way!  Hope your weekend was good as well!