A nice sunny day at the beach...in November.

Since it's late November, and Eddie had the day off, we could think of no other way to spend a chilly 80 degree day than a trip to the beach. That, and I'd never driven on the expressway, and wanted to give it a go. So, we headed north, towards Nago, and found this little beach, aptly called "Nago Citizens Beach".

And there, we parked Hoopedy 2.0, a car which I totally love because a) I get to drive it and b) it runs. Here it is, in all its beater glory:
Then, onto the beach...
Yes, the beach:
Now, all those rocks off to the left are lava rock, which are both sharp and slippery. Naturally, we climbed on them.
And Eddie's got some captain in him...
I found this really pretty tidal pool up on top of said lava rock...
And in it, I found fishies...
Which Eddie promptly scared away by falling into said pool...(unfortunately, I didn't get a pic until after he'd righted himself, but I got to laugh at him for having a wet butt for the rest of the afternoon):
Once we were through terrifying the fish and risking our lives on the treacherous, pointy rocks, we continued down the beach...
Where we found the obligatory hermit crab.
"MY ROCK! No can haz..."
And if you look closely, you'll see another crab:
Hahaha, bet you all thought something was going to jump out at you. I still can't believe how many of you I startled with that ghost picture. Seriously.

ANYWAY. Moving right along...

As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, there are tombs and shrines all over this island, and you never know when you'll stumble across one. I honestly don't know if this is a tomb or a shrine (looks like a grave, but I have no idea):
Then, on the beach, we saw another (just below the treeline, slightly to the right of center, above that light grey slab of cement):
A closer look:
To add to the day's excitement, Eddie found a stick.
Yes. A stick.

Once he was finally persuaded to put the stick down and move on, we headed back. And I randomly took a picture of a plant.
We passed by a barber shop, and evidently this particular establishment condones running with scissors. I'm not sure if this applies to animated barber poles only, but there you go.
A cute little birdie by the canal...hopefully Libbie can help me identify it...I'm guessing some sort of Kingfisher type of creature?
A really bad picture of a really cute gecko...
After a day in the heat (did I mention it's November?), we were both thirsty. Decisions, decisions:
Selecting a drink here is more challenging than you might think. First, the sheer quantity of available options. Second, the language barrier. I hate tea, so I try to avoid anything that might BE tea. Today, I tried something that looked like pineapple juice.

Now, you know how orange juice has varying amounts of "pulp"? This would qualify as "insanely uber high pulp". Except, instead of shredded bits of pineapple, it contained large globs of what can only be described as pineapple-flavored snot.

Next time, I'll stick with iced coffee...

Speaking of language barriers:
Uhhh...

Most of it is pretty self-explanatory, though I thought I would zoom in on some of the highlights:
Um. Okay.

I'm pretty sure I know what this one means...
...clearly, it says, "No Running Away Screaming Like a Little Girl When a Habu Tries to Take Your Beer".

So there you have it....another day in paradise. Hard to believe we've already been here a year. And it still hasn't gotten old.

I heart Okinawa. More pictures to come soon!

Also, just a quick writerly update...World Enough and Time is in the homestretch, and my guess is that if it's not done tomorrow, it'll be done the next day. Only 8 chapters remain, every one of which is at least started. Of course, as usual, I left myself a whole bunch of those scenes (tm). Why I do this to myself, I don't know. But rest assured, I will be tearing my hair out about it tomorrow.

Once World Enough and Time is done, it's on with Nocturne, which I will be spending some time outlining this evening. I had planned to make Nocturne a novella (roughly 20-40,000 words), but I have a funny feeling it'll be standard novel length (over 60,000). We shall see. If that's the case, then it will also be the story with which I cross the million word mark.

Yes, my loyal blog minions...the millionth word is on the horizon. Less than 75,000 words to go. Stay tuned...