Hiji Falls Hike and Okuma Beach

It was a long Thanksgiving weekend and the weather here has finally begun to feel like fall. Seriously! I thought we were doomed to sweaty, stinky, stickiness for the duration of the next 3 years. It was a brisk morning and we were taking Colton on his first hike. I packed a lunch and planned on a picnic at some point - either during the hike or after depending on Colton's mood. Last time we made the drive up to Nago, it ended badly because we didn't have much planned. We wanted to "wing-it" and realized very early on that you can't just "wing-it" with a baby. This time we were prepared. We packed our little mini "milk" cooler, sandwiches, baby snacks and chips for us and were on our way. It was a beautiful day for a hike!

This was the first time we've put Colton on our backs and weren't sure how he would do. He thought it was a blast and giggled for the first 15 minutes, then abruptly fell asleep.

This was ok with us as he giggled to himself in the back seat almost the entire 90 minute drive to get there (this is when I planned on him napping). He's a man of mystery, though. Always keeping me on my toes. Either way - he slept the entire way to the falls - about a 40 minute hike. This is what he missed... (Luckily he got to see it on the way back).

A lot of stairs but also a lot of beautiful views. The entire time we lived in San Diego, Jason and I would go on hikes with Chump or bike rides and I would always say, "We need to find some woods, this is too hot." Jason would always tell me, "This is the desert - there aren't any woods here. We have hike(ride) in the desert." That was not my idea of fun. This is my idea of fun!

About half way through the hike there was a huge suspension bridge that crossed the huge canyon that falls ran through. It was quite the site to behold. The suspension bridge took a little getting used to at first. It moved a lot - even with just once person's gait.

We saw a really cool rock wall that had water dripping down it constantly. Little plants had anchored themselves in and were thriving. I've seen this replicated in "living pictures" and next to fountains and things, but to see it made by nature was really a sight to see.

Maybe this is just the plant nerd in me - but I just can't help but think that these plants are amazing! How did they get their little roots into those little crevices in that rock in the first place? How much soil can there really be anchoring them in? Where are they getting their nutrients? Oh how I love these little green creatures! Note to self: Make a beautiful rock/plant wall that looks exactly like this one when I buy my Barbie Dream Home!

There were creatures along the way too.

I'm not sure if you can make it out, but that is a daddy-long legged spiderish guy, but the cool thing about him was the markings on his back looked like a giant smiley face! A yellow one. Can you see it? He was a happy spider.
The caterpillar was not that out of the ordinary except that they were EVERYWHERE. Even in the bathroom stall well out of the forest. I think they are of the monarch species but these had bring yellow hairs all over there. You can almost see the ones on his tail end in the picture. Creepy crawlies! I'm glad I don't have any pictures of Habu snakes to post. I hate snakes.

Colton woke up just in time for the falls. He couldn't stop looking at them!

I believe this is the first waterfall I've ever seen! It was beautiful and loud and so fun to be there with my family!

Even if my husband is a COMPLETE dork!

Colton stayed awake the entire hike back just quietly taking in the serenity. Plus, he loves looking at trees - even if its just outside a car window. He's weird. He must take after his mom with his love of trees.

When we got back to entrance of the park we were famished. We unbuckled the Ergo and peeled Colton off of Dad. I say "peeled" because there was a "Colton" shaped sweat mark on Dad's back. Colton was glad to be rid of him, but thankful for the ride. We sat down and had our picnic lunch. Colton loves picnics.

I didn't short my husband a sandwich... I made him one too. He just couldn't pass up the Okinawa Soba they were serving in the café. Only in Japan will they allow you to carry your tray out into the field and eat your soup. They may just not have understood what he was asking I suppose as they watched him walk away with his tray. Either way. he returned everything in good condition so all was ok in the end. Colton loves Okinawa Soba too, so he had some too.

After lunch Colton helped hold up the sign.

He needed to stretch his legs after sitting in the car for 90 minutes and then being stuck in the Ergo for another 80 minutes. He was a real trooper, though. I would recommend this hike to anyone with children light enough to go in an baby carrier.

We were on our way when we decided we wanted to find a beach to sit around at for a little while before we started the drive home when we saw signs for Okuma. We followed the road blindly where we came across a sign that said "Okuma Military Facility." I said, "Sweet! Let's go in!" We pulled out our ID's and were welcomed to paradise!

I still can't believe I took this picture with MY camera! I was here and it was beautiful. Words can't describe the way this place made my whole mind relax. Suddenly, we were on a tropical vacation on an exotic island. Oh wait - we live here!

 

This beautiful wonderland has a variety of different cabins, campsites, luxury homes, bicycles, jet-skis, and on and on and on for rent! There were two young men riding a covered double bicycle drinking beers with American Flags on the side and as I stared longingly with my mind at peace I said, "I want to come back here." Jason said, "Me too!" As soon as we got home I messaged my girlfriends and we are as good as booked.

 

Good-bye for now Okuma. See you again the weekend after Christmas!

Tug Of War - It's Serious.

We went to the Tug of War festival here knowing that it would be busy. We never could've expected this:

 

 

There were over 271,000 people there. As I said before, we expected it to be busy, but had no real idea. We thought we would get lunch at some little stand and then find a place to watch the tug of war. Well, when we encountered this we realized that lunch was going to be a littler trickier than planned. After standing in front of the first food stand we saw, because- get real, we weren't going to go searching, I wanted to get lo mein and Jason wanted a Japanese pancake. The lo mein was already all boxed up and ready to go. I saw some "churros" on the table and snatched those up to. While we were waiting for Jason's pancake to get made (well we thought it was Jason's pancake) I bit into a churro. Um... stale, cold, crunchy. NOT a churro. Oh how I love you San Diego. They were 500 yen! What a rip off! After 2 of what we thought were Jason's pancakes were handed off to other Asians we decided that we were going to skip the pancake and we'd have to get him one a different day. After working our way through the crowd and across the street (mind you a stroller is not an easy thing to maneuver in crowds this size) we sat down to eat our lunch.

 

 

 

Colton loves noodles, so in Japan, he's an easy man to please. Noodles galore.

 

Lining the whole street was a giant rope. I mean GIANT rope.

 

 

 

As you can guess we've never been to a tug of war ceremony before so we didn't know what to expect. We snapped a couple of pics and waited for the madness to ensue around us. Everyone was rushing the rope and the security guards had to whistle and yell some Japanese stuff so that everyone would back up. We just followed their lead.

Above is the picture of everyone retreating back to the side of the road after being scolded :/

 

We all had to sit on the road and listen to the Mayor of Okinawa talk for what seemed like forever. It was probably really interesting what he was saying, but again, we couldn't understand. Now we know how Colton feels. No wonder he doesn't just want to sit around watching TV all day.

 

 

There was a little parade down the street of these men and women holding these banners that I'm guessing were quite heavy. They were about 2 stories tall and people had the tied into their waist bands. The people around them had these little "catchers" in case it started to fall. They each had different colors and symbols. We didn't know what they meant and again we couldn't ask anyone... We were glad none fell on us.

 

 

 Little did we know, the guy we were with was taking part in the rope tugging. We could take part in the rope tugging too! I was on Colton watch so I didn't tug the rope at all (I would've rather been with Colton anyway), the boys had their share of fun.

 

 

I'm guessing this is Jason's attempt at the Clay Matthew's "beast" face. Clay looks better... Just sayin'.

 

When you walked up the rope after the tugging had commenced the Japanese people were eager to be the one to hand their part of the rope off to you. It seemed like some sort of ritual... maybe? Who really knows the truth. We can't ask anyone.

 

When the 30 minutes of war was over they declared our side the winner! The rope had only moved a few inches. Even with hundreds of thousands of people pulling. When the rope did inch one way or the other it rumbled the ground. That is one heavy rope. Everyone started slicing off parts of the rope. Our friend got a piece!

 

Some people went nuts and took almost whole sections. When we were leaving people had almost too much to carry. It is handmade, but its not even a real rope. Its just straw strung together really, really tightly.

 

After the war was over everyone was standing around talking and celebrating and we thought it was a great time for a photo op:

 

 

After this pic there was an Asian woman who was talking to Colton in Japanese. She must have thought he was pretty darn cute - well he is. She decided we needed a pic with these:

 

 

Colton is looking at Dad like, "Do I look as stupid as you?" Daddy didn't care how stupid he looked. You never really know for sure what's gonna happen here.

 

The Marines aren't allowed to drink off base on Island unless it is "dinner time." Then they are allowed to have 2 drinks out in town and are to go straight home. I always say, "Get real. No one will know you're drinking. You'll never run into anyone you know in these crowds. As long as you're not making a complete ass of yourself you won't get caught." Well  on our way out the boys ran inside to get some water and guess who Jason found! His Master Gunnery Sergeant (his bosses's boss). Well, good thing he didn't take my advice. It's probably the ONLY time Ill be wrong :)











I am NOT eating Brazilian BBQ in Japan!

On Saturday night Jason's friends from work were going out to dinner as a send off as one of their wives is leaving the island (lucky). We decided we would call Josie (our baby-sitter) and go. They picked the place - Poco a Poco. A restaurant literally half a block away from our house. Another night with the baby-sitter where we are within 500 meters of our house. I like it better this way, then if anything would happen, we are so close! So we were going to meet up with the other people at 6:30 and it was only 10 to 6, we snuck out unnoticed by Colton and we were ready to go. Jason and I took the long way to the restaurant - we still ended up being 10 or so minutes early.
We looked around and saw a Pachinko place. We've always wanted to try these to see what the hub-bub was all about. We went in and there were children running around everywhere and people chuffing down cigs. So strange in today's world. We get some change and pick a machine next a few other people who are trying their luck. We put our money in and the credits register. There are now 2 blinking lights near where we put the coins in - one is red and one is green. With nothing but kanji all around we try pushing one. Hm... it changed one of the numbers we saw. We figured that meant we had bet. There was one other button on the machine - it said PUSH. We pushed it and nothing happened. Hm... We pushed it again and nothing happened. Hm... Luckily the man to our right saw us struggling and tried his best broken English to tell us what to do. Turns out there is a small knob towards the bottom of the machine that you have to twist and this allows little pin balls to drop through a maze and thus causes the characters on the screen to spin! We were finally losing our money! Just what we wanted to do. We only put in 500 yen (about $5) and it seemed to be lasting so much longer than $5 would last you in any machine in the states so we were satisfied. We eventually lost all of the money and Jason thought we should try one big spin and bet $5 on one spin. We walked over to the machine that we wanted to play and dropped the 500 yen coin into the slot. It fell right through. Again - all kanji - we tried again. We tried while holding down this button and we tried while holding down that button. Just fell straight through. One of the information girls was nearby so we showed her our dilemma. She seemed to understand our problem right away and seemed to have an answer. "Chotto-matten-a" she said. This means one minute please. She opened the machine and showed us a token. "Ohhhhh! Where is the token machine?!" She kindly showed us the token machine. There was a large sign on the front of the machine that said, "DO NOT CONFUSE COINS WITH TOKENS - IT IS AGAINST JAPANSES LAW TO GAMBLE. TOKENS CAN NOT BE TURNED IN FOR MONEY OR PRIZES." So... we realized that all these people were playing for fun. Needless to say, we had wasted our 10 minutes and were off to Poco a Poco.
Upon climbing the stairs to Poco a Poco we realize the parking lot is full and we should ask if there will be room for a table of 8. They ask if we have a reservation and of course we do not. They say we should try Okinawa City (they must have another restaurant there). We thank them and quickly call the guys to let them know we will need to find another place to eat.
They are talking to Jason and they say that they will go to a Korean BBQ. OMG! I love Korean BBQ and I've been wanting it for a long time. Perfect! I say, "I know where they're talking about. It's by the starbucks." They confirm my destination and Jason and I are off on foot. Its not far from our house either.
After getting to nearly every corner and saying, "Its not here? Must be the next one." Jason decides to call them and let them know that we essentially had no idea what we (or rather I) were talking about. We try explaining to them where we are (again there are no street signs). We are right by a VERY large drug store called MORI with a giant apple - they know this place and are coming to pick us up. Jason asks them again what the name of the restaurant is. They say it is Bovino's. WHAT!?!?! That is not Korean BBQ. That is Brazilian BBQ. We ate there once and it was not good. Not terrible, but Jason and I seriously get out about once a month by ourselves and I REALLY don't want to eat there. Jason tells them and we are on our way. By now we've walked close to 2 miles all around town and are headed back towards our hood. By now its 7:30. I am hungry. Mean hungry. I start ranting as we're walking about how mad I am. "Those guys are idiots! Who eats Brazilian BBQ in Japan?" "I want to eat Korean BBQ!" I was even grunting and groaning. A full on temper tantrum. Jason is quietly walking beside me.
At this point we walk past a Ramen house we've eaten at before and it was not very good. I say, I'm so hungry, I want to eat here. Jason quickly talks me out of it. It is so lucky he did because literally right next door is a... (wait for it.... wait for it...) KOREAN BBQ!!!! I hugged Jason and thanked God for sending us here. There is no English on the sign - hence the reason we never noticed it before. The only reason we noticed was because they had the open grills in the center of the tables. Jason had to put out his cigarette before we went in and there were 2 small dishes with salt (at least that's what I thought) next to the door. "This must be an ashtray. Put your cig here." Just as Jason pushes his cig down into the "salt" he realizes it is rock hard and that it is not even slightly dirty. This must not be an ashtray. As we entered we almost expected them to shun us for putting our cig in their possible "traditional spirit warder-offer." When they didn't we graciously accepted their smiles and were seated.
We were the only Americans in this restaurant. It was packed too. People were chuffing cigs in here too! Good thing we never went with Colton. We would've had to leave. They sat us in the way back of the restaurant - basically behind a partition - but we didn't mind. We had just put out our cig in their Holy Salt.
We order a TON of food. Mixed veggies, mixed mushrooms, scallops, a salad, shrimp and premium beef. All of the ordering went very smoothly except for the shrimp. On the menu it said,
           SHRIMP (4)
To me that means 4 shrimp in an order, right? Wrong. Who knows what that 4 is there for. We said 1 shrimp and pointed to the menu and I think the lady was confused because she thought we only wanted 1 shrimp, but we didn't. We wanted 1 order of shrimp. She held up 3 fingers and I pointed at the menu and said 4? And she held up 3 fingers and said, "OK?"
 "OK."
Everything gets delivered to our table at different times which is fine because the grill is small and we have to cook everything ourselves. When the scallops arrive I peek into the foil to see what we had gotten this time. It looked as though the scallops were wrapped up with carrots and onions and stuff. Yummy!
When the scallops were finished we opened up the foil only to learn that that was no carrot and onion, but the entire scallop. Pink gushy stuff and all. Jason mustered up the guts and swallowed the whole shit. He said it wasn't that bad. I mustered up the guts and tried it too. Not bad. We waste that stuff in America and it just tastes like imitation crab. It was not very appealing to the eye, though, I suppose that's why we don't serve it in America.
We asked for our check and as the waitress went to get it for us Jason asked me how to say, "That was delicious." The Japanese is - oishi desu. Jason mumbled the phrase under his breath about 12 times and felt prepared to say it to the waitress. When he said it, the young waitress put her hand over her mouth and busted out in giggles. We don't know what was so funny, except that maybe this white man was possibly completely screwing up her language. The check was completely in kanji so its funny that they even show it to us like we would have any clue what it said or if they were ripping us off. You just have to pay and smile and say, "Aragato ga zai mas!"
We drove past the restaurant the next day and Jason asked me to look if his picture was on the door with an X through it. It wasn't, so we will definitely be frequenting this place on date nights to come.

Japanese Piñata

So we tend to spend many of our days beachside as it allows to Colton to move around freely as he is really cruising now! Colton loves people watching, and let's admit it, trying to eat everything in sight. We usually just sit and watch and don't participate in the hoopla that is ensuing around us, most times we don't really understand what's happening. People are smart. It's hot here and where else to go but the beach.

Most of the people here are just BBQing and drinking and listening to the music, occasionally taking a dip. It would be just like any American beach, except that a lot of the women that are there cover themselves from the sun from head to toe. They believe a fair skinned woman is more attractive. Large visors, face masks, long sleeves or arm covers, sometimes even jackets and sweatpants. It's hot here, sometimes with the humidity it says, "feels like 116." No wonder they're so skinny! You couldn't get me dressed like that for anything. I always want to take a picture of them, but I can't do a secret picture and I don't want to offend anyone. 
At the little "snack shack" you can buy food or drinks or get shaved ice (which is very inexpensive here and I LOVE it even though it's just sugar). They have about a million different types of mojitos and beer for sale. I decided to get a mojito for myself one day, just because Jason isn't allowed to drink off base doesn't mean the fun should be ruined for everyone, right? 

 


Soon after sitting a large group of women came near us and they had watermelons in plastic bags and large wooden dowels. Now, we were confused too until the blindfold came out and the spinning commenced. A Japanese piñata! How fun. We got a little closer for a better look and of course the women loved Colton, again, who wouldn't?!

 

 

 

In the end, this was the first thing Colton's ever gotten us out of his own money ;)

Life's a beach!

Churaumi Aquarium

We had a long break for Labor Day weekend so we decided to conquer one of the "bigger" tourist destinations here on Okinawa. The aquarium. Everyone talks about it and says how you HAVE to go there. So Jason went to the ticket office on base to buy tickets (we saved $1) and we were on our way. Its about an hour drive from where we live in Chatan. We got McDonald's breakfast on the way, (it was the same old Egg McMuffin you get anywhere) Jason thought the yolks were yellower... We followed the signs after getting off the "freeway." I put that in quotations because its nothing like what you're thinking of. Its something like highway 23 in Wisconsin. 2 lanes on each side except that the speed limit is 80km/hr. That's something like 50-55 mph I believe. When you get on you have to pull a ticket, this says where you entered the highway, and upon exiting you have to pay for how far you traveled on it. The cost for our trip was the equivalent of about $7. Kinda steep for driving on a road, don't you think? You can take the city streets to get there but, get real, you'll spend way more than $7 in gas!

We got to the first sign that said "South Entrance." We assumed this was it. We parked and noted that, "Wow! We must be early. There's hardly anyone here. Sweet!" We got EVERYTHING out of the car. We were going to be here all day, so you can imagine what EVERYTHING entailed. Colton, Colton's diaper bag (huge), stroller, camera bag, purse... I think that's everything. We walked over to the map and realized we were at the Botanical Garden part of the park. Hm.... Not what we were looking for. We decided since we already unloaded the cargo we should at least walk around a little and stretch our legs.

This was the only cool thing that was here. These Ficus trees' roots were braided and they were still living in the ground. No matter how much I stared at them, I couldn't figure out how they did that! There was a fountain that wasn't working (all full of green sludge) and a few other gardens that were mostly overrun with weeds. We decided this was silly and went back to find the aquarium.

We are headed north looking for the different parking lots that we had seen on the map. We get to one where there is a parking attendant flailing his arms at us to come in. I say, "I think this must be it." and Jason says, "I don't think so. I think its farther." So we continue driving as the road gets smaller and smaller and there are less and less people and no more parking lots we decide to turn around and find the arm flailing parking attendant. Sure enough, this was it. We weren't the only ones there like we had previously thought either. Easily 4 levels of parking garage already full. After all, this is the 2nd biggest aquarium in the world.

What a view, huh? I don't think it gets much prettier than this! This was all before even going into the aquarium! After checking out this view I realized that we had dropped Colton's teddy bear. Jason went to go see if he could find it. He did find it. It was a famous teddy bear now. There were people taking pictures of it as it was laying on the ground. Not picking it up, not touching it. Just taking photos of it. Things that make you say, "Hmmm..."

This is what Jason and I were calling the "touch tank." We don't know what the Japanese were calling it because we can't read kanji (duh). There were some small fish, sea cucumbers, 2 different types of star fish, sponges and a few other things that you can reach into the water and touch. We put Colton on the ledge thinking he wouldn't really get it. He got it. He reached right into that tank and grabbed that poor sea cucumber and squeezed the lights out of it. I think that sea cucumber may have seen his last day (unless they are like worms, in which case there are now 2 sea cucumbers where there used to be just 1). We never could have guessed how much Colton would love this aquarium. He touched the star fish and the sponge, too. He laughed and laughed and thought it was the silliest thing he had ever seen. At this stage of his life, it may have been.

 

 A photo cannot do this place justice. This is as good as it gets without being there. Some of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. Colton loved the fish. They would just swim past him and he would get all giddy. Squeezing your neck and kicking his legs like he couldn't believe what was happening! It was so fun just watching him!

There were 2 of these whales in this tank along with a bunch of mantarays(?). I thought these were sharks and kept referring to them as such until Jason told me they are actually whales. Either way, holy cow are they ever amazing! This was the largest tank in the aquarium. Colton loved this one too.

When I put Colton inside this whale mouth (I think that's what it is) so many Asians were snapping pictures and laughing and thinking Colton is so cute. Well... he is.

Next were the sea turtles. I had only seen this no tv and in movies. They are so cool! So big! They totally seem like they would talk like the sea turtle in Finding Nemo. Surfer dudes for sure!

Our timing was perfect! Just as we were exiting the aquarium a dolphin show was starting. It was free! We sat down hoping Colton would at least watch a little bit before we had to go. Colton was content the whole time. Just watching the dolphins and flirting with the little girls around us. It was like any other dolphin show I've ever seen except that the poor guys had to see the real ocean every time they did a jump. I bet they were plotting to get out of there! I would be.