Adventures in Navy Wifing: Oto Coast, and a Mystery Solved

After visiting the Himeyuri Peace Museum, we were very much in need of something to lighten the mood. We figured a visit to the beach was in order.

But first, we had a mystery to solve. Remember this?

It turns out that, in spite of their placement just above a candy rack, they're not candy...they're condoms. Now, given the placement - and the interesting packaging - I'm not quite sure if that revelation diminishes or exponentially increases the "OMG WTF" factor. But...the mystery is solved.

On to the beach!

Lesson #1 about exploring Okinawa: If a destination requires hopping over rocks and going down a trail steep enough to require ropes to get up and down, the destination is worth it.

The tide was way out when we got there, so we could go rock-hopping and get pictures of the evil poisonous snails and the venomous starfish (no, I'm not kidding about either of them...but I didn't get any great pics of them either):

We wandered out into the water, staying on top of the rocks. Then the tide came in. After we had already gone out into the water...no way to go back except THROUGH the water. Fortunately, we both had sturdy footwear so that we didn't have to go traipsing through the water barefoot, lest we encounter one of the evil snails. Here is Eddie, pausing in the middle of traipsing:

Another cool view, again after the tide came in:

And other random pics from our day...including one of the natives, who was wearing a nice sweater because it was a little bit cool today:

I had never seen one of these until today. Then we saw a bunch of them on one path. NO idea what kind of bug it is: (UPDATE: My mom checked on it, and apparently this is a Japanese Beetle. You'd think it would have some sort of cool name, like Evil Japanese Squirtbug or something, but no...just...Japanese Beetle. Either way, mystery solved - thanks Mom!)