Kokusai Street

      

                                                            
Today Ken and I spent the afternoon on Kokusai street, it was Ken's first trip down there and we had a good time!! We love to people watch and that is most definitely the place to do it!!!

And you can always see some interesting things too!

Ken humoring me!!!!

                                                                 Inside the market.

Our first adventure was trying to figure out the parking lot, they had pop up barricades under your cars, well we got a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to get our car out, because the directions were all in Kanji!!! Well when we decided to move it, we looked over and the barricade had already engaged, so it wasn't going anywhere!!

So we just waited a few minutes and  a japanese couple was leaving and we tried to be as discreet as possible looking over her shoulder to see what she did to get their car out!

After watching her we felt confident we too could retrieve our car later, we just had to remember (yellow button, pay door opens, space number for car, bottom yellow button, feed it yen, barricade goes down!!!).

The pictures are of another car, Ken wasn't taking any chances on the barricade going up again for me to take a picture of my own car, and me looking over this nice gentleman's shoulder to take a picture of the machine!!

Anyone thirsty!!! This would be one of those unusual things, it is Habu Saki, the snakes are poisonous, and if the snake in the drink isn't off putting enough the price would be. It is about $619 US a bottle. Its just gross if you ask me!!!

One of my favorite things here in Okinawa is reading the "Engrish" that is Japanese english!!!

Their signs are priceless and I think by the time we leave here I will have a book of nothing but funny signs!! My favorite for the day has to be Charlie's tacos!!! They are a "regend in Okinawa"!!! And you know a japanese man named Charlie is normal here too!!!

When I read the bus the first time I said how cute here we go, and then I looked again, it is  Here GO WE!!!

And this one is just plain true!!!!

Well that about does it for the day, hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial day weekend and let us always remember!!!

What a day!!!

There is nothing like having multiple events in one day to make the day go very fast!!! But has hectic as it was, it was a wonderful day full of friends and fun!!!

The day started out with breakfast with my wonderful friends Melinda, Brittany, and Denise at new restaurant named Jakkepoes and it is a real "American" style pancake house!!  

 

                                                      

                          

The day then progressed on to a luncheon for our Key Volunteers from the squadron, 

we had lunch at a Yakiniku style restaurant (which is a Korean BBQ where you pick out raw meat and cook it yourself at your table). Needless to say I was not that hungry after having my wonderful banana pancakes!!  But I did manage to eat a little and the company was great!!!

                      

So the day keeps going on the  SgtMaj"s post and relief, we had to say goodbye to our SgtMaj and welcomed a new one, we are all very sad to see Rudy leave, the good news is they are not leaving the island just our unit, so we still get to see Jacqueline and Rudy!!

Next on the agenda was getting Miss Maddie ready for her first school dance (she can't be that old already!!!). The fifth grade students got to participate in the end of the year dance, because they too will be moving to the middle school next year also. And believe it or not she even wore a dress!!! And looked awfully cute in it!!!

                     

I love this sweet Face!!!

And last but not least for my day was going to play Bunco with the wives from our squadron, we had 20 women attend last night and we had a fantastic time together, it was a very long day, but filled with great people, good food and my beautiful family, what more could a girl ask for!!!!!

Sushi anyone!!!

Well I have to say our daughter is more adventurous with her choice in food than either of her  parents!!! Maddie had her "friends sleep over" for her birthday last night and chose to go to a Sushi go round, the food literally goes around on a little conveyer belt in front of you. And they charge by the plate, each plate has a design and a correlating price, so when you are done they tally up your plates and give you your total, so dinner last night was 3,700 Yen, not bad for 5 people!!! We also went and played at a place called Dragon palace, it has every video game you can think of, all types of "crane" games of  skill, and last but not least sticky pictures.

What are sticky pictures you ask, well they are incredibly popular here in Japan and they are an updated version of  photo booth pictures. The girls finished off the night by camping out on our balcony in a tent. 

Oh the view and my two kids!!!

One of the nicest parts of living out in town (besides our really neat house!!) is the seawall is only a 5 min walk away, and we love to walk down and watch the sunset, take the dog for a walk or my two kids like to ride their skateboards!! Maddie asked for a new skateboard for her birthday and when we went to pick it out Dad fell in love with one too! So they both got new ones, and they are having a wonderful time riding them together. Nothing like riding along or walking in my case and being able to watch the waves of the East China Sea, and I really needed to remind myself of this fact today after trying to pay all of Japanese taxes and such on all our vehicles!!!

Hi All,

Thought this would be a nice and easy way to keep everyone updated on what is going on, 

on our side of the world!!! We just celebrated Miss Maddie's 11th Birthday, who would have ever thought that she would pick a Sushi house to have her birthday dinner in!! The dinner was wonderful and 15 of our very dear friends joined us in celebrating  her day.

Ken is busy at the Advanced Course, (learning to be a better Marine LOL!!), it will be six weeks of a weekend husband, but at least he is on our lovely little island.

Here are a few pics from Maddie's dinner.

Maddie's name was written in blue gel icing on her cake and the kids had a whole lot of fun with it, good thing it didn't stain completely!!!!