Good morning!
I am writing from the comfort of our lovely and clean and
roomy and comfortable
DoubleTree Hotel
Shurii.
Up this morning to a very
wet and rainy day about 7 a.m.
When I
was in the shower, we heard an alarm go off somewhere, but didn’t really know
what was up; thought perhaps it was our doorbell?
At any rate, it continued going on and off –
sometimes for a minute or two at a time, and sometimes just a spurt.
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| Think the lions would look good on our driveway? |
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| Our in our front yard? |
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| He is such a cutie! |
We looked out of the balcony, (in the pouring
rain, of course) and couldn’t see groups of people streaming out of the
building.
We checked over the front door
side, and ditto – no one out, no fire trucks, etc.
What was up?
We were, thankfully, fairly well organized for our move today, and
R slipped into the shower around bursts
of alarms and got dressed.
R thought of the elevator, but that was,
of course, shut off.
We were checking
out anyway, but (with no elevator) we had the lovely task of carrying all of
our luggage down 10 flights of stairs.
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| Loved this painting on a building! |
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| Our lovely room! |
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| They're big into twin beds here... |
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| View out our window, East China Sea in background |
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| Interesting pattern on our ceiling! |
Fortunately, these were outside stairs, and mostly covered from the
rain, but seriously, folks, it was quite a schlep, especially at ages 66 and
76.
Arrived at the lobby to see several
people enjoying croissants and coffee in the lobby, and the poor hotel person
literally running back and forth trying to shut off the alarms whenever they
started up.
So … we had our breakfast,
and then I collected the car and successfully backed right up to the doorway,
so that
R could load the luggage
without everything getting soaking wet.
Then we left!
So…two additional thoughts.
The first is that this hotel has absolutely NO telephone service in any of the rooms. Not particularly a good idea if you’re 10
floors up and wondering what’s going on.
Secondly, reception at this hotel does not operate 24 hours a day. There is someone there from about 7 am to 9
pm, and then they lock the doors. (All
apartments get their own key to the front door, so that they can come and
go.) However, as R pointed out, if this mess with the fire, smoke and elevator alarms
started going off after 9 pm, what would we have done all night? I think this place needs to do some serious
thinking about their methodologies.
So, we’re on the road about 8:45 am, and heading to Naha to
the DoubleTree Shurii in the pouring
rain, figuring that we could store our luggage with them for a while, while we
figure out what we’re doing. (As I say,
we have things to do here, but a lot depends on the rain, as Shurii Castle would probably be better
on a dryer day!)
Emmy, our GPS
couldn’t find the hotel listing, and of course it wasn’t on any of our Naha
maps. We did, though, have directions
printed out, so figured that if we took the 58 highway south to the 29, and went
east, we would find it! So! The traffic was really very, very slow along
the way on this Monday morning, which did give us a chance to look at the
various stores and shops along our route.
We found a FABULOUS place that
had wonderful carvings – especially lions, that I would love to take home! I was thinking that we could have a “My lions
are bigger than your lions” contest with Bob and Stew, our Tucson neighbors,
but R put his foot down firmly on
that one … darn …
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| Lunch at the Grand Cafe |
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| Lots of good things! |
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| And yummy desserts! |
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| Lovely ceiling over the buffet in the Grand Cafe |
Finally made the 29 turn, at which point the traffic got
worse! Hard to believe. I think, all in all, it took us almost an
hour and a half to drive the 30 miles or so and find the hotel. However, suddenly, there it was on the left,
and I almost missed the driveway leading down to it, but we had arrived! I pulled up in front and sent R in to see about leaving luggage – and,
he came back just a few moments later to tell me that our room was almost
ready, and we could go ahead and check right in! YEAH!!!!! He got the luggage on to a cart and I parked
the car – very close to the front door!
Seriously, we do love Hiltons!! The hotel lobby is really lovely, and
includes its’ very own Family Mart,
which is open from 6 am to midnight!
There are also several stores and restaurants; it’s really a nice
place. The gal who checked us in (and
gave us the wonderful DoubleTree
cookies…) actually took us up to our room, 1823, located near the top of the
hotel, and at the end. We even have
windows that OPEN!! Once the rain stops, we will have a stunning
view of the East China Sea.
The rain is predicted to stop around 11:30 am or so, so
we’re staying here until things clear up a little, and then we’ll decide where
we’re heading first! So – more later,
and hopefully it will be without any alarms going off!! But guess what?! It’s actually HAILING outside for the moment!!
m
xxx
About 11:45 or so, we went down to the hotel lobby to take a
look at the
Grand Café and Restaurant
– who were serving their lunch buffet.
We decided to take a look and, good grief, GREAT food!!!!
It is something like
¥2200 per person (about $19.85
each) and it was fabulous!
They had two
chefs slicing and grilling some excellent beef.
They had some incredibly light shrimp tempura, salads of all kinds,
several fish dishes, a chicken dish as well as a pork stew, and their
assortment of desserts went on and on!
Poor
R did not get a real dinner last
night (yet again!) [Actually, poor
R
didn’t get
any dinner last night
because poor
M wasn’t hungry after
Gordie’s hamburger! –
R], and so I think we both very much
enjoyed our lunch!
It turns out that
this
DoubleTree is very much geared
to the tourist market, while the other
DoubleTree
in town I think caters very much to business people.
Besides the
Grand Café, this hotel also has a Japanese restaurant, and a
Chinese restaurant!
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| Top of hill at Underground Headquarters |
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| One of many monuments |
We’ve looked at both
of their menus, and I think we’re going to be enjoying some good eating after
all those hamburgers!
R is
SO
happy!
About 1 pm we headed back out on the road, to find the park
and the
Japanese Underground Naval
Headquarters from WWII.
Not too many
people there, but we did see several Americans along the way.
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| Entrance passageway; very damp! |
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| Hallways |
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| Staff room |
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| Translation of Admiral Ota's last communique |
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| Very sad! |
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| Admiral Ota's chambers |
I know that we have talked about several really sobering
memorials and museums already, but this one took things to an entirely
different level.
This was the cave where
Rear Admiral Ota and his command staff committed ritual suicide when they knew
the battle was lost.
Admiral Ota used
his Japanese sword and committed
Hari
Kari, but much of his support staff actually blew themselves up with hand grenades
in the staff room.
There are craters in
the concrete ceiling that are labeled as being caused by the grenades.
Incredible.
There were photos and film footage of what came to be called
Typhoon of Steel – there was not one
tree left standing in the entire Naha area by the time the fighting had ended.
Hundreds of thousands of Okinawans lost their
lives.
In his last message to his Tokyo
headquarters, Admiral Ota asked the commander to please remember how valiantly the
Okinawans fought assisting the Japanese military, and said that his army had
not treated them well.
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| Beautiful blooming cherry tree next to the hotel! |
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| Gotta love the sign in the bathroom! |
No kidding.
It is estimated that approximately
one-quarter of the civilization population of Naha was killed in the
battle.
Seriously, the horror and wastefulness of
war.
It will be awhile before we are
able to put some of the images of old people and children – some no older than
babies – out of our minds. Especially touching, though, were the pictures of
the GIs helping the civilians and kids during the battle.
After that, we thought we’d return to the hotel for the day,
and R is currently napping away while
I blog. Hopefully he is dreaming of
dinner, as he may actually get two decent meals in one day! What a concept for him!!
More later!
Much love,
m
xxx
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