Hello again

Josh got back from Guam on Thursday evening, I believe. He seemed to have a pretty good trip, maybe I can get him to update the blog about all of his shenanigans, let’s hope! We had a pretty good weekend, full of snorkeling! Saturday we went out to the Sunabe Sea Wall to snorkel for our second time since we have been here. It was fun, there were a lot of different kinds of coral. There weren’t as many fish there, and when you saw some they were a little further down than we could get to. The visibility also wasn’t as clear there, but hey it was still beautiful. Sunday we went back out to Cape Maeda (which is where we snorkeled the first time). I avoided being stabbed by an urchin, woo hoo! It was really gorgeous out there, but kind of busy. It’s a very popular snorkel/dive spot. We had a great time though, fed the fish some Vienna Sausages and swam around for quite a while. It’s days like these when I feel how truly lucky I am to be here. Hopefully we will get an underwater camera soon so we can share all of these neat excursions with you!! We started buying our snorkel gear with our safety vests and felt bottomed booties. Now we have to investigate and find out which fins, snorkels, and masks are best. We will have to get Josh a prescription mask so that he can see everything more clearly. Can’t wait to go again.

Birthday Boy

So today is Josh’s 22nd birthday for everyone who didn’t know! Happy birthday my hunny! Just wanted to take a second to let him know how much he is appreciated. Every day I take the time to think about how fortunate I am to have you in my life and to have you as my husband. Everyday is not perfect but that just makes us appreciate the days that are even more. I hope you know how proud of you I am! Thank you for working as hard as you do every day. I still remember four years ago Deanna, Dad, and I had to celebrate your birthday without you, while you were at boot camp. We bought a cake, we lit the candles, made wishes, and blew them out on your behalf. I’m very glad that I didn’t have to do that again this year, and that you guys aren’t leaving for Guam until tomorrow. I know you wouldn’t have minded the stop in Fuji, but I’m so glad to have you here for your birthday. You’re amazing, I love you, and happy birthday hunny.

What a weekend!

We had a pretty awesome weekend, full of new adventures. Friday we went out to Sam’s by the Sea, which is a restaurant here, with two of our friends. Sam’s is a whole chain of restaurants, all of which are sea based. There’s also Sam’s Anchor Inn, Sam’s Teppanyaki, Sam’s Cafe, and another couple. Sam’s was amazing! It has definitely lived up to its reputation for us, that’s for sure! We both got Filet, I got crablegs with mine and Josh got a sort of Fish cordon blue(I just can’t remember what kind of fish it was right now). I also got a cocktail in a really cute shisa cup =) After all of that super yummy food we went to Hirakawa, which is a patisserie. There are many  patisseries on island that make beautiful(and delicious) desserts. We picked out three to share and made our way home.

My Sam’s cup, our desserts we picked, and some other dessert choices at the patisserie, I was quite partial to hello kitty of course

Saturday Josh and I went and took care of a few things that we’ve needed to get done. We finally got everything transferred for my car because Josh finally got his license on Friday. We also set up our GI Bill Pay which helps us pay our bills easier without running around to pay them off. We also went and looked at a car for Josh and decided to get it. He has been wanting a Daihatsu Naked ever since we got on island, and that’s precisely what he got. Although he didn’t get his preferred color, I believe he is still very happy with it! We will post pictures of it later. Later that evening we went out with our friend Kyle to a place called Delicious that we saw advertised in a magazine here. Josh and I had grown accustomed to Americanized sushi in which everything comes in roll, or maki, form. This isn’t very common in Japan at all, or Okinawa. But at Delicious they only had rolls on the menu and everything we had was amazing! I totally forgot to take pictures, but hopefully it won’t be long before we go back, I’ll try to remember next time. Afterwards we went and bowled two games on base and went home.

Sunday was probably the most fun and one of the bigger adventures we’ve had since coming here. Again we were hanging out with our friend Kyle and went to Kokusai Street. Kokusai street has a lot of shopping and restaurants it’s a pretty touristy place, but it’s pretty much Japanese touristy. We walked around a market type area which had different foods and souvenirs, it was pretty interesting. Josh bought some different foods to try, we tried Okinawan walnut dougnut, a couple baked goods,and a pineapple on a stick. While making our way through the alley like connections of the different shops we saw a meat/fish market type place that Kyle said you can purchase the fish and then they will cook it and you can eat it upstairs. I don’t think we realized exactly what we were about to see in here but it was straight from an episode of “Bizarre Foods.” The first actual thing I see in the meat market was a back of a pigs head that had been cut off and you could see all of his head parts hanging out, little did I know this would definitely not be the only pigs head I would run into here. They also had them decorated with sunglasses and other humorous things but I was just a little grossed out. They also had all of the entrails I’m sure you could imagine, and don’t you just want to imagine entrails? They had super fresh fish there, and by fresh I mean still alive flopping slightly on the ice, it was definitely an experience. There were many interesting things to see on Kokusai street, I hope that if any of you visit us, we can take you there. One of my favorites was an older man in a wheel chair with multicolored dyed hair pushing himself with one foot backwards(very quickly, I might add) and playing sanshin. While going past some young Okinawans he gave them the rock on sign. Very fun guy. After a long, hot day on Kokusai we went to Viking Try which it pretty much a place where you barbeque your own meat at the table and pay by the amount of time you want to eat. We paid for an hour and a half and left beyond stuffed, but boy was it delicious. Now some pictures from a fun Sunday out!

 

 

 

The “fresh” fish, and yes that is a live blowfish in the top left corner.

 

 

       

Most of these I will leave captionless just a bunch of crazy characters at shops here. I also had never seen a escalator that wasnt straight up and down. Weird.

 

Hope you all had a good weekend too!

Sorry that we’ve neglected you.

And to make it up to you, here is a picture post.

My car, 2003 Powder Blue Nissan Cube =D

Pictures from Laxmis, a Thai restaurant where we ate some pretty yummy curry.

 

One of the yummiest places we have been, a Chinese restaurant.

 

 

 

Some of the many strange critters we have seen.

Some pictures of Josh from the tea ceremony. The band played combined with the Japanese military band here on island, the top right is a picture of Josh(of course) and Sgt. Isa(or Iza, not sure?).

 

Where Sandra and I went when the boys were away. Yogurtland (YUM!) and the Double Decker.

Some pics from their summer concert at the convention center.

The yummy desserts that Balinda, our housing agent brought us.

Freshness Burger! It was super yummy! That’s a teriyaki burger with lettuce and mayo, fries,  and a Pepsi Nex, whatever that is. Tasted like lime or something in it.

 

The Arin Krin( the yummy garlic restaurant) and one of the bagillions of slot and pachinko places here.

 

That’s all I’ve got for today. Hope you enjoyed it!