okinawa hai!

Derby Gang CONTRIBUTED BY ZABRINA “JerZee Stinga” Songui When I first got to this island, I felt so disconnected. I was newly married and this was my first experience living overseas. My day-to-day activities involved going to the gym, driving around the island, cooking and cleaning. Yes! I know…Snore! Then, I was lucky enough to [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY PENNY VA HEERDEN In the comments section of my Why Martial Arts? post, someone asked for links to local Martial Arts Association websites.  There are so many top notch dojos in Okinawa that I was, at first, a bit hesitant to list only one association.  However, since coming to Okinawa I have received so [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY ANNA BOOM Okinawa City Marathon was on February 20th; were you there? If you weren’t running or cheering, you most likely enjoyed the traffic control outside and inside the gates of Kadena Air base and Camp Mctureous and all throughout Okinawa City. The Okinawa City or OkiCity Marathon is the first marathon of [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY ANNA TIENTER Have you been looking for other women to share some fun and exercise with? How do you feel about mud, puddles, overgrown weeds and trail? And very small unassuming spiders?If all this sounds like it is right up the alley you call fun, come out and try our Women on Okinawa [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY ANNA TIENTER Did anyone notice the huge group of 25,000 people hanging out around the Asahibashi Park a few Sundays ago? It was the 26th annual Naha marathon. A little history: This “Festival of Sun, Ocean and Joggers” started in 1985 as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the sister city bond [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY AMANDA HARMS PLAY ROLLER DERBY WITH US… the KOKESHI ROLLER DOLLS! Part manifesto- part invitation, here is my proposition: So there I was… Thirty-one years old and pregnant with #3.  I could feel my body succumbing to the demands of pregnancy and as much as I love being a Mom and as much [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY CHIP STEITZ AND TARA HOWES This summer I received an email from Chip Steitz regarding the Special Olympics held each year on Kadena Air Base.  He wanted to get the word out about how we can all be involved in this special volunteer opportunity.  He said: Kadena Special Olympics transcends stereotypes, politics, nationalities [...]

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I have received some wonderful cooking posts from Penny over the last weeks and started an email conversation about how she came to be in Okinawa.  I'm always curious about those non-Japanese, non-military, non-ESL teachers living on island.  If you are curious too, I've attached her bio at the end of the post. CONTRIBUTED BY PENNY [...]

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 CONTRIBUTED BY SARAH FORTE My husband and I knew before we came to Okinawa that we wanted to get scuba dive certified as soon as possible once we arrived here.  Once settled (and work schedules permitted) we did just that!  My 2010 New Year’s resolution was to get certified and about 14 hours into the [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY HEATHER SHAFER  Parenting is not always a bowl of cherries, especially when you have an energetic, in-your-face, rambunctious, and all around difficult five year old son.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my children, but they can be quite the handful. Recently, I stumbled upon the new Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class at the Courtney [...]

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