Welcome to Okinawa City (沖縄市)

Welcome! This site is intended to share with you some of what we have learned so far living in Okinawa.

Okinawa Ken (Prefecture) is a beautiful archipelago of subtropical islands south of the Japanese mainland and just north and east of Taiwan. Okinawa is the largest island in the archipelago and Okinawa Shi (City) is the second largest city on the island. Flights from Naha, the capital of Okinawa Ken, can have you to Taipei in less than two hours; Seoul, South Korea in about three hours; Beijing, China in about four hours; and Tokyo in about three hours. Okinawa lies almost exactly equidistant from both Tokyo and Manila in the Phillipines.

Okinawa Shi neighbors the beautiful village of Kitanakagusuku and the newly formed Uruma Shi (City) which is along the coast at Awase Bay.

For those of you that are fluent in Japanese or are Uchinanchu (Okinawan), please share any corrections or insights.

This blog will somewhat chronicle my stay in Okinawa over the next several years. I will provide some pretty simple things at times (like, "how to use a Japanese washing machine," or, "how to reduce the humidity in your apartment,") as well as more touristy things (like, whale watching tours). There will be regular photos and videos as well as useful links and what have you.

Ultimately this will be a humorous site as most of what will be shared will be informed by the humiliating mistakes made by an author that is wholly illiterate in Japanese. Enjoy!