Pizza in Okinawa

With all the yummy food options we have here, pizza would not be one of them.  Sure, there is the Pizza Hut on base, as well as Anthony's (which tastes like cardboard to me).  But a good, hunkin', real Italian pizza, well, that's just hard to come by when you're on this island.

And then we discovered Il Piccolino's tucked behind an obscure back vacant lot somewhere 21 km north of our base on Route 58 (those were the directions we were following, and believe it or not, we found it - in the dark!)  Il Piccolino's is a one man show with a grand total of 5 tables and a tiny bar area run by a Japanese dude with a 'fro. But he was trained in Rome and has a tiny little wood oven where he bakes the pizzas and they are DELICIOUS!  Liz and I (we were on a double date) shared the eggplant and salami pizza and the guys shared a spicy pizza with chili oil, spicy Okinawan peppers and spicy sausage.  Oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about the food again...And then there was the bruschetta, and salad, and tiramisu which all knocked our socks off.  Liz summed it up when we walked out of the restaurant, "I'm ready to go back again!"

Yum on a plate!

After the scrumptious dinner, we headed out to a country bar to dance the night away.  I've heard about "Western World" before, but this was our first time there and for a minute, especially as we drove under the dude ranch-like archway and down the pot-holed dirt road, I almost forgot I was in Okinawa.  But then the sight of a parking lot full of little pink and bright green and other oddly colored cars instead of pick-up trucks reminded me I was still in Japan!  Still, the music was country, the beer was cold, the dance floor was wide and the mechanical bull could conquer even the toughest Marine out for a good time.

Yes, they were line dancing, but they were also two steppin'!