Oh boy

Week went by pretty uneventfully but people had been talking all week about visiting some haunted places around the island. Some of the guys from work had offered to drive us around to them are were really excited about it. It got to be friday and we were talking about it all day. They were saying stuff about this one haunted hotel that apparently had been half built. Something about there being ghosts there and the Japanese did not want to disturb them so they quit. There is a lot of other supposedly haunted places as well especially because of all the war monuments and ruins that are in Okinawa. We got off work and DK (Donkey Kong), otherwise known as Maggie, and I changed and went straight to American Village with Peach (Keleigh) after work. There was a section that I had not explored yet that had a big store that was kind of like a Forever 21 that we really wanted to go to because it was supposed to be pretty cheap. We got there and it was awesome. There were sale signs everywhere and random nicknacks like headbands with celery and pears on them. Definitely got a picture with those :) We finished up our shopping and ate at this hamburger restaurant that had really good french fries and then started walking back. I had texted my roommate Megan and found out that she was at the 100 yen store with a couple other girls. We met up with them for a minute and found out that one of them was planning a whole seance sort of thing. She was talking about making dolls and they bought soy sauce to make a salt circle... Before that we had been talking about one girl who has a Marine friend and he was saying don't go. If you go you will hear something and it's not fun. So I was already getting freaked out. If a Marine is freaked out then I would probably pee my pants. After hearing the whole seance thing I was out. Not that I believe in ghosts, but I feel like that is just tempting the devil. I ended up walking to the shoppette with my PC and getting these things called f'reals which are like frozen smoothies and milkshakes that you stick in this machine and then they mix it more you. They are really good :)
The next day I was able to go with a family from our center who had invited some of us to go to a bbq on the beach with them and another family. They drove us up to the Torii Army station and we got on base and went to this really beautiful beach that they have there. There was a lot of coral but it was pretty shallow and you could walk kind of far out. We played in the water for a bit with the two little boys and then they rented these surfboard looking things with paddles that you are supposed to stand on and then paddle around. We ended up just sitting on them because the boys wanted to get on too and they would move around too much. We paddled them out into the ocean and then raced back for lunch. After lunch there was more paddling and we collected some really neat shells on the beach as well.
They took us back to our housing and I had like an hour and then Megan got back. They had gone to Pineapple Park and stuff and come back. I was super jealous :( We sat around for a while and then Annalisa (Bowser) got back and invited us to go bowling on base. We went and played a game before deciding to turn in for the night because we had to be up super early the next morning to go snorkeling in the Keramas. Bowser and I watched half a movie and then got too tired to finish and went to bed.
The next morning we had to wake up at like 7 to be at the Commissary by 8 for getting on the bus. We all checked in and it was about a 30 min bus ride to Naha where we got on a boat to take us out to the Keramas which took about 45 minutes. It was beautiful there. We stopped at one island first and were told that we could not swim to the island because there were habuu snakes. The water was pretty deep but there were reefs that you could swim over and it was perfectly clear. We saw so many fish that we so colorful and a bunch of schools of fish as well. We were there for a really long time and took a break for a while and then took turns jumping off of the top of the boat. We still had time after that so we did a little bit more snorkeling and I was able to see a sea turtle that was eating some of the coral almost right beneath out boat! After that we got back on the boat and it took us about 10 minutes away to another island that we could actually go on the beach at. I didn't go on the beach though because I did not have any water shoes and the coral and sea debris went all the way up to the shore. This spot was a lot neater though and more what you might see in a postcard. It was much shallower water here and the sand was perfectly white. As you got closer to shore there was more coral reefs and a ton of fish. I explored as close to the shore as I could get while still swimming over the reef and not touching my feet down. The reef was really cool and there were some fish out in the open water and sand trying to find food but the ones in the coral were really neat. There were Dori fish and Nemo and some angel fish too. At one point though I saw a sea snake really close to me though swimming up diagonally towards the top of the water and I got really freaked out and swan as fast as I could back to the boat. After that we sat out on the deck of the boat for a bit and talked and eventually moved to the bow of the boat where we lay out our towels and tanned for a bit. I burned. Bad. I have never burned this bad before and it hurt really bad. Getting dressed the next morning was a disaster. I haven't started pealing that bad though yet so I'm hoping that's a good sign.