Japan Part 1 - Okinawa

After a mere 23 hours of travel, Mike and I arrived in Okinawa Japan on Thanskgiving Day. We were exhausted but so excited at the same time, to see our fellow Hampostlers.

We wore our Hammer shirts to greet them, thanks to Kate for getting them for us from Camp Hammer this summer. Noa and Julie died laughing when they saw us.

In no certain order......our Okinawa highlights. And don't worry. The next post will be on the funnier side of Japan - the signs, toilets and food :)

We got together with some of the Hammers' friends to watch the MU-KU game Sunday morning after church (yes, b/c the game was on Saturday night US time). I proudly wore my pink Mizzou shirt. I was so excited they won!! And it was great to meet some of their friends. Thank goodness for the AFN - Armed Forces Network - which shows US news and sports in foreign countries!!

Mike and Noa enjoyed some golf and Coke! They played on base, on a course adjacent to the airstrip where F-15s and cargo planes were taking off and landing!! See the picture of Mike teeing off next to these planes on Julie's blog!

We went out to dinner with a group of their friends - all really great guys and girls who we had a blast hanging out with. This was right before karaoke with all of them! This is just a pic of the boys. Tom, hope you're happy you made it on the BLOG!!

Julie and I got beautiful pedicures, handpainted! I chose snowflakes in honor of my Colorado winter. Julie had cute red circles with silver accents. Again, see Julie's blog for a close up. The place we went was awesome, right on the seawall, and they served this awesome tea while we were pampered!

Mike and Julie teamed up for a screaming rendition of Evanescence, "Bring Me to Life." Needless to say, both of them lost their voice that night. Noa and I stuck to gangster rap. Much easier on the vocal cords!

Our favorite ninjas. It's Japan, so of course they had to wear the headbands. Mike got that giant Coke out of one of the many streetside vending machines. They are literally on every corner, and serve both hot and cold drinks!

Hampostle on Hedo Point, the northernmost tip of the island of Okinawa. It was beautiful there, very windy of course, but the water was a gorgeous blue with lots of green landscape. It was awesome.

Mike and Noa explored the rock cliffs. Julie and I, not so much.

Oh, one of the highlights of our trip - Gunnar and Sadie! They were clearly thrilled to see us, bounding around the house the night we got there. Sadie and I caught up on some much needed snuggling in the big chair under blankets. It was so fun to see them again!

Mike and Julie in front of again, those vending machines! Mike has a hot beverage (cafe ole), and obviously Julie is enjoying ice cream. Which is purple, but tasteless. Weird. She said it was some kind of native root. I'll take her word for that.

I did try to master the chopsticks action. There's a high learning curve for that one. I resorted to using both hands to grasp one lettuce leaf. I would starve if forced to be dependent on those things! This picture is from the Pizza in the Sky restaurant (see Julie's blog!) we went to, beautiful! And look how cute my tea pot is!! The tea was great there.....black tea, not green. I was not a fan of the green tea.

Okay, more to come.....up next are my favorite Japanese things. And then we're on to Tokyo!!