End of Rainy Season!!

Woohoo! I’d been telling you all the time about rain and soccer, but the rainy season is finally over!!!

…Only in Okinawa, though.
Tokyo is raining today as usual. This is so upsetting.

The news (or maybe the Met office?) announced that this tsuyu front that’s been bringing rain across the country passed through Okinawa quicker than the past years. They say that the temperature in Okinawa’s prefectural capital Naha City was as high as 30.2 degrees Celsius (let’s see, that’s about 86F?) at 10:30am on Tuesday June 20th.

Oh my beloved Okinawa…
Now that the rain is all gone, it’s the best time of year to spend time there.
In the past essay I told you that Okinawa’s suffering severe damage from rain, and even though the rainy season was shorter than the usual years the total rainfall in the end was twice as much of that than usual. At least it passed away faster… I wouldn’t even want to imagine how worse the situation could become if the rain lasted longer.

Maybe I should tell you my little story about my encounter with Okinawa since I tell you so often how much I love the place.

My first visit to Okinawa was rather late and it was when I was 20 years old. Despite my obsession with Okinawa now, the first visit was somewhat automatic and did not happen because I had a long desire to go there. It just happened to be the location for a summer camp of a university club that I belonged to (“camp” is just nominal, it was like any student group trip).

The places I visited then were tourist spots all on Okinawa main island like Naha and Nago, but the unique Ryukyu culture and atmosphere, the beauty if the water and marine resorts, and marine sports like canoeing and banana boats (kind of like tubing except that the tube is shaped like a banana) soon captured my heart.
The following year when I had the authority to decide where to have that year’s summer camp, I went for Okinawa right away.

Nonetheless, I did not know that my decision without deep consideration was a failure as a result.

Summer camps include quite a number of people and planning this out was not too different from choosing a package tour from the travel agency. I was extremely excited about the trip, but in the end it turned out to be pretty much the same as the previous year. And you know, when you’re about the age of 20 you’re constantly looking for new excitement, so that year I was already bored of Okinawa.

I did not have any chances or intentions to visit Okinawa for some time since then.

About two years ago, I was talking to my friend about my experiences in Okinawa and my impression just in a light conversation. His reaction was not something I had expected at all. With a serious face he told me that, “You don’t know the real Okinawa. You’re really losing out on this.”

“The real Okinawa?”

It was this same year that I got to know the true beauty of the islands.That’s all for today. Look forward to the following story :-)