Kurashiki Dam

Today we went to the dam because it was windy and we thought it'd be a great place to try out baby girl's butterfly kite. So after unsuccessfully getting it in the air and then breaking it we strolled around for a bit.

It's rather pretty:













The water is so clear. We'll have to come sometime when it's warm enough to play in the water. Not sure if its allowed, though.













I had to use the restroom while we were there and encountered the dreaded squatty potty.


I tried but was positive I'd miss and get my jeans. So I decided to hold it. I left the women's restroom and saw a handicapped bathroom across the way with a Western- style toilet. I decided I was squatty potty handicapped and that counts, so I used that instead. I need to have a chat with a local about the logistics of the squatty potty.


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Location:Okinawa,Japan

Coco curry

I want to post more about our food.
Baby girl and I went through the coco curry drive through on the way home from grocery shopping (I realize how silly that sounds, but it was 745p & I didn't want to make dinner once we got home).
I got the chicken cutlet because the menu was intimidating. So much to choose from and I have this weird pressure to order quickly when I get to the window.




It was delicious. It totally hit the spot for a rainy, cool night.
Baby girl got the chicken kid's meal:




It also came with sausage but she ate that before I took the photo.
There were little jello cups and a fruit snack included:








The fruit snack confuses me though. It has this weird edible backing. I also have no idea who that cartoon character is, but he's everywhere!






Not sure how interesting our food is, but I'm going to post about it because it will probably be one of the things I will miss most when we move back.

Saturday afternoon

This afternoon we went to the Makeman (monkey) store. It's so interesting and really hard to explain what kind of store it is. It's like Home Depot meets the dollar store and pet store and Sears (without clothing). So Baby girl, K, and I wandered around the pet section for a while. Baby girl LOVES birds and fish but is kind of terrified of hamsters. She also loved to pet the bunnies.
We also found this:




That would be a teeny tiny jellyfish. For only $11. Our future in okinawa is kind of up in the air at the moment, otherwise this little guy would have come home with us.
K and Baby girl stayed to wander the store while I met up with my friends to go to Dr. Fish, which is located across the street.




Here for ¥1,000 (about $11.25) we had little (some were not so little) fish eat the dead skin off our feet. Sounds kind of creepy, but I kind of enjoyed it! Their bites felt kind of tingly and tickled a bit. B was not so keen on it and protected her toes!




A didn't seem to mind too much. Our feet were softer at the end of our 15 minutes, but we're not sure if it was because of the fish or keeping our feet in warm water for 15 minutes. Either way I'm glad I tried it! (K thought I was crazy!)
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Hello, again

I found this handy app that lets me post from my iPhone. I'm using it in hopes that I will be able to post more frequently and add photos/video with the ultimate goal of deleting Facebook; however, social life here revolves around announcements on Facebook, so it may have to stay. [special events, new restrictions for active duty, typhoon warnings, etc. are all posted on Facebook. Kind of need to know those things]
We have been really busy these last 7 months. It has been really interesting and, for the most part, incredibly fun. We've endured a handful of typhoons and quite a few 'restrictions' placed on active duty. We've also had the opportunity to explore. We've visited the Nakagusuku Castle ruins, the Zanpa lighthouse (even Skype'd with my parents from the top), Torii beach (where the Americans landed when we invaded Okinawa), various beaches, and recently we visited the Okinawa aquarium. K even became scuba certified! Throughout the summer there were many festivals and we really enjoyed all the Eisa dancers. We especially loved that the Eisa came down our street during Obon. I will have to post photos and videos when they come around again this summer.
I visited my family in September and was able to bring Crazy dog home to Okinawa. I was back home in Oki for 2 weeks then K left for training in Missouri for 2 weeks. He returned to Oki for about 2 weeks when his father passed away. The USMC took incredible care of us and flew all 3 of us back home so K could attend the services. We returned the day before thanksgiving and then started preparing for our friends to PCS here. The M family arrived December 14th and we have been really busy catching up and helping them get settled. It's been so great to have good friends here. It's been awesome for Baby girl, too, since their little guy is only 4 months older than her. It's the first time she's had a playmate her age.
My struggle:
It's been almost 3.5 months since I've seen my family. It's the longest I've gone without seeing them since 2010. It's hard to keep in touch with the time change. But I also think I haven't been that great at keeping in touch because it's so hard to miss them. It's hard to talk to them and know I won't see them until May/June. To know baby girl will have changed so much since we saw them last. This is the hardest part of living abroad. Living in this culture, on this island is easy. I really enjoy it. My heart, however, is stretched wide as it tries to cover 6,000+ miles and sometimes I feel like its stretching to the point of exhaustion. It's all adjusting. I'm sure I'll figure it out. In the meantime, I miss them terribly.
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The Eve Before...

It's the night before I've been here 3 weeks.  It's also the night before we get our home.  I had the shades wide open tonight and I don't know what prompted me, but I suddenly stopped and just looked outside.  I started thinking about how foreign and weird it felt to be here the night Baby girl and I landed.

When I looked outside, the buildings in the foreground looked like any other military base, but in the background the buildings seemed like anything but what you'd find in the States.  Tonight, however, I found it felt like home already.  The streets off base that I could see from my window lead to places I've been.  I know where they take me!
It makes me wonder where we'll be when we're back here (WestPac Lodge) in what I am sure will be 3 short years.  Baby girl will be 4 1/2- she will be a totally different person than the one who is leaving the lodge friday morning.  And when we return, who will K and I be?  Our adventure is just beginning and I feel like if we run freely with it we won't return the same people, either.
God has given us an incredible opportunity.  If we make the most of it we could be setting ourselves up to have a very sweet life when we come back (even moreso than we have now!).  But tonight I already feel it-- it will be very hard to leave Okinawa.  I love this place already.  I'm ready to start our new life- our adventure has only just begun and we love every moment already!

Saturday!

So I know I said my next post would have pictures and we'd tell you where we're living, but I decided to hold off on photos and telling you where we're living until we're settled in and I can take proper photos.  We finally made our decision yesterday.  Today we ran all around.  It was a pain.
Our day started off nicely- K slept in until 8:15.  I rented an Elmo dvd and she watched that while I got ready for the day.  I feel bad that we haven't done much for her since we've been here.  She's been such a good girl-  she gets fussy after sitting in the car seat ALL day, but the Mr and I are rather cranky after running around all over the island allll day, too.  Today was another day in the car, but we didn't even go very far.
We went to the post office where we had a boat load of packages to pick up.  Then K and I went over to our bank where we attempted to get a cashier's check.  They tried 5 different times to print the check, but it never printed clearly enough to read the amount, account number, or anything important.  After 35 mins I gave up and just took out the cash for the rent, security deposit, and housing agency fee.  I hate walking around with large amounts of cash.  Especially since after spending 35 minutes tying up 1 of the 2 open lines there was a nice crowd behind me hearing how much was getting counted out.
So after signing the lease (we get our place at 4pm thursday!!!) we went to Kadena AFB to our housing office where we requested furniture and the Mr made an appointment to fill out more paperwork (hah! Only in the military do you have to fill out paperwork to make an appointment to do more paperwork).  We requested a double bed, twin bed, couch and coffee table, dining room table & chairs and have to go onto our base to request temporary living stuff like pots and pans, sheets, lamps, etc. We needed to request all of this because our stuff wouldn't be delivered until the 23rd, which I find ridiculous because our shipment arrived on island before we even left the States.
After the housing office we went to Community Bank and opened an account.  It's a Bank of America (yuck) branded bank, but this bank is super military friendly and you can get Yen from the ATMs out of your account.  Then we took our temporary checks that we just got from our new account and went back to the leasing agency to try to give them a check because they did not want cash.  Turns out they did not want cash at all because they would not take our check, either.  It was one of those translation things.  The gal said we could write a check, but apparently she meant from a Japanese bank.
As we were leaving the housing agent TMO called and asked us if they could deliver our belongings thursday.  Back in to the leasing office to ask if we could get our place a day earlier, but no luck.  TMO offered saturday instead!  YAY! We get our things saturday!!!  This means we have to go back to the Kadena housing office to tell them we don't need half of what we said we'd need, but that's ok.  Now if only Addy would be here saturday everything would be perfect.
Then we went to GI Bill Pay.  It's this service that pays your bills for you for a small monthly fee (It's costing us $9/ month).  Not something I would normally go for, but I think it will be totally worth it for the convenience.  They will pay our rent, trash, water, and electric via debit which means I will not have to physically go to the offices to pay like the housing agency requires.  That means no dragging little miss out into the rain to pay rent.  perfect!  sign me up!
After visiting all these offices it was dinner time and we decided to reward ourselves with dinner from our favorite ramen place. By this point it was absolutely downpouring.  No one was in the restaurant and the ramen was the perfect meal for the soggy mess outside.  K LOVES this place and always eats a ton.

Happy family!

Almost Home?

I think it's been about a week or so since I last updated.  We've been pretty busy!  Our first typhoon just teased us.  It stayed out in the ocean, so we only got a little bit of rain.  Nothing more than we haven't seen already, so had we not heard about it on the tv/radio/internet/postings around base we would've been oblivious to it passing by.  It brought about gorgeous weather yesterday, though.  I guess after storms like that pass  by the humidity drops for a day or two afterwards.  At least that's what the crazy housing agency dude said.  He was kind of shady.  We don't trust anything he said.
Which leads me to what we've been up to the last few days: searching for a home.  We didn't do much this weekend-- it was rather rainy.  We went to church on sunday and I felt homesick for the first time.  I really miss our church.  Really, really miss our church, but I am confident we will find a church home sooner or later.
Anyway, we looked at 7 houses yesterday and 4 today.  [K did not enjoy this, btw.]  We saw some really nasty places (the Mr was kind enough not to point out that a home had cockroaches in it until after we had left), but we found two we liked.  One home is in the Torii area, which is north of the Mr's work and one block from the Sea of China; and one in Okinawa City which is between the Mr's base and the Pacific Ocean.  There are major pros to both places.  The Torii home being that it is beautiful, has a covered garage-type area under the apt, it is one block from the beach and park, and it is modern.  The negative things about it are that it is an apartment, so we would not have a yard and the living room/dining area are small.  I am also uncertain about whether it has enough storage.  What I like most about the Okinawa City home is that it has a large (for Japan) living/dining/kitchen area, it has a small yard and plenty of storage; conversely, I am not a fan of the neighborhood and I can reach out of most of the bedroom windows and knock on the neighbor's window.  
Okinawa residential streets are so weird to me.  They have an alley-like feel to them and it makes me feel unwelcome.  The only places I don't feel like this are very Americanized and, unfortunately, are usually out of our price range.
The DOD (Dept of Defense) gives us a housing allowance based on the Mr's rank and E1 (brand new to the military) to E5 get 177,000-180,000Y/month.  E6 get 225,000Y/month.  Guess how many really nice houses are at 225/month?  Way too many and it makes me so jealous!  I have been so spoiled by  our homes in San Diego and I feel like a whiny brat, but I really wish we got a little more of an allowance!!!
The (upstanding) housing agents have recommended that we don't go above what the DOD gives us because the dollar isn't very strong and if we try to pay out of pocket it could get very costly should the dollar-yen rate fluctuate in the Yen's favor.  It is so tempting, though, when I see how much better of a home we could get for a mere 20,000Y ($250 right now)/month more.
So, we have to choose soon.  I'm praying about it and hoping it becomes clear what our choice should be, but holy wow do I need to get a hold of this jealousy!
I will try to take pictures of the more traditional Japanese homes we go to.  The inside of the front door is usually lower than the rest of the home and there is usually a built-in cabinet for the residents/guests to take off their shoes.  You do not enter Japanese homes with shoes on.  Some homes have Tatami rooms, which are rooms filled with Tatami mats.  These are somewhat delicate mats that help with temperature control.  Frequently, (but not always) they have an altar-type area set up where I think they make offerings to Buddha.  Not positive because every agent I've asked about the rooms say they are just for relaxing.  [I don't get why you need an altar to relax, but ok.]  The bathrooms are different in that (some?) Japanese do not shower in their bath tubs.  In traditional type housing they have a hand-held shower head that you can use in the area directly in front of the tub.  This area is lower than the rest of the bathroom and has a drain in the floor.  The toilets are never found in the same room as the tub.  Often they're in a closet-looking room.  Most kitchens don't have an oven.  Most places don't have a decent amount of storage, either; which makes me wonder if the Japanese are minimalists, awesome at organizing, are hoarders, or have storage lockers hidden away somewhere (though I highly doubt the last two).
I need to start taking more pictures.  I promise I will if we go look at more homes tomorrow/this weekend because I am sure I will want to remember this.  Hopefully next time I write it will be with pictures of our soon-to-be home and a move-in date!

OH! We went to the park between showings and [[TMI warning]] I really had to pee.  Went to the park bathroom and totally forgot about my public Japanese restroom phobia until I opened the stall door and found the dreaded floor potty.  It was magic!  I suddenly didn't have to go! lol  I wish I hadn't left my phone in the car otherwise you guys definitely would've gotten a picture with this post!