Okinawa?

[Aras]

Has anyone lived in Okinawa? What did you think of it?

 

My husband is looking for a new posting and we were hoping to get assigned to Germany, but now he has an offer for Okinawa. 

 

TIA

[Orthodox6]

Our cousin was there for three years as a military chaplain, and the family was happy while there.  Not exactly a detailed answer for you, but at least it is a positive view!

[KuniMom]

I've never lived there myself, only visited, but my husband and lots of friends have lived there.  It is a beautiful, tropical island.  There are a huge number of American military, so it is lot more "Americanized" than the rest of Japan.  There are a lot of American restaurants and stores, and a lot more shopping than on the mainland.  Most of the people I know that have lived there love it.

[Tammi K]

It was a choice for DH as well. SO, we investigated quite a bit. We were happy with most everything we discovered. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the heat and humidity. For me, that was a show stopper. (It's also why I didn't want to go to Thailand)  Alaska suits me much better!

 

[El...]

I LOVE Okinawa.  May you be so lucky! 

 

There's a place called Capitol Steak House.  I can't replicate their salad dressing, and I need to find a way.  Also, there's a fast-food chain called Coco's with the best curry ever.  One order is about 2 meals.  I used to jog on the sea wall near my house, and my route ran past a curry place which cooked onions every morning.  I did not lose weight... I wonder why. 

 

If you go, resolve to leave the bases and see the island!  The only people I've known who didn't enjoy themselves were those who didn't ever get out anywhere.  If you can live out in the community, that is fun.  There are forts, free to visit, built in the 500-800's, from which you can see ocean on both sides of the island.  There are castles built in the 1500's that are touristy but fun and not too expensive.  There are tangerine orchards on the sides of mountains; you can pull off at a fruit stand, get 10 lbs. for about $5, and eat WAY too much citrus because they are so delicious.

 

My husband loved scuba diving there, and a lot of folks kayak and fish.

 

The people are very nice, and it is good to learn a few words to greet people.  Most of the younger people speak English.  The Okinawan people are a separate ethnicity from the Japanese, with different foods and an interesting history. 

 

If you are going with the military, there are a lot of activities on the bases, too.  There are several styles of karate lessons available for kids and adults.  The Kadena club was nice when we were there.  There are historical and cultural bus tours through ITT which are fun if your kids are old enough. 

 

The AP mail system was pretty fast, and amazon prime ships as if you lived in California - it just takes a tad longer.  You either order all your clothes or you buy from the BX, which means you might meet another lady wearing the exact same dress at an event.  There are local fabric stores. 

 

Everything metal rusts in the salty air; it is a waste to get a new car, but since the US population is so transient, you can get a nice used car for a few grand.  It was not too hard to learn to drive on the other side of the road; just remember that the driver goes on the dividing stripe side of the road, the passenger on the curb side. 

 

The weather is hot and humid in the summer, and nice in the winter.  The monsoons are very manageable because you have a lot of warning and everybody just stocks up on movies and snacks, brings in their lawn furniture, and stays indoors until it is over.

 

 I could rave about Okinawa for a while.  :)  I was not homeschooling when I was there, but feel free to PM me if you have a specific question I could answer!  

[Aras]

Well that sounds quite nice! Other than the humidity  :glare: But we have lived in some pretty humid places. My hair was so poofy, it looked like I was trying to bring back the 80s. 

[Renthead Mommy]

We were in Okinawa from 2007 to 2009.  We were really happy to leave.  The humdity is horrible and we are not beach people, so we were pretty much trapped in our house all summer.  We traveled everywhere on that island, but it was painful to be out in it.  We were on Kadena.   The housing was decent for officers.  However I'll never eat in another Chilie's again as that is the main restaurant on Kadena.  Driving is easy.  We got two cars for under $2000.  Mine was a 94 and only had 60,000 miles on it.  (how far are you going to drive on a 75 mile long island?)  We took a LOT of tours.  The people were nice. The produce at the commisary was horrible. We ate out at the NCO club often as it was the only place to get a decent salad.  We ate out a lot as it wasn't worth buying the huge produce and having it go bad before two a half people could get through it, especially at the cost.  (Cantaloupes were around $9-$12, most expensive ones I saw were $19.  They would put price stickers on fruit so people knew how much each piece would be before getting up to cash register and even then the girls would weigh it, tell you how much it was, and ask if that was okay before they would ring it the rest of the way up.)

 

There were a lot of people on anti depressants.  When my girlfriend went for her first doctor's appointment, the PA found out she'd been there about six months and asked if she wanted anti depressants.  Because six months was about the time people started asking for them.  

 

The nice thing about living on base overseas is they do offer so much because you are cut off from so much else.  Much more than bases stateside. 

 

Homeschooling is easy because the DOD policy is homeschoolers answer to the state you are in.  Well you are not in a state, so no one to answer to.   You can use the DOD school system too.  My son went to K and 1st 'specials' (music, gym, art...) and we checked out many, many things from the school library.  

 

It was a good jumping off point for vacations.  We did 10 days in China, a trip to Singapore and trips to Toyko.  The Okinawans are very nice, but consider themselves Okinawans, not Japanese.  (If you  read some first hand accounts of what went on in the and you could totally understand that, but that mindset really goes back centuries. 

 

When we were there PEACH sort ruled the island.  It was something like Pacific something, something christian homeschoolers.  But you had to be the right kind of christian.  And they were not very nice if you weren't.  

 

I heard they tore down Lester Navy Hospital, which is good, as it was a pit! There was a turf war going on for awhile. The AF closed down there saturday clinic days.  So people would go to ER on the weekends.  Navy did not like this extra work. When the Navy found out you were AF, they would give you a hard time, and sometimes refuse to see you.  Even in the AF clinic, appointments were hard to come by.  Even sick appointments.  A girl in one of our groups, a pre schooler with ear tubes got an ear ache.  After three days of trying to get her into her PCM and being told there were no appointments, the mom took her to the ER on Saturday morning.  The ER refused to see her and said call your PCM on Monday.  Mom said she had been trying for days and they still wouldn't see her.  Mom went home, found the number to the orginal ENT and called his office to leave a message, desperate.  He happened to be in his office catching up on paperwork and said bring her in now and I'll see her.  Because she couldn't get the appointment, she ended up having to go back into surgery the infection had affected her tubes.  Heads rolled on that one at both the ER and the AF clinic.  I had another friend who couldn't get answers for what was going on with her son.  She finally gave up, paid out of pocket to see a doc on the economy.  Worst part, her husband was bigger up in the hospital! 

 

It is so hot and so humid that everyone runs there AC on high (plus they don't pay their electric on base).  You needed de humidifiers, but it always had a mildewiness to it.  I had friends who's kids were just constantly sick. Strep and respiratory stuff.    People who's kids were never sick before, and perfectly healthy once again after getting off that island. We were sick way more often too and we never get sick. 

 

We were very active and very involved, but I knew a lot of people who could not wait to get off that island. 

[Aras]

Hmmm, good things to think about. Thanks for telling me about your experiences. 

 

At our current posting, we live in a very small town that has a Walmart and Dollar Tree as our prime shopping choices. The nearest bookstore is 45 minutes away. If I want a "real" city I have to drive an hour and 15 minutes in one direction or 2 hours in another. Despite being a small town, there are no sidewalks and it is not bicycle friendly. The internet is my "mall" now, lol.

 

I know it could be worse, but I am definitely over this place. 

 

Our dream location, according to my Dd, is a bicycle friendly town where we can ride our bikes in to do a little shopping, then ride home without fear of death. My son wants to live near the ocean and go swimming every day. I would like us to live off post and get to know the culture. I think I would miss the snow, but Alaska is just too much for me!

 

[LizzyBee]

I lived there in the late 80s, so I imagine things have changed a bit since then!

 

I loved it. I didn't mind the heat and humidity because it was not as bad as Florida, where I had lived the previous three years. There was always a breeze coming off the East China Sea. It's a beautiful place. The hardest part was being so far away from family and landlocked. We did catch a ride via space available to go to the Philippines and Korea while we were there.  My sister's fiance was stationed in Korea at the time, so we met up with them there.

 

Best restaurant back then was Sam's by the Sea. I still wish I could replicate their curry soup. It was so good!

[Annie Elle]

My father was in the Air Force and we lived there when I was a child in the late 70s. I loved it. I'm sure it has changed quite a bit. When we were there it was hard to get base housing and lived the first half of the tour off base. Off base, we had the only working phone in the neighborhood. There was also only one English speaking TV station. I remember the Okinawans as being very kind people. I guess labor was cheaper because we had a gardener, a cleaning lady and a sewing lady. In school, we were taught to recognize old bullet shells and bombs from WW2 because there were some that still could be found around the island that were unexploded. I also remember that in Okinawa you drove on the left side of the road and speed was counted in kpm instead of mph. I don't remember the humidity being an issue for us but my family is from Georgia so we were used to it.

[Lanny]

The wife of one of my cousins lived there many years ago. She mentioned Okinawa in an email a couple of weeks ago. Something like paradise in her memory. She lives in PA now.

[MolleenCarie]

We are currently stationed here and love it. We have requested an IPCOT (in-place consecutive overseas tour); if granted, that would bring us to the end of DH's career after which we hope to retire here or on mainland Japan to continue to minister to the Japanese people. Here is a link that explains our heart:

 

 

 

I miss family in the States, quick shipping, and central air. My list was much longer at the beginning. I really don't care to go back to the States. I'm very at home here in Okinawa. It's a great place to raise children, as it is very safe. We live in Uruma. I imagine you'd live in Yomitan, which is my favorite area of the island.

 

Check out Okinawa Hai!

[AFwife Claire]

My father was in the Air Force and we lived there when I was a child in the late 70s. I loved it. I'm sure it has changed quite a bit. When we were there it was hard to get base housing and lived the first half of the tour off base. Off base, we had the only working phone in the neighborhood. There was also only one English speaking TV station. I remember the Okinawans as being very kind people. I guess labor was cheaper because we had a gardener, a cleaning lady and a sewing lady. In school, we were taught to recognize old bullet shells and bombs from WW2 because there were some that still could be found around the island that were unexploded. I also remember that in Okinawa you drove on the left side of the road and speed was counted in kpm instead of mph. I don't remember the humidity being an issue for us but my family is from Georgia so we were used to it.

My dad was Air Force as well, and we lived there from 1979-1983!  My memories are very similar to these--we also lived off-base (in Ishikawa, right by the beach) for the first part of our tour, although we didn't have a phone.  I remember my mom walking to a neighbor's house to call!  We also had a gardener, cleaning lady, and sewing lady.  I remember the sewing lady making clothes for my barbies.  

 

For me as a girl, living on Okinawa was definitely my favorite duty station.  I absolutely did not want to leave!  We also space-a'd around a ton, which was fun.  Now that I am an adult with kids, I'm sure it was harder on my mom.  My dad flew, and he was TDY all. the. time.  When typhoons came, the men would scramble the aircraft, leaving the women and kids all by themselves with one token man from the squadron.  I thought it was all a lark, but I'm sure it was nerve-wracking for my mom!  We also had to deal with a lot of water-rationing, which again didn't really affect my elementary-aged self, but my mom could only do laundry on certain days, we had a trash can in the hallway filled with water so we could flush toilets, and we had to drive to Camp Lester weekly to fill up water bottles for the days when we wouldn't have water.  Also, we had terrible termites, and we had to have the kitchen cabinets replaced twice in the 3 years we were there in our base house!

 

Ah, memories!  I loved Okinawa!  :)

[blondeviolin]

Hmmm, good things to think about. Thanks for telling me about your experiences.

 

At our current posting, we live in a very small town that has a Walmart and Dollar Tree as our prime shopping choices. The nearest bookstore is 45 minutes away. If I want a "real" city I have to drive an hour and 15 minutes in one direction or 2 hours in another. Despite being a small town, there are no sidewalks and it is not bicycle friendly. The internet is my "mall" now, lol.

 

I know it could be worse, but I am definitely over this place.

 

Our dream location, according to my Dd, is a bicycle friendly town where we can ride our bikes in to do a little shopping, then ride home without fear of death. My son wants to live near the ocean and go swimming every day. I would like us to live off post and get to know the culture. I think I would miss the snow, but Alaska is just too much for me!

Your daughter would love it here in Anchorage. Your son... Well, we are near the water, but you can't really swim in it daily. There are plenty of indoor pools to swim in daily....