Trick or Treat....

Because last year we had about 10 or so kids from our neighborhood stop by on Halloween for some trick or treating... Dave and I stopped at the store earlier today to make sure we had some candy on-hand incase the trick-or-treaters decided to return this year.

This picture is of the full candy bowl.... the 2nd time around. I had to run to the store around 7pm to get a refill on candy.

I finally had to bring in the Jack-O-Lantern and turn off the lights because we ran out of candy again!!!!

I'm guessing around 30 or so kids came to the door tonight. The kids from last year must have told their friends. All of the kids were around 8-12 years old and most of them were very shy and didn't know what to do. They were incredibly polite .... saying "Thank you" several times as they walked away from the house... and a couple of times they even bowed. I am so glad they decided to come back this year! What fun!

Jack-O-Lantern

Tonight Dave carved his yearly Jack-O-Lantern.

Learning to type in Japanese

Last night I created my own little map of the hiragana characters on the keyboard. As of now we don't have a Japanese keyboad, but I can switch the language on the computer and then type in Japanese. As it turns out, just as our English letters are placed in no logical order across the keyboard, so are Japanese letters. This makes learning to type on the computer in Japanese much more difficult than I had originally thought.
When I return to the USA, I won't be able to type in Japanese using my cell-phone...waaaaa!!! Therefore, if I want to continue to communicate with my Okinawan friends, I must learn how to type all over again!!!! ahhhh!!!

Japanese Print Test

私は日本語で　かいて　います. とても　むずかしい 　です. でも,　楽しい　です.

I am writing in Japanese.　 It is difficult, but fun.

Naked Molly

Yesterday I took Molly for a haircut, and boy did she get buzzed! She was very happy to see me when I picked her up from the groomer, but after a little while she put on her "woe is me" face and moped around the house for a good 3 or 4 hours. The woman that cuts her hair usually puts a scarf around Molly's neck, but this time she put bows on her ears! hehe...

Tonkatsu Taro

Last night we took Grandpa to Tonkatsu Taro. Tonkatsu is pork cutlet breaded and fried. It is sooooo delicious! You can dip your tonkatsu into a type of BBQ sauce that you mix together with sesame. You grind the sesame seeds up yourself and then pour in however much sauce you'd like.

Here is a pic of me with my Tonkatsu set. This is one of my favorite meals on island! I get so excited when we go to this particular restaurant, I usually end up bouncing in my seat as I eat my food. Shiawase! Happiness!

Grandpa Dirkes visits Okinawa

Yesterday Grandpa Dirkes arrived in Okinawa. To start off his week-long trip to the island, Dave and I took him to Shuri-Castle. Here is Grandpa getting his stamp at one of the gates.

Here are Dave and Grandpa at Shurijo. After our visit to the castle we went to the Navy Underground Headquarters used by the Japanese forces during WW2.

Molly as a puppy

This is the first picture we took of Molly. She was about 6 or 7 weeks old. She has changed a lot since then... I can't believe she's going to be 2 at the end of this year! We were only going to go "look" at puppies that night... but I saw her and fell in love.... she came home with us that night! Wasn't she adorable??!!!!

Molly's new spot

Lately, Molly has been camping out in a new location....at the bottom of the stairs. She usually goes there after she doesn't get her way with something... I call it her "Woe is me spot". She often falls asleep in this awkward position... a few times a day, actually.

She was not happy that I took her picture.... what a cute puppy face!!!!

Unique things in Okinawa, part 2

This is yet another perk about cell phones in Japan. Now, I've been out of the US for about 2 years now, so I'm not sure if this exists there yet... someone will have to let me know. This is a vending machine that you can swipe your cell phone (which will act like a debit card) to buy your drink. Not all the machines here have this but I have seen a good bit of them on island.


Ok, this is a picture of the hours for one of the Izakayas in Okinawa City. Notice that they open at 5pm and close at 9am.....a complete reverse of normal business hours. Many restaurants/izakayas are open "overnight".... that's Okinawan style..... I love it!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this. This is a doggie-treadmill....I guess since many homes here don't have yards for their pups to run, people can buy this to get their dog some exercise...haha!

Yeah Cell Phone

Ok, this is a pic of my cell phone.. (the yellow one). Today I finally figured out how to get all of my pictures I have taken with it transfered to the desktop. Yea!! I used infrared to send the pics to Dave's PDA, then connected that to the computer and BAM! I've got my pictures! yea!!!! It only took 8 months to figure it out... haha! Well, the next few entries will have some pics from my cell phone, so the quality may not be the greatest... sorry :(

Yukiko-san!

This is my friend Yukiko-san! We met in February of this year. We used to meet every week to study English and Japanese. Lately it has been more difficult to arrange some time to spend together since we are both so busy. After a month of emailing back and forth we finally were able to get together for some lunch today. We went to one of Yukiko-san's favorite ramen restaurants in Okinawa City. We both ordered some delicious garlic ramen that came with pork and bamboo! YUMMY! Afterwards, we did a little window-shopping at our usual meeting spot "Main City" (similar to a Mall in the States).