Coming to Okinawa, and I Know NOTHING

After I get the guide books for the kids, then I want to know about where I'm going. So I start searching the web.

The first website that pops up is Okinawa Hai. It's actually a great website for finding food, parks, and stuff to do. There's also an important category called I'm New Here that you will find helpful. See the caveat at the end of this post.

The next website I went looking for was the bookoo/ Okinawa Yard Sales website on Okinawa, which I imagined must be a pretty active community. It's a good resource for buying and selling stuff (like a Craig's list that's dominated by military people, if you're new to the military). It didn't teach me anything about Okinawa, but it was still nice to see something familiar in the new place we were going to.

One warning: As you look for stuff about moving to Okinawa, do know that the guidelines vary drastically from service to service. (If you're reading about a Marine spouse's experience, it's going to be different if your spouse is in the Air Force, and so on.) Information you find online may be significantly out of date. So pay attention.

Coming to Okinawa: First Resources

Usually when we know where we're going, I start to learn about our new place. The more I know, the more I can share with my children. The more they know what to expect, and what they will see, the more they are at peace with our move and look forward to where they are going next.

I love taxonomy, so the first thing I look for are field guides.
There weren't any bird guides in English for the birds of Okinawa. I found the Birds of East Asia by Mark Brazil and A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Japan by Tadao Shimba.

I did find a neat guide called a Birder's Guide to Okinawa by Tom Marko.

(We didn't start looking at fish and shells and plants until we got to Okinawa.)

I also looked on youtube for video about Okinawa, and really didn't find anything I really liked. I did find an amateur film on Amazon that was worth the money. Tour of Okinawa by James and Chissy Knott.

What's the first kind of information you look for when you PCS?