Okinawa Living Weekly

March 17, 2016 • mccsokinawa.com

danbo/Bigstock.com

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usts of salty, blustery wind smacks your face as the boat plunges forward. You scan the horizon looking for a sign of movement or that you may at least be close. This is the exhilarating race that inspired so many tales—the sighting of a whale. Anchor onto one of MCCS Tours+ last whale watching tours of the season and feel the rush of excitement when you spot the incredible humpback whale.

Despite weighing up to 30 tons, the humpback whale is capable of propelling itself entirely out of the ocean, a heart-stopping sight. The humpback

inside

is also known for its enchanting siren song that travels miles through the sea.

Each year, these mammoth-sized creatures surface around the stunning Kerama Islands on their annual journey from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands to warmer waters of the East China Sea. This takes them right past Okinawa—but the behemoths have almost completed this portion of their voyage. Whale watching season ends at the end of March. However, you still have a chance to see these beautiful mammals up close on a tour with MCCS Tours+.

Underwater Eggstravaganza | 3 Body By You Boot Camp | 3 Culture Corner: Cats! | 5 Japanese Phrase of the Week | 5

Don’t miss your last opportunity for the year.

Sign up for one of the last two whale watching tours on either March 19 or 27. The tour lasts from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. After a refreshing morning on the East China Sea, explore Kokusai Street for lunch and shopping.

Please note that this is a weather-dependent tour and the frequency and number of visible whales may vary.

For more information, call your local Tours+ office or visit mccsokinawa.com/tours.

—Caylee Reid

Pick of the Week: Nekomaru Café | 7 Healthy Families Poster Contest | 9 Off-Base Events | 11 Semper Fit Events | 11

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Underwater Eggstravaganza

he Easter egg was a symbol of rebirth of the Earth in Pagan celebrations of spring and was eventually adopted by Christians as a symbol of rebirth as well. The practice of painting eggs can be traced back to the ancient Zoroastrians’ New Year celebration on the spring equinox. For our purposes, the Easter eggs in the Underwater Eggstravaganza symbolize a fun afternoon with prizes and lots of candy.

The Easter egg hunt is a timeless Easter pastime for youth around the world. The largest hunt consisted of 501,000 eggs and 9,753 children at the Cypress Gardens Adventure Park in Florida. While a hunt of that magnitude might span the full expanse of this island, the Underwater Eggstravagnaza will surely be no less intense. There’s really nothing quite like having a basket full of Easter eggs, cracking them open one by one as if they were little colorful spheres of Christmas.

If you would like to be part of this event, come by the Camp Foster 25M pool on March 26. This event will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Everyone is welcome, but hunters must be between the ages 3 and 15. Make sure you bring your swimsuit and gog-

gles, if you choose to hunt for eggs underwater. (Above-ground hunts are also available.) Great prizes await the winners so start fine-tuning all of your underwater excavation skills now. For details, call 645-7554 or visit mccsokinawa.com /aquatics.

events&happenings

Top to bottom: flippo/bigstock.com, EpicStockMedia/bigstock.com

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Body By You Boot Camp

f you’re having a hard time kickstarting your workout regime but want to start burning some serious calories, the Body By You Boot Camp may be the right place to start. Working out in a group can help you stick with a routine and form supportive friendships to keep you on target. It also adds a new level of challenge and interest. This Boot Camp can lead to stronger muscles, increased endurance and reaching your fitness goals sooner.

Body by You is the place to lose weight, make friends, and transform your lifestyle. Unlike crash dieting or “miracle” products, this eightweek program helps you make the right choices with a certified personal trainer to keep you on track. This class offers support, friendly competition from peers and is geared towards people of all fitness levels.

Trainers also track your progress, adding extra motivation for those that need to see results.

With hard work and a dedicated mindset you can lose inches, gain muscle and feel great about this positive lifestyle change. With this class under your belt, it will be easy to get rid of unhealthy habits and those extra inches. Classes will be held at Gunners Fitness Center on Camp Foster and Ironworks Fitness

Center on Camp Courtney from April 18 to June 10. Register by April 10 at the fitness center where you would like to attend. For times and prices, call MCCS Health Promotion at 645-3910 or stop by your nearest participating fitness center.

Visit mccsokinawa.com/wellness for additional details.

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER | Jim Kassebaum MANAGING EDITOR | Ryan Anastoplus ART DIRECTOR | Hector Nieves CULTURAL RESEARCH SPECIALIST | Ayako Kawamitsu GRAPHIC ARTS MANAGER | Henry Ortega GRAPHIC DESIGNERS | Margie Shimabukuro, Lisa Miyagi, Kelli Davis, Catherine Newquist EDITOR-IN-CHIEF | Mike Daley EDITOR | Caylee Reid PHOTOGRAPHER | Thomas Alan Smilie AD/SPONSORSHIP MANAGER | Roy Forster AD SALES | Yoshihiro Shinzato, Aya Chilcote, Yoriko Yamashiro, Carina Fils-Julien, Lisa Hicks DISTRIBUTION | Gideon Juko, Kelli Kreider MARKETING ACCOUNTS MANAGER | Andrew Menges ACCOUNTS & RESEARCH | Amanda Bakun, Katherine Melrose, Kayla Christen, Jenessa Reutov, Jennifer Dowd, Marissa DeSmet BROADCAST | Victor Mercado, Kathlene Millette, Gabriel Archer CAREER PRACTICUM INTERN | Skylor Stevens

Questions? Comments? Please e-mail OLW@okinawa.usmc-mccs.org.

To advertise in Okinawa LivingWeekly, call 645-2245, fax 645-0975, or email sales@okinawa.usmc-mccs.org. MCCS is not responsible for designing and editing outside ads.

No Department of Defense, U.S. Marine Corps or Marine Corps Community Services endorsement of commercial advertisers or sponsors implied.

This publication printed with

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japanese phrase

culturecorner

of the week

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Nya nya Meow meow For details about FREE Japanese language classes, please call Marine & Family Programs-Resources at 645-2104/2106.

Cats!

he everyday house cat carries an immense influence in Japanese culture. Cats have an inflated population in Japan. Roaming the many islands of the country without apprehension was routine for cats.

Felines of all different sizes, colors and shapes inhabit Tashiro-Jima, or Cat Island. Also trendy in Japan are cat cafés (read more on p. 7). Feline lovers could not be in a better place for the experience of being surrounded by their favorite animal.

In Japan, cats are symbols of good luck. Restaurants and businesses display the figure of a maneki-neko (beckoning cat) for good fortune.

The calico with a raised paw is said to produce success and good luck.

Another cat that brings good fortune in Japan is the black cat. Crossing paths with a black cat in Japan is not an ill omen, but a sign of good things to come.

Cats have been part of Japanese superstition since man and cat were introduced in Japan. Tales of bakeneko, a yôkai (supernatural being) version of a cat, have been told since the Kamakura period. Some legends say that cats become a yôkai upon reaching seven years of age and gain the ability of possessing and cursing humans, speaking, manipulating the dead and growing multiple tails.

Japan also has happier portraits of cats, like Hello Kitty, which nets $7 billion each year. Hello Kitty has its own plane, stores across the world, cafés, restaurants and even a movie in the works. At 42 years of age, one might call the success of Hello Kitty yôkai-like.

—Ryan Anastoplus

Clockwise from the top left: Cherry-Merry/bigstock.com, Tatomm/bigstock.com

If you have any burning questions about Japanese culture, please send them to OLW@okinawa.usmc-mccs.org.

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getting there

Coordinates: 26°17'08.6"N 127°45'25.8"E Payment: ¥ only Look for the building with cats reaching for a strawberry vine and delivering cupcakes painted on it.

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Nekomaru Café

nwind. Sip on a cup of warm honey ginger tea while overlooking the East China Sea and completely surrounded by cats. It may sound like something out of a romantic novel, but this charming wasting away of time is here and real.

Okinawa has a handful of cat cafés, and this particular scene is located at Nekomaru Café, literally meaning “Cat Circle Café.”

Enjoy a quick 30 minutes or spend the entire day here, playing with the cats using the toys provided, or luring them into your lap for cuddles with a small bag of catnip, included in the cat café’s price. Grab lunch while you’re at it. The menu (Japanese only, so study up or whip out your translator app) includes pastas, curry, taco rice and an assortment of drinks and desserts. The cats lounge around everywhere—the cat walk suspended from the ceiling, a box in the shape of a delivery truck, couches, cat trees, cat castles and, quite possibly, your table. Don’t worry, the

food and drinks come with coverings.

The cats are an assortment themselves—spotted, calico, tabby, mustached, and, my personal favorite, Machiko, the gray munchkin cat. Cat merchandise is also available if you

Clockwise from the top left: Caylee Reid (2), Thomas Alan Smilie

photooftheweek

Speaking of relaxing, it is hard to beat an Okinawa sunset. Take a minute to capture one this week. It doesn’t get much better.

want to commemorate your weirdly relaxing afternoon. Learn from the cats and take an afternoon to just laze. Sometimes all you need is the comfort of a kitty. Or five.

—Caylee Reid

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more details

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Clockwise from the top left: dolgachov/bigstock.com, Marish/bigstock.com

President Reagan named April Child Abuse Prevention Month in 1983 with the slogan, “Kids—you can’t beat ‘em.”

Healthy Families Poster Contest

pril is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Through April we pay extra attention to make sure the world is a better place for children and their families. We want to prevent the mistreatment of children by equipping parents with the knowledge, skills and resources they need to care for their children.

Research has shown that there are six factors that promote positive growth in children and their families. The factors are: nurturing and attachment, knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development, parental resilience, social connections, concrete supports for parents, and social and emotional developmental well-being.

Parents are given certain cues and guides to help their children grow in a positive environment.

But what does a child’s ideal home environment look like? Behavioral Health and Family Advocacy want

to know. The Healthy Families Poster Contest asks children to illustrate what a healthy home means to them, their views on attentive parenting and proper supervision.

Winners will be selected from elementary, middle and high school age categories. Register online at mccsokinawa.com/supportgroups and

submit your work no later than April 1. Prizes are offered courtesy of Mattel.

Voting for the winner via the Family Advocacy website will continue through April. All works will be displayed at the Camp Foster library. For more information, call Family Advocacy at 645-2915.

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tours+

adventure begins here Whale Watching March 27, 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

Adults $50, Children (4–11) $35 Watch these mammoth creatures surface around the Kerama Islands on their journey to warmer waters. Afterwards, have lunch and shop on Kokusai Street.

Ryukyu Kings Basketball Game March 26, 4:30–10 p.m.

Adults $36, Children (6–12) $21 (under 6) FREE Watch as Okinawa’s own Ryukyu Golden Kings battle the Shiga Lake Stars at the Tomishiro Civic Gym.

Battle Sites March 27, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

Adults $28, Children (3–11) $18 (under 3) FREE Visit Kakazu Ridge, the Japanese Naval Underground Headquarters and Peace Prayer Park.

Tunnel Rats March 26, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

Adults $23, Children (7–11) $16 Explore numerous caves that served as bunkers and shelter during WWII and then visit the Battle of Okinawa Historical Society Museum.

*Bring yen for additional food, drinks and/or purchases. For more information, contact MCCS Tours+: Camp Foster 646-3502 | Camp Hansen 623-6344 | Camp Kinser 637-2744

off-baseevents get out and explore

Moon Beach Yachimun Market March 19–21, 9:30 a.m.–8 p.m.

Hotel Moon Beach, Onna Village FREE

Proud sponsor of MCCS Youth Sports

Athletics/Adult Sports

Clockwise from the top left: dolgachov/bigstock.com, Marish/bigstock.com

645-3521/3522

Aquatics 645-3180 Courtney Ironworks 622-9261/7297 Futenma Semper Fit 636-2672 Gunners Fitness Center 645-3985/2235 Hansen House of Pain 623-5558/4831 Health Promotion 645-3484/3910 Kinser Fitness Center 637-1869/1114 Schwab Power Dome 625-2654/2442 Taiyo Golf Club 622-2004 Tsunami SCUBA 645-9500 Youth Sports 645-3533/3534

St. Patrick’s Day Parade March 19, 3–8 p.m.

B.C. Street, Okinawa City FREE

Motobu Handmade Market March 20, 10 a.m–4 p.m.

Motobu Market, Motobu Town FREE

upcoming semperfitevents Lord of the Tengan 5K Fun Run March 20 Camp Courtney Semper Fit Register onsite from 6:30–7:30 a.m. for $25. This event is open to participants island-wide. Awards will be given to winners in each division. Details: 622-7297.

Open 6-on-6 Soccer Tournament March 25–27 Camp Foster Gunners Fitness Center Register at any MCCS Fitness Center by 1 p.m. on March 21 for $90 per team.

This event is open to participants islandwide. Team and individual awards will be given. Details: 645-3003.

classof theweek BodyBlast This class is designed to build strength, increase endurance and burn fat. Each class will focus on using a variety of strength training equipment in a fun and motivating atmosphere.

Camp Foster For a full class schedule and times, visit mccsokinawa.com/groupfitness.