Okinawa is a lovely place to live for a couple of years, or even longer. But like any place in the world, it has a few peculiarities and annoyances.On base annoyances:
1. Other people's dogs
Everyone thinks their own dog is great, but oftentimes their neighbours would not agree. Military families have a predilection for buying dogs they don't have time for, and leaving them tied up in their yards (against base housing rules) or alone in a tiny fenced area. While most pet owners are pretty good about picking up dog feces, a minority simply let the feces lie where they fall - grassland where the kids play, sidewalk, your flowerbed, wherever. Disgusting. And, this same minority of dog owners seem deaf to the irritating barking of their treasured pet. Remember, many military members are shift workers, and incessant barking is simply not cool.
2. Other people's windchimes
Okinawa can be quite windy. No one wants to be kept awake by your windchimes after they have worked all night. In a quadriplex living situation, windchimes should be illegal.
3. Unneccessary stop signs - the more stop signs put up in stupid places, the more people disobey them. Yield signs are much more appropriate in intersections where you can easily see in all directions and everyone is going less than 30 mph.
4. Extremely poor parallel parking skills
This is an issue on and off base. Nowhere else in the world is there so much room left between cars when parallel parked. Strangely, the offending drivers never leave enough space to actually fit another car. The most flagrant example of this is by the Naval Hospital. Offenders include gaijin and Japanese alike. Please, if you can see the headlights/taillights of the cars in front/behind you, you are too far away. And motorcycles should take up much less than space than cars.
Off base annoyances:
1. Illegal trash dumping
The quantity of illegal dumping on Okinawa is quite sad, and points to a real problem with local disposal and pickup regulations. The worst part is, many of the favored dumping areas are right along the beach, where people park to walk down to less developed seaside locations. There are entire rotting cars, old TVs, sofas and other upholstered goods, and large plastic items littering every slightly-concealed vehicle-accessible nook and cranny in Okinawa.
2. Fisherman trash, feral animals and their feces, and public urination by the seaside
Walk along any area frequented by fishermen, and you'll find a pathetic array of discarded drink cans, plastic bento boxes, cigarette detritus, wrappers, and other trash lying about. These same areas are infested with feral cats, horrible mangy animals that hide in the tetrapods and scrub. One has to constantly look down to avoid stepping in their mess (just like in New York City, but there the waste is mostly from pets and not ferals). And do avoid stairwells and dead-ends if possible, as these are favored spots for a piss, which might occur in broad daylight (despite the huge number of public toilet facilities in Japan)
3. Curbside stopping
Drivers on Okinawa love to stop on the side of a busy road, and don't pay toomuch mind to pulling over as far as possible to the curb. Sometimes hazard lights are turned on, sometimes not. Sometimes the driver is just sitting in the car, sometimes the whole family gets out to take a photo or pick up something at the store. It hardly matters that this behaviour may cause a massive traffic pile-up or imminent danger to other cars - it is so commonplace it may as well be written into the traffic laws that a driver may stop anywhere he or she may please.
4. Summer Sundays and Golden Week
Beware the 58 traffic on these days...especially in the afternoon/early evening. And if you want to be seated at your favourite restaurants, arrive early or late. Riding your bicycle down to Mihama or Ginowan may be faster than driving to a summer festival/fireworks show.
