It'll Never Get Old

I peeked outside when I caught a glimpse of the light at sunset this evening through our kitchen window. We'd had an early dinner, so I grabbed the 17-55 lens and ran downstairs and out to the sea wall.

If I could only decorate my walls here.... sigh.... the prints would be everywhere!

It had been raining throughout the late afternoon. It cleared just at sunset time, but there was another storm to the north of us on its way down. Lightning flashed on the purple-black part of the sky and it faded into the sunset hues on the clearer part. But the clear part was still host to some storm clouds leftover. The weather can make for some very cool lighting out there. Hope you enjoy these. Nothing can convey the beauty of light, but these are pretty close to what I saw tonight. They're all pretty good size pictures here, if you want to click on them to check them out closer. A few are grainy due to low light, but I still think they're pretty good.

This one was looking toward the south. Those towers toward the middle right are by Camp Kinser. I rested the camera close to the sea wall in the foreground, but not on it - it was really wet.

This one pointed directly toward the setting sun. You can see the rain falling in the distance from one of the clouds, and the breaks between them too.

This is looking back at our street from the sea wall. Almost looks like a different night with all that blue sky. It wasn't really that dark right over us, otherwise I wouldn't have risked the camera being out in the rain. You can see the reflection of the sunset on the windows on the left. Our building is the beach one behind it.

And this really shows the storm heading down. The sun had gone down a little more by the time I shot this, but that storm was brewing and there was lightning and thunder coming from it - so I didn't stay out much longer.


And I shot this from the street behind the sea wall, just looking up. I couldn't get enough of the colors and the clouds!
On the way back, I shot this at the vending machine by the dive shop next door. I like this picture.

Home Sweet Home

You've been so patient. We've been so busy organizing. Well, it's almost finished, so I thought that after we cleaned extra hard and organized extra hard for guests, a few pictures of the place would be in order.

Here's the right side of the kitchen (counter faces the dining room) - the cabinets are so high I have to use a stepstool to reach them, and we bought that kitchen cart on the end to make more pantry & counter space. That picture on the wall is one of only 3 pictures I was able to hang before I threw in the towel:
And the left (behind the fridge is the washer/dryer) - you can see how tight the counter space is! The obligatory espresso machine, rice cooker, microwave, and banana...haha.:
Living/dining room areas (borrowed dining room table & chairs, new folding chairs we bought, and area rug now in tact):

Mia's delightful room!

From the other angle (2 of the 3 pictures is in there as you can see):

The front entrance - our shoe rack which is perfect for Japan as everyone removes their shoes upon entering homes. On top of the rack you'll notice our Shiisaa and the hammer drill we borrowed from self help that we're returning because it just caused me to curse a lot:

Master bedroom:

From the other side:

Here's a picture of Rich & Craig boxing on the Wii while the kids observed in hysterics:Saw this little guy (about 1 1/2 or 2" long) behind our entertainment center. Hope he got out ok....

Here is me! Yes, I can be in front of the camera too - looking at the extensive menu at Kitakaisen, a great new place we hit on Saturday night:
And Mia - literally shoving the rest of the mouthful of yakisoba in. Who'd have predicted that?Ok, off to hopefully exchange the faulty part of our satellite TV setup - darn thing hasn't worked well since we got it. Now we have NOTHING - and with sports on the way, that's unacceptable. Still to come - pictures of Mia's haircut this afternoon at 3!

I Predict I Will Become A Dive Bum

This weekend I did my first 4 dives - 2 on Saturday at the Kadena Steps, and 2 on Sunday off a boat in Ginowan. (I recommend a boat over walking out on coral, I have a big target bruise on my calf to prove why...)

Loved it. It's peaceful and fun down there, I was comfortable in the warm water with a very good instructor and a cool dive buddy in my class. The visibility was pretty crappy - mostly still due to the after-effects of the typhoon. (max was the very first dive, 25-30 foot vis)

But, we saw a variety of fun creatures. I don't have a waterproof case for my camera (yet...) so deal with the fact that I had to put pictures from the web in here to show you what I saw.

Yesterday off the boat in Ginowan, we saw 2 of these guys...one of the most poisonous snakes that exists anywhere. I'm glad he was about 10-15 feet away from us!


Yep - "Gill" was everywhere. These are super cool, we saw families of them swimming around & eating coral.


Lots of puffer fish. Some are pretty large too - but they only puff out if you yank their tail, so we didn't do that.

THIS was a gorgeous fish. One of the prettiest we saw.

Yep - the first day I found Nemo - in an anemone. Very cool.
Lots of these - I called them referee fish.

These nearly glowed in the dark down there.
But THIS blue one took the cake. WOW was this sucker bright. In turquoise waters, this guy seemed to have a light bulb inside of him. Amazing.

Lots of these butterfly fish - really pretty.


And tons of sea urchins, anemones, pretty coral - and one poking out head of a moray eel - orange guy. Very cool. I'm excited to get some more diving done here, I'm glad I got certified early. I hope Craig can drop the golf thing for long enough to get certified & come with me. Unfortunately Mia will still be too young for a while.

Other news? Not much - I was gone from the early morning until after 3 both days, so I just came home and relaxed. It's still hot. We're happy to have our stuff. And after a brief time of sleeping on the mattress on her floor (due to the movers losing the 8 bolts that hold her bed together), Mia should be on a bed tonight in a put-together room. My parents were kind enough to go to Ikea and find the bolts to Mia's discontinued bed and mail them out to us. THANK YOU!

Gotta go, she'll be up soon and then we need to start our day.

Our Stuff Is Here!

I'm so excited - called TMO today and our household goods are going through customs now. On Wednesday I can call to make the shipping appointment! Fantastic - we have couches! And Big Head TV! And our beds! And Mia's toys....and... probably too much stuff to be able to put away, but it sure will be fun trying.

A Couple Of Links...

Here's our hotel: http://hotel-thebeach.com/ - "Restaurant & Bar Hokulea" is the restaurant on our roof. And on the right, if you click on "Access Map" there's a bunch of other restaurants & shopping places noted in there with links when they're available. It's great that we're in a hotel so they have the info about our apartment online!

Here's the cool restaurant/bar 2 blocks over from us on the sea wall: http://www.transitcafe-okinawa.com/ (Click on the top picture for cafe menu & pictures of the food - hungry yet?)

And, last but certainly not least - 2 blocks away is this coffee place! http://casa.ezlog.jp/ AMAZING little place, definitely going to get to know those folks.

There are 2 floors with 4 apartments each in our building, the rest are hotel rooms. (3rd & 4th floor); 2 apartments on each side of the elevator. 5th floor houses the roof & the restaurant. All the apartments are homes to Americans - and across the alley (those townhouses you can see in the pictures of our view) are all Americans too. We met a bunch of people on July 4th when we went to the rooftop to watch the fireworks being shot off from Kadena Air Base. The whole neighborhood was up there! All the kids knew each other, and all the parents knew the kids; we met one boy, Logan, who will definitely be in Mia's kindergarten class. (he's one of 3 soon to be 4 kids in a very nice family) They were nice enough to tell us about the school & the bus stop - so we know that'll be easy enough. (Yes, I will cry like a baby when my little girl gets on a school bus!!) It truly is like a small town 50's scene here the way everyone is - it's so nice. And with the cool bars & restaurants here, it's nice to know people trade off babysitting so that you can get out with your spouse now & again.

So much more going on - our neighbors in the building are great. We met Leighanne in our parking garage- she lives 1 floor below us and across the building. She has a 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Aubrey, who's a cutie and Mia's already acting like a "big sis". Her husband is a Navy pilot and is stuck in the Philippines at the moment because his plane was struck by lightning and he's waiting for his new engine to come through customs. Get this - that's the SECOND time it happened too! They're here for one more year, I see a definite friendship there - super sweet family. And apparently we have another great neighbor who's visiting family in Hawaii right now (Maggie) and due in October with a baby I think - I know her hubby is in Iraq until October. She lives on our floor across the way from the elevator, and everyone in the neighborhood seems to know her - very friendly and outgoing. I'm excited to meet her! Leighanne was telling me that they knew our apartment was vacant and they were hoping a cool family would move in. I guess she's satisfied....

Ok, off to pour some cereal for the kid & me - it's 9:30am Sunday morning. Not sure what we're doing today, but finally our living/dining room A/C should be fixed tomorrow morning at 9am! Now we just need television and faster Internet, and our household goods shipment with the rest of our stuff - and this just MIGHT be home!

We Are Online!!

However, it's slow - ADSL (300-someodd kb/min) so bear with us. LOTS has been happening, lots to tell - but not much time to type right now. Soon - I promise. Categories to include:
July 4th
Our neighbors
Restaurants/food
Shopping
More culture shock

To tide you over, here are some photos:
Starbucks inside of Jusco (huge department store/flea market/supermarket/mall...more pictures soon, maybe some video when we get a quicker connection).

Fresh fish/noodles/sushi/fried things we have no idea what they are market in the middle of Jusco.
This is one side of the "American Village" - that mall designed to look like a San Diego mall. You can see McDonald's, and I think "Deep Blue" is a clothing store meant to be like Old Navy.

This is the view if you look to the right from the last picture - Sega/Sonic is everywhere - as are game rooms, pachinko & slot machine places.

Sunset view from our ROOF. That platform on the left - yeah, there's a hot tub up there. Not our first order of business when it doesn't ever get below 80 degrees and humid outside, but come winter we are SO there... And a giant plastic mug of beer - no idea why that's there. Maybe if someone was drowning you could throw that in there for 'em.


Daytime views from our roof - there's a dog park down there, and there's a small playground next to it too - apparently the moms call it "poopy park". Guess they aren't cleaning up after their pets too well.

That Hawaiian/Japanese restaurant? It's not on the 1st floor, it's on the ROOF! This is it - right above our apartment. The menu looks amazing - I'll be trying it tonight with our neighbors. Very cool bar in there too! Do you love it that I can grab a drink on my rooftop bar or in a beer vending machine? Sweet.

Inside the aforementioned restaurant.

Here you go Ryan - this guy was chirping away on a ledge above a doorway. These are everywhere... any clue what it is?

Jazz Festival And Such

Yeah - still no fun seeing gorgeous sunsets every night. This was outside the restaurant after dinner & before we went to the jazz festival. The moon rise was even cooler (full and huge) but the camera never would've captured it with no tripod.
Some gas stations here (like this Esso station) have the pumps coming out of the overhang. You pull them down to put gas in the car. (which we NEVER do in town because it costs about 4x as much as on base) The gas on base here has fluctuated between $2.89-$3.00 since we've been here. It's mid-grade (the only choice) and off base it's almost 300 yen per liter (a liter is a little more than 1/4 of a gallon, and right now it's 199 yen to the $1. When we got here it was 124 yen to the $1.) Welcome to my math world.
Mia at the top of a big jumpie thing - this was a wave, and at the bottom there were "sharks". At the jazz festival off to the side near the beach there was a park full of jumpies, 4 of them. And the kids were going nuts in there. Mine was sweating like crazy, but happy as ever to be among dozens of other kids. She came to me, crying that she'd fallen & bitten her lip - wanted water, and then wanted to go right back in there! The energy & stamina is astounding.
The jazz festival was fantastic. It was warm and humid, but breezy and not totally uncomfortable. This time I had bug spray on to protect my already mosquito-eaten legs and arms. It's really warm & humid here, but without the haze of the states- it's why all the pictures are so clear, you can always see for miles, even on the most hot & humid day. The beauty makes the discomfort level more bearable. I was only disappointed that we attended at night because we didn't get to see the beautiful beach it was being held on.

Mia also danced on the dance floor in front of the stage where several Japanese jazz ensembles and even the III MEF jazz band performed (though we missed the USMC band unfortunately). We heard everything from "Take 5" to big band stuff, it was fantastic. Mia danced very happily ("interpretively") and I took a bit of video but the upload will have to wait until we have a better Internet connection.

Today we're packing up and moving some things over to the new place- and we'll hit Jusco to get some things for the apartment too. (Picture giant Target meets sushi restaurant....pictures to come)

Photos Of The New Bowman Home

I sent a Kodak Gallery album link to pretty much everyone in my address book; let me know if you didn't get it and you want to see the new place. We're really excited to move in - and to be out of hotel living.

SO much is constantly going on here - it's amazing. We will certainly never be bored - it's starting to feel like we won't be able to do everything we want to in the next 3 years!

Craig was kind enough to pay for my scuba certification classes - so that starts on 7/22. I'm super excited to be certified (or certifiable...) and get to go do dives. The classes are at night, so Craig can watch Mia - 6 classes. 2 classroom sessions, 2 pool dives and then 2 open water dives. Mia wanted to do it too - but she has to be 8 years old. So - before we leave, she'll be able to take diving classes too.

Now we have to spend a ton more money on a laundry list of items to include:
Curtains for the new place
A computer desk & chair (the gov't furniture is BEYOND heinous - we won't use their crap for this)
Pots, pans & dishes
An iron
Car stereos & speakers (neither car has a good system, it's what we have to spend on for the cars)
A coffee table
Area rugs (note all the wood & tile floors in the pictures - it really echoes in there)
And some kind of shelving b/c the walls are concrete.

Rather disappointed that we took so many "home touches" like art & framed photos & posters, and we have NO way of hanging them in concrete walls. Anyone who has suggestions, we'd love to hear them....

I hope to attend the jazz & wine festival tonight at Torii Beach - hopefully some pictures later.

I'll Be Going "Dim" As Of Monday

Unfortunately we won't have any Internet at our home for 2-3 weeks. So to email and to post to this blog, I'll have to hit "hot spots" on the base. So - I'll be a bit incommuincado for a while. Also, we have a Vonage phone, which works off of the Internet (VoIP for those who understand) - so our old home phone number won't work for that same 2-3 weeks.

Trust me, you will know when we're online, I'll shout it from the rooftops.

So I have a cell phone (already working now) and a home phone (which will be hooked up on Tuesday 7/3), if you want either or both of those (if you don't have them already) please email me before Sunday.

Craig is off to work today, and Mia and I just might get our toes done in town. We'll also find out about her school district, and later we'll pick up the title to my car.

WE ARE NO LONGER HOMELESS!

You read correctly; we have a home. It's a 3-bedroom apartment on the 4th floor of a hotel. You walk in the front door, there's a desk person, an elevator, and on one side of the building it's hotel rooms, and on the other side there are apartments! So there's also a restaurant and a spa on the ground floor! Oh yeah baby - stumble downstairs in my pajama pants for pedicures and massages - loving THAT!

It's 1/2 a block from the beach, and a walk away from convenience stores, restaurants, a fantastic park (with a skate park, playground, and tennis courts), and a very short drive to shopping and other stuff. We have 2 parking spaces underneath the building, and enough square footage to put our big American bed and couch. Not a large kitchen, but we'll make do.

So here's the complicated process: Our household goods are still being shipped here, due at the end of July. So we need to borrow beds and a dining room table and a couch for a month. It takes a week to get that stuff. So we arranged to move in on Monday 7/2. We have to start up Internet service - that's separate, and they don't know if we'll have to use DSL or fiberoptic (fiberoptic is ideal because it's blazing fast) - depends how close we are to the "switch" or whatever other lingo there is involved here - that's Craig's gig. The housing company we got the place through arranges to start up gas, water & electricity. We are going Saturday to do a walk-through. We also need to arrange to get a satellite from the Military, as well as a fridge and a washing machine. It's all very drawn out & complicated- oh, we still have to find me a car too! Add to all this the whole converting-yen-to-dollars stuff and whatnot. Lots of money and hassle and confusion.

Mia, for one (Craig & I too) are very happy not to have to search anymore, I'll tell ya!

2 more things - 1. Okinawans loooooove vending machines. You'd never die of dehydration here if you always kept 110 yen in your pocket for the iced tea/coffee/soda/juice machines that are EVERYWHERE. Pictures to come.
2. this place has the cleanest bathrooms on the PLANET! I went into a convenience store bathroom (like 7-Eleven) and it had a STUNNING bathroom - nicer & cleaner than some homes I've visited in the US. These folks aren't necessarily rich, but they're clean! gotta go sign a lease!

Eventful Days

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the mall downtown. Today (Monday) more apartment hunting We hope we can find it.

Standing by a Pirates movie poster by the theater in town near American Village. The American Village Mall was apparently designed to look like a San Diego mall.

Mia hugging a dragon on the way up the stairs to the carnival park (with the ferris wheel, see below)

That is the ferris wheel (in Japanese: kandancha)- it goes very slowly, you can only see it moving if you really stare at it. It takes about 45 minutes to go once around in the little enclosed capsules on there. We'll do it eventually, but not in this heat I'm thinking.

This is a fountain outside the American Village shops - water pours out of the oil cans above into the convertible VW below - cute.

Now I NEVER in a million years thought I'd find a shirt like this in an Okinawa shop! We really wanted to get one for Mia, but there were none in her size. (and too small for me)

Craig's new car!! Very small, but very efficient. It's a Toyota Vitz with a CD player & a cassette player too - old school. Send over your old mix tapes!

Yeah, the place we looked at today has this view off the balcony and from the bedroom. Wouldn't exactly be awful, eh? Alas, they want too much for it - and Craig tells me that drunk idiots get loud along the sea wall here late at night - we don't need that. Not to mention if typhoons roll in, our cars (parked underneath in the garage) would be submerged. No fun.

Just came from another place that we really liked! 1 block from the place with the view above (so no ocean view, but that's ok) and 2 blocks from a really cool park. Say a little prayer! More news when we get it.