TSUNAMI!

WOW! Yesterday I was awakened to an earthquake, today it was to a Tsunami siren and warning! I guess I might as well get the full experience here. Now I just need a typhoon to complete the hat trick! Actually, it looks like the tsunami will not affect us much. It was supposed to hit a couple of hours ago but nothing other than a couple of waves on the Pacific side (other side of the island from us). They did evacuate coastal areas and even some areas on base. They also evacuated the ER from the ground floor to the 3rd. Should make it interesting as I go to work in an hour (although the tsunami warning just got lifted for Okinawa).

The pictures are from my tours so far. I was hoping to add whale watching pics from my tour today but it was cancelled:( Steph actually expected me to go anyway, and I guess I would have, but it was cancelled.

The first pics are from my "Tunnel Rats Tour." I expected to just see some shallow caves that were used by the locals to hide out from the US Marines only to find out we were truly going spelunking. My little AA Flashlight with LED bulbs did not quite do it justice. It did make it challenging, however. It was like going to Carlsbad Caverns or Kartchner and having the guide look as his watch and say "OK, you've got until 1300 to explore and be back here" and just turn us loose on this massive cave. Fun, but kind of crazy and certainly could not happen in the states. At one point I was crawling like a beetle with my flashlight in my teeth through a shallow stream with about 18 inches of cave height to get to the next area! I also met 2 new fellow Wildcats on the tour (pictured with me: 1st LT Paul Pintek of the US Marine Corps and his wife Trisha. They both went to UofA and graduated about 5 years ago. They were awesome and hopefully we can get together to watch the Cats play either hoops or football). Our guide, an ex-Marine by the name of Chris, was amazing! His knowledge of the caves and military history of Okinawa is astounding! He has even been featured on the discovery channel for his Battle Sites tour (google or U Tube it).

The next pictures were from my Shuri Castle tour. The Shuri Castle was the castle for the Ryukyuan rulers of Okinawa from the 1500's until Okinawa became a prefecture of Japan in the 1800's. It was destroyed completely in the Battle of Okinawa during WWII but was rebuilt in the 1990's and opened as a international historical site. Again, we had Chris as a tour guide and he is fabulous! We were lucky to have him on the tour. My first picture is Chris next to the Shisha outside the gate to Shuri and the next is a picture of part of the castle itself and then one of the throne. We then went to the city of Naha and went shopping on Kokusai Street and then visited Fukushu-en Garden and the Naminoue Shinto Shrine, where a wedding was going on. I said a couple of prayers at the shrine, then got an "oracle" with a good fortune on it and tied it to a tree as instructed by Chris. Hopefully it will all come true.

Keep the Chileans and Japanese in your prayers for the latest disasters today. I certainly will, as well as our service men and women abroad.

LCDR Butler