2013年6月15日土曜日

2013年6月15日土曜日 -

Andrew - Trip to Okinawa





In August last year I went to Naha with my girlfriend. Although I have traveled around Japan quite a bit, this was my first time to go to Okinawa. I have friends from Okinawa, Miyakojima and Ishigakijima. When we chat, we use standard Japanese. So I was a bit worried about whether or not I would be able to handle the Okinawan dialect. However, it wasn't that difficult to understand. Whew . . . that was a load off my mind.


I was expecting to see quite a few soldiers from the US bases there. But, when I got there, I was pretty surprised. There were a ton of them in Naha! Moreover, people often mistook me for a soldier and thought that my girlfriend spoke English (she doesn't). They would sometimes try to strike up a conversation with her in English. She was really confused.

There are a lot of American things in Okinawa though. They have a chain restaurant named A&W there. A lot of stores carry American brand soda, such as Dr. Pepper. I really enjoyed those; although I didn't care much for habushu or awamori – they were too strong for me. Something seems very weird about putting a live snake in alcohol to make a different alcohol. We had some of their local beer, and that was pretty good though. 

One evening I was a little short of cash. On weekends and at night, I can only use my bank card at 7 Eleven stores or my bank's ATMs. I assumed there would be some 7 Eleven stores in Okinawa but it turned out there weren't any. I was really surprised at that. I talked to the concierge at our hotel and he said I wasn't the only one who made that mistake.

But all in all, it was a great trip!



quite a bit = かなり
chat = おしゃべりする
standard Japanese = 標準の日本語
to handle = 使うこと
Okinawan dialect = 沖縄の方言
a load off my mind = 気が楽になる
quite a few  = ほとんどいない
soldiers =　兵士たち
bases = 基地
pretty surprised = かなり驚いた
a ton of them = 兵士が大量に
mistook = ～だと間違えた
strike up a conversation = 会話を始める
confused = まごついた
chain restaurant = チェーンレストラン
a lot of = たくさんの
weird = 奇妙だ
a little short of cash = 少しお金が足りなくなる
assumed = 思い込んでいた
turned out = ～だということがわかった
concierge = コンシェルジュ
I waｓn't the only one = 僕だけではない
all in all = なんだかんだで