Post Typhoon Skies

The typhoon blew over without any damage really, branches and stuff like normal fell down, but nothing major here where we live. Something that is pretty awesome is the skies after a typhoon. It's always more beautiful than ever. Toward sunset it's almost totally purple and I got a few pictures of the sky.

Last Typhoon Of 2016

I was just saying the other day that luckily Chris wasn't gone over typhoon season! It would have been impossible to take down our awning by myself. We have to take that down then, otherwise it would tear apart from the strong winds. It cost us a lot of money to get that shade, and I certainly wouldn't want it to break.

Anyway, I was trying to look up when we had the last typhoon, and found these pictures. Chris was at work ofcourse, and we were about to go into stage TCCOR-1 which means that you are more or less grounded and the typhoon is about to hit. The winds were pretty strong, but the rain had yet not started, so I decided to get the kids out of the house to run off some energy before being closed up inside for maybe a day or two, depending on how long the typhoon would go on for.

Took them to our climbing park here on our base, awesome park and the kids had some much needed time outside before it started to rain!

The sky was here not yet too dark, but it did change very soon. After just about an hour after this, it was dark outside and the rain started and the typhoon was coming in strong. We had really bad winds and rain over night, but luckily no power outages and that was all we needed. Still able to make dinner, watch movies and wait it out!!

Festival Drummers 3

Festival Drummers 2

Festival Drummers 1

There Is Always A Festival Going On In Okinawa

Like my title, there is seriously always going on here on this little island. Okinawans celebrate everything and everywhere all the time. There are always music, dancers and food vendors. This is pictures from a festival here in Uruma where we live, just outside the base pretty much. It was a Friday night, sometime in fall, and Cassandra was busy hanging with friends and Chris was most likely still working, as I walked down with Benjamin and Isabella on my own to have a look and take in the culture.

The drummers were amazing. Such rhythm, such precision. Noone fell out of line, noone was too slow or too fast, it was beautiful to see and pretty awesome to listen to.

The performance was on the street that they had closed down for the festival, so people were sitting down on the sidewalks and also on the street to get a good view.

I managed to find a spot right in front of the performers so that we all could sit down and have a really good view. As I wanted to take pictures and even film some, I didn't want to keep holding up kids to see all the time. It worked out fine!

Pretty strong arms (and abs) needed to keep drumming on these drums!

My young little explorers - 

enjoying cultural experiences that will make memories for a lifetime!

Walking home after the performance was over! Great spontaneous night!

Local Japanese School Performance

I found the movie clip from the Japanese school performance that I posted about the other day. This is how it sounded live! It was great to be able to have a look and to listen what they were practicing for weeks!

Japanese Photobooth Fun

In Okinawa, there are photo booths everywhere. Almost as common as the vending machine that you can find on every street corner. You take pictures, then you add filters, words, stickers etc. What you can't change though, is the style of the way you get pictured! And almost all of these machines makes you look a little bit like Japanese, or the way the Japanese like to see themselves. With BIG dark eyes, and very smooth skin.

Cassandra loves these machines, and has taken lots with friends and they are really fun. I wanted to get all kids in one booth one time, to get kid pictures like this, and we did when we went on a family adventure in fall. We also managed to get my husband in the booth for a family shot, and I'm glad we did, they came out awesome! Love these, even if we all look a bit "fake" it's really cute and such a fun memory of Okinawa!

These strips are now on the fridge in the kitchen and I smile every time I see them! I realized that I haven't shared them here, so I quickly took some pictures of the photo strips to share!

Kawaii!! (So cute!)