It is flat out cold on tropical Okinawa!!!!!!

Here is one to cheer us all up:

the bearers of spring

Sakura or Cherry Blossoms
We went to one of the many Sakura Festivals here on the island on 2/3/08

Here we are almost Valentine's day and it actually has become cold in Okinawa. Maybe I have brought that onto us by taking about BBQ on the balcony in January.... But it feels really cold outside (it was around 56F/14C around early afternoon). Here that is cold, because we have a humidity of about 70-80% at all times, plus it has been raining with no end for the last few weeks. It also has been very windy. Tonight it is whipping so bad, that I felt the wind pushing on our ity-bity car (I kept thinking, boy am I glad not to have my big pick-up from the states here).

I laughed when my dear son Josh took his furlined house slippers to a tropical island last summer, but now we are taking turns with them : tonight my husband has them and I am sitting here with cold feet!!!!! Yes, there is a heater in our appartment, but not the kind most people would expect: it is part of the Air Conditioning unit and there are two of them.

When I first saw gloves, hats and heavy coats for sale, I laughed, but now I see the reason.... The Japanses walk everywhere and right now they are very bundeld up!!!!! Just like in the mountains in the middle of winter.... I have not gotten that bad yet (remember I moved here from Colorado, where it actually gets cold!!!!), but I am wearing long sleeves sweaters and a light coat most of the time. I think, the worst part for me is not the damp cold, but the lack of sun...... (Colorado had around 300 days of sun a year and I have not seen the sun in about two weeks.....)

Well, it will not last forever and according to my husband we will be nice and warm again in March and flat out hot by April! And that will last for 6 month. My friend from the Philipines, that moved here from Yuma, AZ, complains that the weather is way to hot and humid in Okinawa. One would think she is used to the heat. Go figure.....