Tropical Dream Center 6: Victoria Greenhouse

Then there's this stand alone greenhouse, when you first go in its an aquarium of I want to say Amazonian fish? A few huge fish, one a catfish.

Then you go upstairs to find the greenhouse, lots of cute pitcher-type plants...

Other non-Okinawan plants...

giant water lilies... all in a greenhouse that is actually hotter than the others, certainly hotter than it was outside that day, it was a gorgeous day!
At the end of the greenhouse is a random banyon, I'm assuming was cultivated to hang in the middle of the path as a single twined hanging for photo ops. The Japanese are as big on photo ops as Disney!

Tropical Dream Center 5: Panel Exhibition

I was in luck and happened to go to the center while they had a panel exhibit about the wild orchids of Okinawa - finding them in the wild... which was less about how to find them and more about pictures of them in the wild. Which makes sense, wouldn't want every Tom Dick and Harry running up to these places and pulling them out to take home. It was nice though, there were explanations for the Japanese names.

Being a panel exhibit, it didn't photograph too well, which is sad because by this point Coryn was bored to tears, though Carter was asleep for most half of the center.

Here's the other half decent pic.

Then we found ourself in the observatory, the spiral looking building that any who haven't been yet assume is the center itself. Its not much though, the interior is a tribute to the people who study and film nature along with a display about growing orchids from seeds.
the view at the top is lovely of course.

Tropical Dream Center 4: Karasawa Library

Not sure who Karasawa is, at least in relation to the center, but he's obviously a botanist of some kind. There is an entire room full of orchids that I'm sure are related to him somehow, though if its ones he's named, bred, drawn, grown, I don't know.

He must publish or at least add to books that have been published, some with pictures, some drawn, and one that looks like it might have been written for children with fairies on the orchids!

Most of the ones in this 'library' are unusual looking.
This might be my favorite...

But they are all quite beautiful.

Tropical Dream Center 3: Fruit and Water

They also have Cacao trees...

Wax apple... and durian to name a few more.

Japanese like to make stamp hunts for the kids in the historical/educational sites to keep them entertained, and it works! Coryn was always hunting for the next stamp on his giant sheet of paper. 15 stamps in all.
Water being an important aspect to life in general, and tropical plants in particular, there are a few areas of water in the center, one of which has koi you can feed with edibly boxed feed (looks like some of their icecream sandwiches)

Lily ponds of course...

Tropical Dream Center 2: Fruit Tree Greenhouse

Cucumber Tree

Flowers from the Box Fruit Tree hanging over the path.Box Fruit

Jack Fruit

Mmm... Mango... You Wanta Da Mango... yes, they bag their mangos before they fall off the tree, no need for constant vigil to catch them at peak ripeness :)

Tropical Dream Center

So, we continued our trip to the Expo Park with the Tropical Dream Center... here is the entrance, yes, thats Coryn running ahead

The walking path towards the first greenhouse gives a nice view if the dream center itself. There are five different greenhouses, the first three of which are dedicated to orchids.

Though they aren't exclusively orchids, I think... I haven't looked up this cobra plant yet, it might be.

orchids with such finely bisected petals to look fuzzy....

and well, lots of orchids. I was unfortunately too late to see the vanilla in bloom, but there was plenty to keep me occupied even without an international orchid festival going on. and, it was very much so not busy... I highly recommend walking through when visiting the aquarium.

Fire Pix

A while back I wrote about a fire we had on the FOB, here are the pictures to go with it.


This is why we have building codes in the states, in an attempt to avoid this.



as you can see from the firetruck, they've got all the high tech gadgets over here (I was shocked to see a fire truck at all, I expected a bucket brigade)


I'm sure it was the most exciting thing these guys had seen in some time.


Upon further inspection, I THOUGHT about writing about the fire we had here. It was a restaurant run by a local that had about a million electrical issues that finally caught up with it. I woke up at 0300 to a noise I couldn't quite place. At first, in my groggy state I thought it was an air raid siren. Then I realized there wasn't much threat from the Taliban Air Force. I laid there a while longer and finally realized it was an old school emergency vehicle siren. It made much more sense when I saw the old fire engine (note: I didn't take any of these pictures, I rolled over and went back to sleep knowing if anything was really happening someone would come and wake me up).