Random Photo Happiness

Hi again! It's been a while since I posted a photo that wasn't taken in our living room, so here we go. Last week I went to Cafe Unizon with LWILIO - pronounced 'luh-WIL-lee-oh' - Ladies Who Lunch In Okinawa - a small group of adventurous eaters who are currently scouring the island for new and delicious lunch opportunities). Yes, I'm a 100% dork and coined that term myself. What of it?

Below Cafe Unizon is a home store called Mix Life-Style. They have fun European-style housewares and furniture - and mind you, it is NOT cheap. However, nobody's holding a gun to your head to buy anything, and browsing is FUN. Check out this fantastic idea:

The menu is felt with iron-on transfer pictures of the food. And see the embroidery of the categories on the right? There's coffee drinks, food, and sweets. I loved this idea!
(More Unizon & Mix shots on my flickr page.)

This month is "Read Across America" month. Last week on Friday there was a literature character parade. Basically, all the kids at Mia's school dressed up like their favorite literary character (or just put on their Halloween costume again and found some book with that character in it - let's just say there were LOTS of superheroes and princesses...). Well, I didn't really want to do that - I took this seriously, and as Mia is now reading, I wanted her to be a real character in a real book she actually liked.

I didn't realize this was going to be happening until the morning before the parade, so I was a little stumped. Finally, I thought about it the other way around - what are her favorite books? GOT IT! The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. She loves that book. I can pick up a green shirt. She can wear brown pants for the trunk. And I happen to have a headdress I made for my Halloween costume when I went to Vegoose back in 2005 (I went with 3 friends, we were the seasons, and I was springtime, of course - Aviva means springtime in Hebrew, FYI). Thank you pack rat instincts. When I told Mia about my (I thought) great idea, she winced. "I wanna be a CAT or a PRINCESS..."
"Well, everyone's going to be that stuff, you really LOVE this book, Mia. And look at the pretty hat - this blue bird here, they even exist here on Okinawa! Cool..." (Ryan, I knew you'd be proud of her thrush.) She hesitantly gave in as I gushed about how beautiful she'd look.

So the night before, I drew some apples that Mia colored in and we put those and the "branch hat" into a bag. I arrived at school early to help assemble the outfit. I even got a green eyeliner and drew leaves on her arms. (she did NOT want anything on her face - please let it stay that way!) Everyone in kindergarten is familiar with this book, and the teachers gushed about her (my) costume and idea. She was very proud, as was I, and she looked great!
After school we got rid of the paper apples, and as I was talking to my friend Ilisa I caught this shot of Ellie & Mia. The two "Nice Jewish Girls" at Bob Hope! (at least that I know of) Ellie's a doll - I'm so happy they're friends.

Ok, last topic - OIWC Luncheon in Naha. Okinawa International Women's Club (I teased this in a prior post) holds monthly meetings, every other one is on base, and the others are out in town. This was still during lockdown, so I had to get a permission slip signed by Craig's commander before I could go.

The luncheon was at the Naha Terrace Hotel, there were lots of women there, I was impressed. The food was delicious (as large group food goes) and the company was fantastic. So many sweet & wonderful women, willing to gesture and describe to conquer the language barrier. I met a lovely woman, Tomo, who literally offered to come with us to Kyoto and show us around! And she also finally taught me how to say, "May I take your picture?" in Japanese! (Shashim o to temo desu ka?)

Here is what the centerpieces looked like:
And this during this month, there's a holiday called "Girl Day". There were dolls on display which are apparently REALLY expensive, and over time it became popular belief that the dolls protected the daughters of the family. Girl Day, or Hina Matsuri, is a festival held throughout Japan to pray for daughters' happiness. Here are some of the dolls on display on stage at the luncheon:


There were even some sakura branches there - yes, they're still in bloom!
Lastly there were dances, one in honor of the sakura:
One woman who danced with a fan:

And another that was a warrior with a spear:

Well, that's it for now. We're off to dinner with some friends who are PCSing tomorrow... we'll miss them.

Love/Hate

I laid eyes on some of the most beautiful water and beaches I've ever seen in my life yesterday. And I am more than excited to get scuba certified so that I can dive into that pristine water I saw. And I want to leave here knowing I've seen every inch of it I could.

However, the heat...oh the heat! It's the most uncomfortable time of year here, and it's a very conflicting feeling to want to see all these gorgeous places - but from within an air conditioned bubble! 90 degrees with a heat index of about 107.... thanks to that humidity. The smiles you see in this picture were for the second it took to push the button - after that we went back to OHMYGODGETMEINTHEAIRCONDITIONING wince faces. We would've had more pictures of the places in between, but I wasn't willing to get out of the car. This heat will remain until about September, I'm told - then we're in for a treat - it cools off - and we're still here!

This is Craig & Mia on the rocks overlooking Cape Zanpa. It's stunning out here, I'm told the cliffs are about 90'. And you can see the bottom of the ocean when you look down, as deep as it is, because the water is so clear.


There's a lighthouse on Cape Zanpa - we saw it, we thought it was very pretty, and we did NOT climb the stairs to the top of it in the heat. Maybe on a cool day some other time. The fact that Mia & I were in flip-flops didn't help either.

People actually fought here - in this heat? Oy. I'd lay down my weapon and share some ice water with the enemy....

I know, right?

Another shot of the man & his kid - if you look at these pictures (the larger versions when you click on them) and you see brown dots, that's not dust on the lens - those are dragonflies. They're everywhere.


We left Cape Zanpa and drove further north along the coast, and then we stopped at a shop that looked interesting. Well, it was - they sold everything from necklaces & knick knacks to sweets and booze (and you can TASTE the booze before you buy! - oh, and the sweets too). Awesome store, we loved it.

There were steps in the back of the shop, and when you got to the bottom there was a gem of a beach - clear beautiful water and even a starfish!We got some ice cream at the Blue Seal counter in the shop and walked down with it - can you believe this water???
The rest of the kick-butt photos are uploading now - I'll put a link here as soon as they're done.

Food, etc.

I bought some sliced fish (sashimi) at the local market yesterday - about 15 pieces each of salmon & tuna. As sweet and delicious as any you've ever had. How much? $4.15. (498 yen) I'm going to be insanely happy here....

So where they get you, when you go out to eat, is on the sodas! About $4.50 to $5 for a soda, and they're not refillable, so enjoy that little cup! The heck with that, I'll get a $2.50 beer instead! Or water... done.

Here's a picture of some cute sweet buns at Jusco's bakery (some pretty good lookin' bread over there!)
And Craig, Mia & I were fascinated at these treats at one of the kiosks there. Aren't these just beautiful? Japanese are big on gift-giving - any kind of occasion, they love presents (who doesn't?) - we figure something like this would be nice to bring to someone's house if you've been invited for dinner or something.

Seen Around Town

Today I was driving toward base to get a couple of things, and saw a sign by orange cones & a closed lane: "MEN WROKING A HEAD"
I laugh at that sort of thing, but I shudder to think what Americans would do if we had Japanese people occupying Hawaii, for instance, and had to make Japanese signage for them. I would definitely make the wrong kind of character - for all I know there's only a one-line difference between the character for "good morning" and "f-you".

Anyway, more pictures. Below you see the view of the ocean as you look to the left outside of Transit Cafe, a fantastic little restaurant for lunch & dinner that's about 2 blocks from our place.

Here is the view if you look to the right - and past that table of 8 people, there's an outside bar, very sweet.
Here is a little drinkie I tried - Strawberry Dream or something like that. Red wine with strawberries and something else - kind of a frozen sangria with whipped cream on it. Excellent on a hot afternoon.


My food - some kind of beef (tender, like pot roast) with mushrooms and one of the best tasting sauces I've ever had. A scrambled egg rests on top of a ball of perfectly cooked & seasoned rice. I licked the plate. Definitely the best meal I've had so far here. (Not that we've eaten at a ton of places yet.)
Here's the inside bar, picture taken from where we were sitting. There are about 12 seats inside, 12 seats outside, so this place usually garners a wait. Worth it - I think. They were playing a Brazilian band CD of all Eagles covers when we were there. And there's some local jewelry for sale over where the person in this picture is standing. Yes - you DO see Maker's Mark on that shelf - this is a good place for Aviva. And we also had a dessert here; coconut milk & vanilla ice cream with rice balls and fresh mango, raspberries, strawberries and rum. We ate that before we got a chance to take a picture of it.

Saw this on the way out yesterday (Sunday) - Persian restaurant. Hm, could be interesting. Down the road from us there's a new Turkish place right next door to Coffee Casa, and 1/2 a block from that a new sushi joint is opening up!

The bar at Hokulea, the restaurant upstairs from our apartment. Apparently bands play there sometimes too.

Mia with Hachi - one of the waitresses upstairs, who speaks excellent English. She's great with all the kids here apparently, and teaches us mnemonic devices for Japanese expressions. Today we learned "Don't touch my moustache" for "you're welcome" - in reality it's like danitachamastashta or something.....classic.

So firearms are illegal here. Only the military has them, and they're issued. What they do sell (and you should never ever buy because as you can see it's impossible to discern them from the real thing) are air guns. Below is a picture I took at Jusco of the air gun counter.

I had thought they were REAL guns - and if you stand, as I did, feet planted looking at the guns on your right - this is what's on your left. THE TOY SECTION. Is anyone else thinking this is crazy??


Ok, gotta shower. We went swimming today at the Camp Foster pool. Has a cool water slide, but apparently Torii has the best one. More on that soon - we need goggles first for that chlorinated hell. Mia looks like she's wasted after an hour in the pool.