okinawa hai!

CONTRIBUTED BY CLAIRE BRAY-COLLINS Mihama Front Tot and I love a good quarter mile roller slide over a freeway, like the one at Urasoe Park, a not-so-miniature “Navy S.E.A.L.’s” training site or a hair-raising ride on a “tilt-and-hurl” spinner like those at the Okinawa Convention Center, or even a vaguely supported free fall down those [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY QUENTIN RICHARDSON Urasoe Pano 1 Urasoe City Park & Castle Site is a massive network of observatories, walking paths and a large playground at its lower level. The park sits on a high hill on the border of Ginowan & Urasoe. It branches out in several directions and also includes nearby neighborhoods, cemetaries [...]

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Xystus Front CONTRIBUTED BY IVETTE TRUE The kiddos and I had been exploring Okinawa during their summer vacation.  Beaches, caves, parks, etc…. We love going to Wago Land, US Land, Monakids…  They’re all fun… but, my friend showed me this new place called Xystus Kids Land that had just opened on July 1st, 2011. Xystus Play [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY JULIE BROWN AND JENNIFER STARCHER Let me just start by saying, “Okinawans really know how to build a park.”   Not long ago, I decided to take my daughter to Yaeshima Park, also known as Civic Center Park.  I was amazed as I entered the park.  It is broken into different play areas [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY JENNIFER SHUE As the weather starts to cool just a little, maybe your thoughts are turning towards Sunday afternoon picnics in the park, playing outside at a playground, taking a nap in the grass on a blanket under a tree – or something along those lines. (Something beyond the confines of the a/c [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY MARY RICHARDSON                   Okinawan vista, photo taken while geocaching last weekend A while back, a neighbor of ours mentioned that he’s been doing something with his family called ”geocaching.” Ever heard of it?  Basically, it’s a high tech treasure hunt game in which you use a hand held [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY MARY RICHARDSON One of my favorite places in Okinawa is Fukushen Garden in downtown Naha. I’m happy to introduce it to all you. I really hope you visit there one day when you’re in the area. The garden is a perfect respite from the business of every day life, or if you’re creatively inclined, [...]

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Everytime we get to the Aquarium I hold my breath in hopes that the coolio looking kid’s play structure might be open FINALLY.  It was originally slated to be open at the end of August 07.  No joy.  So you can imagine my glee when we drove into the parking lot and saw REAL KIDS [...]

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We're mind readers here at OkiHai and so we know some of you have been wondering about Araha Beach and because we have such cool & helpful contributors… TA-DA, here's the info from Julia Chen! There are so many things that I will miss about Okinawa but I think one of the things that I [...]

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  CONTRIBUTED BY JULIA CHEN Tobaru Koen is home to the largest rollerslide that I’ve been to on-island so far. My kids love it! The last time we went I had to check the back of my pants to make sure they weren’t on fire. I’m not kidding when I say that there was a [...]

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