Dining Out

There are so many restaurants that we want to try out. I'd love to learn more about the Okinawan dining, and Japanese cooking in general, but unfortunately, we are not very frequent restaurant visitors. Some has to deal with my husband's crazy work schedule, and that you never, not even in the weekends can count on him at home in the evenings, but also due to that we always cook here at home, and with picky eaters in the family, it isn't always easy when you finally find a time to go out and eat.

Talking to some of our neighbors, I realized that we are really missing out on the options out there! Many seem to eat out several times a week, and the rest of the days do take out! That's crazy to me, but hey, everyone do their thing as they please. But once in a while, I'd for sure appreciate going to ta restaurant and eat, and also be able to say that I have tried all kind of specialties that are to be tried here.

Anyway, one night last week, one of my husband's coworkers had his wife visiting him here on Okinawa. Not all families, couples choose to do accompanied tours, and she is back in the US studying. So, we were supposed to meet up for dessert after dinner, for an hour or so to meet her, without kids. I had already had dinner together with the kids earlier, but Chris and the others hadn't yet, so it took a little longer than planned for them to first eat and then order dessert. Still, it was a fun experience, my first time in a restaurant where they had the tables very low, you take your shoes off and then climb into this booth, were you sit on benches with the feet under the table. There is a big cutout in the floor, where you put your legs.

The table with the cutout in the floor for the legs.

 Chris ordered a variation sushi plate. Salmon, squid, shrimp, egg and octopus.

I waited for the dessert! An Okinawan specialty, which they call "Honey toast" a "toast bread" drenched in sweet honey, with a really creamy vanilla ice cream on top. This was really big, and good. A little strange with the bread, but absolutely something that was worth trying!

It was a nice evening, and it was even nicer to come home and have both my little ones in bed sleeping! The best baby sitter in the world - big sister Cassie - had been busy though!

Well, we were talking about how fun it would be for the kids to try this experience with the table, so on the Saturday night, we decided to go out and eat again! Twice in a week!! We ended up going to this restaurant that we had passed many times, and always wanted to look inside to check it out.

They even had some menus in English 

(that would have needed some corrections before printing..)

 But mostly the menus look like this, thankfully with colorful pictures!

Cassie didn't want to be so adventurous, and went with fried chicken and potatoes.

The little ones love these sticks with chicken or pork. We have bought them locally and had at home, and even made some on our own, and here we happy to find them on the menu. Phew - great to find something that was a hit with the young picky ones..

 Chris went for this plate as a starter..

I ordered a plate with fried rice and shrimps. While eating it, there were some crunchiness to the dish that I couldn't quite place in what it was, so after checking the rice a bit better, I soon found what the crunchy pieces were:

...itty bitty fried shrimps! 

The dessert were pretty good, and here too they had the traditional "Honey Toast", which Ben ordered! After all this food, we were pretty full when we left the restaurant. Unfortunately, they didn't have the special tables for the kids to sit on, but we said we have to come back another time to try something else from the menu.

Under Attack On The Beach

Memorial weekend, was mainly rainy, or at least not sunny days for the beach. Which isn't quite true, as we can enjoy any day at the beach!  But, we had other adventures over the past weekend, which you might have seen on my previous posts. Tuesday, Cassie was back in school, and the weather was nice and sunny - of course..Chris was home, as it's a bit different here with the holidays, and with the time difference of 16 hours or so from the west coast, the offices in the States, were all still celebrating Memorial Day and were closed and therefore, people here were working on Friday before and off on Tuesday after Memorial Day. Confusing - much, for me too! I don't even know how it will be with other holidays...

Anyway, with this being said, he went golfing in the morning, and came home right about when Cassie came back from school. I had prepared everything for a few hours on the beach and we left as soon as Cassie had gotten out of her school clothes.

Again, I can't believe how lucky we are to live on this island. It's such a privilege, and we are so blessed to live where we can pick and choose from what beach we would like to go to! 

This afternoon, we decided to go to the nearby, Uken Beach, that is just a few minutes drive from our base. I wasn't sure about how it was with jelly fish now after a few days of rain and with changing weather with the rainy season, so I thought it would be safer to take the kids to a beach with a net, a net to keep jelly fish out that is!

Not bad to be able to go here on a regular Tuesday afternoon after school!!

It was nice, but peaceful - not so much! Cassie was hardly in the water before the kids started attacking her with their new water guns. These are so much easier to handle for the little ones than the "normal" water guns and they had such a blast. Poor Cassie, she was soon under attack in a fight two to one and without a water gun on her own! The game was on, and it was fun to get a few pictures from them playing!

 "Reloading"

It was so nice! As this beach isn't so closed off and not in a bay, there were some more waves than the kids were used too from swimming here. BUT, the waves are warm, and it's such a treat  to cool off so easily, because even if it's a bit overcast, it's hot and humid outside!

Ending the evening with homework for some, dinner and cleanup for some and somewhat early bedtime for all  most of us!

Jungle & Orchids

Like I mentioned in my previous entry, there were too many pictures from our trip to the beautiful park Bios On The Hill. Everywhere you went, there were pretty scenery with jungle plants and everywhere there were orchids growing. Some planted and many growing wild. The colors were popping out everywhere in between all the green, it was just so pretty. Here are some of the pictures that I took from our wonderful day in the park:

Along the walking paths there were heavy vegetation, and one was told not to walk off the paths..so who knows what kind of wildlife was living in there too. Snakes and spiders are represented for sure..

The lianas were growing everywhere - to and from the trees  - just like in the movie Tarzan!

We have seen many different kinds of palm trees in Arizona and in California. Even here in Japan, they have different kinds growing, but this kind with the beautiful spotted bark on the trunks and the very pretty green leaves, I had never seen before.

Some of us walked a little bit ahead, and Cassie and I were slow looking left, right and up to soak in this walk to the fullest!

And of course it took some time as we needed to stop here and there for pictures!

They had an elevator up to a look out tower and bridge, and you had beautiful views of the park and even like above, view all the way to the ocean.

The beautiful palm trees with the spotted trunks looked almost more beautiful from above!

So green, so lush, so beautiful!

Going through the pictures now, I did realize that I didn't capture one single butterfly in a picture! Anyway, there were so many butterflies, most of them were flying pretty high and were hard to catch in a picture. Some of them were very big, bigger than the palm of my hand, and they were black, and some were turquoise. I guess going back to try to get some pictures of them, is a good enough reason to go back to this beautiful park soon again!