Our Last Weekend on Island

Saturday - June 9th [continued]

...so per my last post - we spent our Saturday night here combining a very Japanese activity with a very Marine one. We have been talking about getting sushi all week, so I was super excited to finally get to go and have some! John & Allison took us to one of their favorite sushi places here on the island - the Okinawa Kami Sushi Bar - we sat again at the traditional Japanese tables [which means taking our shoes off and sitting on the floor]. Since sushi was a new thing for most of the family, we left the ordering up to John & Allison. They ordered a TON of different types of sushi rolls - including one that the waiter finished making using a blow torch once it was out at the table [a Norwegian roll]. Despite some reservations about sushi in general, whether or not it would be filling or even edible, a good time was had by all and the sushi [in my opinion] was AMAZING. The company wasn't so bad either ;)


[Also: we have really stepped up our chopstick skills since getting here - Andrew has probably picked up using them the fastest/most naturally, he is kinda awesome at using chopsticks, the rest of us kinda get by so we can eat, now that its the end of the week we just drop stuff less!]

After dinner, John & Allison had gotten tickets for us to go to a concert at the the Okinawa Cultural Center and see the The III Marine Expeditionary Force [MEF] Band - Friendship Summer Concert. Quite full from dinner, we headed over to the concert - the cultural center is a building we have been driving past all week and the outside is super cool so we were looking forward to both the concert & getting to see the inside of the building. 


The concert was spectacular. Selections of music included everything from pieces by John Philip Sousa to the Bohemian Rhapsody by Freddie Mercury. The band and it's conductors & Drum Major were incredibly talented and entertaining! We saw a little bit of everything, they even started one piece with a bagpipes player. Before intermission one of the conductors introduced the band and shared with us that some of the members have been on island anywhere from arriving there THAT DAY to a couple of years. The youngest band member was 18! The concert ended with a standing ovation from the audience and the band then marched out into the audience to play Stars & Stripes. 

Our concert adventure was followed by a trip to get some ice cream to end our evening - Blue Seal Ice Cream is EVERYWHERE here and there is one somewhat close to where John & Allison live so we stopped in. One flavor they had available was called "Momo" which was some kind of peach ice cream - some of us tried that - Andrew tried to order oreos on top of his ice cream, thinking they would come as a crushed topping - we all got a little laugh when his ice cream came out with two whole oreos stuck on the top! 


5k + beach + BIG sushi dinner + concert + ice cream = BEDTIME. 

Sunday - June 10th

As of Sunday we had officially been on island for over a week! Woohoo! First thing in the morning we headed to Okinawa Lutheran Church again for just their English service this time. Very cool to see the Lutheran church in another country!

After church, we stopped by Kadena - the largest US air force base - for a quick tour and to visit some of their stores on base. Kadena was really cool to see, we have been driving past it since getting on the island and the Rodriguez's have close family friends who were stationed here on the island at Kadena at one point so it was also neat to see a part of their life when they had been in Okinawa!

Since Sunday was our last full day together and we needed to start preparing to leave - all of our activities were fairly low key - after Kadena we went to SEGA - something Andrew was really looking forward too. SEGA is kind of like Chuck E Cheese/Dave & Busters on steroids!! Very loud, but lots of fun! Some of the games were kind of tough to figure out since all of the signs & instructions were in Japanese but that was all part of the experience :)

The boys figured this game out just fine :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing, doing laundry, grocery store run...just general preparations for our upcoming flights home & John and Allison's week ahead. 


We enjoyed watching a movie, cooking, eating, and spending time together - including a marathon game of catchphrase which lasted until we were all too tired to figure out how to describe some of even the most simple words!

Monday  - June 11th

Today had a bittersweet start with saying our goodbyes to John before he had to leave for work this morning. We have only a few hours left here with Allison before it will be time to pack up the car and head to the airport and being our journey back to the states. What a wonderful blessing to get to see Allison & John and for them to share what their life here in Okinawa is like!! They have been such gracious hosts as we have taken over their apartment for the last week - and its been fun to see them enjoy married life together so much :)


As we head back to the states, again, please continue to keep our safe travels in your prayers - I know we are all looking forward to sharing about our trip in person with many of you upon our return! 

Adam & The Snake.

For whatever reason, I am currently up [its 5am on Wednesday morning here] and motivated to blog about our day yesterday. So since this post will only have one day of adventure I will make an effort to maybe shorten your reading! Still tons of pictures though don't worry :)

Tuesday - June 5

Okinawa World

Yesterday morning is when the typhoon officially rolled through, so we all were up early to watch the high winds and heavy rain sweep through, then most of us went back to bed for a little so overall we ended up having a fairly leisurely start to our day. [Grits, eggs, and toast for breakfast!! Yum!]

Our big adventure for the day was a trip to Okinawa World - this [like Nago Pineapple Park] is a place John & Allison had not gone before, but was recommended by many of their friends here who have also had family in town. The description from their website it probably the most helpful in explaining what Okinawa World is [By theme park, they mean the park had an overall theme to it - not American theme park with roller coasters]: 

"Okinawa World is Okinawa Prefecture's foremost theme park and presents the local history, culture and nature all in one location. The parks main attraction is Gyokusendo. 5000meter long cave that was formed approximately 300,000 years ago, it offers today a 890-meter promenade to the public. Next-door is the Habu Park, a center that has no secrets about Okinawa's venomous snake. There is also a scenic village of old time Okinawa and workshops that allow experiencing Okinawa's traditional industrial heritage and local folk craft such as glass blowing and pottery. "

Many, many beautiful and interesting things to see and experience here!! Below are pictures from their Tropical Garden, their traditional craft village, and the huge cool tree in the center is at the entrance to their cave.

Some beautiful things we saw at Okinawa World!

Some more cool things [Clockwise from top L: Adam measured up next to a snake, inside of the entrance to the cave, glass blown art, Japanese fortunes, glass blowing, Adam with Habu sake - a type of alcohol - in the making, more glass art, and their on site brewery]

We had fun exploring the different things Okinawa World had - even encountering a variety of unique signs/things that you don't see everyday in the states. Ladies - the bottom left picture is instructions for the WOMEN'S toilets here... 

Check out the sushi Spam we found & Andrew even ordered some delicious french fries while we were there!

In the crafting village there were many different artisans - one of which was slightly more modern - a photographer! We took a break from exploring Okinawa World to have some fun dressing up in traditional Japanese outfits :)

Looking pretty great :)

It was a little overcast yesterday - but nice enough that we were leisurely walking through Okinawa World - Adam even found a little down time to keep reading his book (Debbie, if you are reading this, please be proud!!)

Rockstar DCE!

Last, but not least, an explanation of the title of this post - Adam & The Snake.

When we entered Okinawa World, one of the first areas to go through it their Habu Park - basically snake central 101. The Habu is a type of snake found here in Japan - and on the island of Okinawa, they have tons of other kinds of snakes here as we learned touring through their museum and past tanks literally full of live snakes. Now to appreciate this overall it is important to understand that saying Adam is TERRIFIED of snakes does not begin to cover his feelings of disgust, hatred, and fear towards these animals - they are not his favorites. But being a trooper, he was walking through Habu Park and even went with us to the snake show they had! The show was interesting because it was all in Japanese so we only vaguely knew what was going on the entire time the lady was presenting. They had a laminated sheet in English with a general explanation of what was going on - but that only got us so far! After seeing a variety of live snakes get tossed around on stage and a race between a mongoose and a snake - the show was basically over. After the show ended, we then had the 'opportunity' to get our photo taken with a large python. This event easily turned into the most hilarious and priceless part of our day - we were all practically crying we were laughing so hard...I will let the pictures speak for themselves :)

Again *DISCLAIMER* Adam really really does not like snakes x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000...

We were both shaking after this photo op, but seriously I still die laughing looking at these photos :)

Everyone else had a slightly more low-key snake holding experience:

After all of the Okinawa World adventures - we headed home to grab our stuff for the beach. We spend the late afternoon reading on the beach before coming home for dinner & a few games of Apples to Apples before we all headed off to bed.

Today's plan: Going to the Ocean Expo Park - which features the Churaumi Aquarium!

Japan or Bust!!

As promised, a Japan-related post finally. This may be news to some of you...but here are the details to catch everyone up!!

Okinawa has awesome beaches that we are all looking forward to spending some time at!

Who: Adam's Parents, Adam, his younger brother - Andrew, and me! 

This is from the last time we saw John & Allison!

What: We are going to visit Allison (Adam's older sister) and her husband John!!! We haven't seen them since they first moved to Okinawa in October of last year. John is a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps and his first major posting was - surprise - Japan!

John & Allison with us at their wedding!

Where: Okinawa, Japan - John & Allison live on a US military base there. Okinawa is one of several islands that collectively make up the country of Japan. If you look at a whole map of Japan - Okinawa is a tiny island towards the bottom of the string of islands. I found a fun map below that shows all the military bases on Okinawa. The Marine Corps bases are all in red on this map - and John & Allison live on Kinser (kinda the bottom left red dot...) Anyways - you get the idea!

When: Leaving tomorrow & staying for 2 weeks. As I write this post, we are in the middle of last minute packing and preparation. We leave from Chicago (Adam's family lives south of Indianapolis, IN). So tonight, we are driving to Chicago, then first thing tomorrow our flying portion of this whole adventure will begin. Our flights are: 

• Chicago to Los Angels, CA
• LA to Tokyo
• Tokyo, Japan to Okinawa 

We will be flying for around a total of 22 hours tomorrow (a little over 24 hours of travel time total including a few small layovers). There is a fairly major time difference between Japan and the US. Japan is 13 hours AHEAD of the Eastern Time Zone here is the US, and 14 hours AHEAD of the Central Time Zone. This basically means that when it is morning time in the US, its night in Japan (and vice versa). 

I will be blogging throughout our trip so be on the lookout for more Japan posts to follow these next couple of weeks. Please keep us in your prayers, that we have safe travels & an awesome and blessed time visiting John & Allison and seeing their new life!

-Kyla