Sunday Walk

 There are some beautiful flowers planted 

and wild and these hibiscus flowers are just stunning!

Sunday afternoon, Cassie and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. First time i actually walked off base to explore the immediate street and stores. With the twins, it would be too far to walk, and as they are with me all the time, there aren't too many opportunities. Now, they were home with their daddy, and we could go on our own for awhile.

Cassie in front of a little Japanese garden.

Something that you see EVERYWHERE here in Okinawa and I assume in Japan overall, is the vending machines with drinks. They are all over the place, and most have quite a selection. You can even get HOT coffee in a can! Don't ask me how that works, I was so surprised when I ordered one one time, thinking that it was ice coffee, and the can was hot when I picked it out of the machine! That was a surprise!

During our walk, we stopped to get something cold to drink this time, and Cassie got the drinks for us. The water was on the very top left, and almost hard to reach, how kids or not so tall Japanese people would reach that? Especially water one would think would be very easy to access!

Reaching for the water!

Cassie got herself a cold peach drink/smoothie - very good!!

We walked by some stores and stopped in one of the shoe stores. It's funny still, as some of the taste of shoes are very different to what one would see in an American store. Especially in the kid isle, there are typical Japanese princesses and Ninjas as motive, where in America it would be Frozen, Disney Princesses, Avengers, Spiderman etc on the shoes.

Big in Japan..

They have her name written all over them!

Something that was very nice though, was that the Converse were on sale, and they even had one that my turquoise loving girl found VERY nice! We didn't have YEN enough with us, and they didn't take card, but maybe a visit back to this store will happen in the near future..

BUT, Frozen is a hit in Japan too!! 

Isabella just got a new pair of tennis shoes on base, more expensive than this and they only had one color to choose from, I think I have to go back to get the hot pink ones!

On the way back, I had to take a picture of the pretty hibiscus again, this time with the prettiest girl on the island. Next to her, all flowers will fade...My beautiful Cassie!

Koinobori

Yesterday, Saturday, we saw these Koinobori sets in a local store when we went shopping. The Koinobori, is something very special in the Japanese culture.

The word Koinobori means "carp streamer" in Japanese, and these are flown everywhere in the end of April, beginning of May to celebrate "Children's Day" on May 5th. It's the end of the "Golden Week" here, and that's a national holiday, where most locals have off work, schools are off, and many businesses close down.

A typical koinobori set consists of, from the top of the pole down, a pair of arrow-spoked wheels with a ball-shaped spinning vane, flying-dragon streamer that looks like a windsock.

The number and meaning of the carp socks or koinobori that fly beneath the streamer has changed over time. Traditionally, the set would contain a black koinobori representing the father, followed by a smaller, red koinobori representing his eldest son.  If more boys were in the household, an additional blue, green and then, depending on the region, either purple or orange koinobori were added. After the government's decree that converted Boy's Day (Tango no Sekku) into the present Children's Day (Kodomo no Hi), the holiday came to celebrate the happiness of both boys and girls. 

As a result, the red koinobori came to represent the mother of the family and it is not uncommon for the color to be varied as pink. Similarly, the other colors and sizes of carp came to represent all the family's children, both sons and daughters. At present, the koinoburi are commonly flown above the roofs of houses with children, with the biggest (black) koinobori for the father, next biggest (red or pink) for the mother, and an additional, smaller carp of a different color for each child in decreasing order by age.

 Cassie holding up a traditional koinobori set.

After looking into the koinobori tradition, it was great to see today, on an afternoon walk I took with Cassie, that the koinobori were hung and flying in the wind over the Tengan river, just outside the base where we live. There were more than we could count, and I don't even know where they had stopped hanging them. As far as we could see along the river, there were colorful koinoboris flying in the wind! So beautiful, and I wish that I would have known to take my camera, but atleast the camera phone is better than nothing! Will try to go back before they are taken down with all children to take some nice pictures for Children's Day!

Hundreds and hundreds of koinoboris over the Tengan River, 

here beautifully mirrored in the water!

 From right to left: The colorful dragon streamer, 

followed by the black koinobori (father symbol) and the red koinobori (mother symbol)

Courtney Beach - Corals & Caves

Last Saturday, we had promised the little kids to take them to the beach. Cassie wasn't at home all weekend, as she was invited to a birthday camp out on another beach here on the island, where a 13 year old friend had invited a few friends to stay in a camper (under supervision of the birthday girl's mother). She was picked up Friday afternoon, and we went to get her on Sunday. They had so much fun, I have to see if I'm allowed to post some of their pictures here to show you in another later post.

Anyway, we only had a few hours to spend, as Chris had to go to a work function in the afternoon to a birthday party. Therefore, we couldn't drive too far, and decided to go to the Uken Beach, that is not far from home, a local beach here outside of the base. But, when we came there, the beach was closed off, and we had to turn around. Not having much time, we decided to go to the our beach right here on the Courtney base where we live. We hadn't been before, and now was the time. I hadn't heard much about it, and the weather wasn't the best, overcast with chance of rain, but we went for it.

The beach itself was beautiful, soft sand with carved out caves and coral formations all over. The sand was here and there covered - c.o.v.e.r.e.d - with small corals and washed up sea shells, sea glass and bigger corals. Beautiful!

It wasn't the perfect beach to take the kids swimming, as it was no clear sandy area for them to walk out in due to the coral reefs outside, but it was still a great beach to play on and to explore.

The kids were so excited to try out their new sand toys, and couldn't wait to start digging.

It didn't take long until Isabella came up to me with her first shells she wanted to keep!

Writing in the sand is always fun!

There were a lot of these concrete blocks here on the side, to keep away the waves during typhoon season!

This time we  brought buckets!

So many caves to explore!

 Found a crab skeleton on the way home.

Even if there was no sunshine or any swimming involved, we still had a great time! Considering that this beach is only 10 minutes from our home, we will be back soon!