Japanese Parks

Japanese parks are fun.  Old fashioned, yes.  Dated, yes.  Unsafe, yes.  Fun, yes.  I know I've written about them before, but it's worth mentioning again since we found a new park this week with our friends Liz and Lydia.

A few months ago Okinawa Living magazine featured an article about parks on the island and I realized there were quite a few that we hadn't visited yet so since the kids are off school and the weather is fine, we searched out an unfamiliar one today - Manta Park.

With a little twisting and turning and a few U-turns, we made it to the park which was an island in the middle of some Japanese housing.  At first glance, it looked fairly benign with one, albeit giant, roller slide in the middle. 

A view from the top.

A view from the bottom.

But there was more fun to be had there than you would expect.  The central staircase/pavilion leading up to the roller slide had all kinds of fun things to do.  Like a concrete slide that was FAST! 

And ropes to climb up and repel off, and rocks to climb, and a fake tree (concrete, of course) to climb.  All these then led up to the entrance to the roller slide, which I estimated was on par with the fourth floor of the surrounding apartment buildings.  Yes, I let my kids (even the four year old) go down a slide that started four floors off the ground!  But they're fun!!!  Especially if you have a piece of cardboard under your rear to buffer the friction from your, ahem, delicate parts...  The US has got to get some of these slides!

We put Emmy and Lydia in boxes and sent them down like they were FedEx packages!

I don't think Emmy liked her brothers pushing her out of the way!

Lydia and Emmy

Classic Japanese park sign!

Pottery

Okinawa has some beautiful pottery and I happen to be a big fan of pottery. A few weeks ago, the family, along with our neighbor Kelly, ventured down to an area known for its pottery just off of the famed Kokusai Street. They were having a sale in the sports grounds of a Japanese school with lots and lots of booths set up from different potters and studios. I was in hog heaven, the trouble is it’s so hard to decide on what to buy, everything is so cool. We did invest in one piece there – a unique tea pot in one of the local styles.

Emmy with Ms. Kelly looking at the shisa dogs

This weekend we headed out to the other well-known spot on the island for pottery – Yomitan Pottery Center. I’ve written about this before as it’s one of my favorite places to visit (and take company!) This unique little place is a cooperative of potters who each have their own studio in this tiny village and they share a kiln which is fired up four times a year. The kiln is built on an incline and is fired by a huge wood fire. This weekend was their once a year “sale” where not only could you pick up a slight discount (the Japanese idea of a sale is 5-20% off, not like the Americans 50-75% off) but there is much more variety of items during this time. Last year we had an awesome experience as London and Emmy were invited into the inner circle of one of the potters and fed Okinawan donuts, candy and tea.

Inspired by all this awesome pottery, I finally did something in November that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time – take a pottery class! Two of my neighbors, Liz and Kelly, signed up with me and together we went every Wednesday night to learn how to use the pottery wheel. I ended up making quite a few pieces and am quite impressed with the results. Now if I could only find time to go back and do some more…

Me at the wheel.



My first (unfinished) piece!



Kelly and Liz

Some of my finished pieces.

More of my finished pieces.

Kids say the darndest things…

I was volunteering in London’s class two weeks ago when I noticed their bulletin board outside the class. It read “Bright Wishes for the Holiday Season” and each child had written their wish on an index card which was stapled on the board.

As I stood reading the wishes I was reminded how innocent childhood could be with wishes like, “I wish for some rollerskates.” Or “I wish diamonds would fall from the sky.” But then there were some more disturbing ones like, “I wish no one would hit any more.” And “I wish for a new bed.” Then there was the most disturbing: “I wish for a safe house.” I wondered, hadn’t Mrs. Murray flagged this student and sent them to the counselor??? Who doesn't have a safe home in London's class??? 

So I made a comment to her about how some of the wishes were a bit strange. Really, she said, like which ones? Well, the one about the safe house, says me. “Oh,” she says, “That was London’s!” What???? She said he mentioned something about a bomb shelter? Ohhhhh, Stevie calls our house a bomb shelter all the time! I guess we need to watch what we say!

Preschool Christmas Program

You gotta love having a preschooler at Christmas time, they get to do such stinkin’ cute things! Emmy didn’t disappoint this year as her preschool ended the semester with an all-too-cute Christmas Program. All the kiddos were dressed up in their red and green finery and sang just the cutest songs around. Emmy’s class performed 4 songs, two of which were in Japanese. (Yes, one was Deck the Halls which is really funny if you’ve ever seen the movie "Christmas Vacation"! Fa, ra, ra, ra, ra)

After all the singing, Emmy got to visit with Santa who gave her a present (a book).

Did I see right, does Santa look a bit, umm, oriental?

Who's that peeking behind the book?

Uncle Charles in Japan

A week ago on Saturday we were fortunate enough to have another family member make the long journey half way around the world to visit us – Uncle Charles!

It’s been great having him here and we’ve been so busy entertaining him that I haven’t made any posts yet! Actually, Stevie’s been doing the majority of the sight-seeing since he took the week off work and I was still home schooling Cannon.


On Sunday we took him to Maeda Flats to see the beautiful beaches that we have here on Okinawa. Because we went at low tide, we were able to walk out across the coral beach and peer down into the tidal pools to see brilliant blue fish, feather stars, mantis shrimp, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. It’s a great way to see the sea life when you can’t get in the water!

Yes, the water was still warm enough to walk in.

On Monday Stevie took Charles to Kokusai Street to see the touristy, kitschy products that Okinawa offers plus the incredible fish and meat market.

On Tuesday, they went to Shuri Castle, the only castle that has been rebuilt after the bombings of the Battle of Okinawa. It’s an impressive sight with all the red and gold and dragons and finery.

On Wednesday they went to the Naval Underground museum and Okinawa World. The Naval Underground is an eerie place where the Japanese military hung out during the Battle of Okinawa.  The tunnels were built by forced Okinawan civilian labor by hand and pick ax.  The creepiest part is the room that is riddled with shrapnel from the suicidal grenades of the Japanese officers.

On Thursday we all headed up island to one of our favorite places – Okuma! We love this laid back family military resort for all its simple fun. The first thing we did was head to the go-carts for a friendly competitive race between the brothers. Their poor passengers (Emmy with Charles and Cannon with Stevie) could only hold on and scream.

It's a race between brothers!

We had a big camp fire that night with hobo packets for dinner – apparently Charles and Stevie didn’t do much camping or boy scouting growing up so this was a new thing for them. On Friday we woke to clear skies and calm winds – two important conditions for the guys to go deep sea fishing! Yes, Thursday’s wind was howling but Friday was beautiful and after Cannon’s favorite breakfast in the restaurant, they headed out to try their hand at catching a mahi-mahi or tuna. Emmy and I enjoyed a mommy/daughter day while they were gone (including watching Sleeping Beauty!) and then met them at the beach as they returned. They had a great time and reeled in 2 good sized mahi mahi, 6 yellow fin tuna and one bonito! We enjoyed a little of the catch over the fire for dinner (along with beanie weenies!)

Ready to go!

Beautiful mahi mahi.

Uncle Charles teaching London how to fish.

Proudly displaying part of the catch.

After another big American breakfast (Okuma is one of the only places on island to go out for biscuits and gravy!), we headed off to see some more sights. I’ve heard a lot about a place called Sachi’s – it’s a
mainland Japanese antiques store and I thought they might have some cool stuff for Charles to see since Okinawa is quite different from mainland Japan. Turns out they didn’t, but it was still an interesting set up with a beautiful view.

We went on from there to the Aquarium, another family favorite. I never do get tired of seeing the whale sharks and rays swim around in a massive aquarium tanks.  Apparently Charles was also impressed by the fish, but especially the rays.

The Trees Are Here!

I don't know if you remember my post last Christmas about Christmas trees here on Okinawa, but the short version is that back in July, the Exchange orders a bunch of live Christmas trees from a farm in Oregon, they get cut, stuck in a shipping containers, toted across the Pacific, stored in a warehouse in Japan until the Japanese agricultural authorities inspect them and give them the ok to be released.  It's not exactly the storybook way of going to a Christmas tree farm on a snowy winter day and cutting down your own, but you go with what you have here.

Nor was Saturday morning (the designated "release" date) the storybook way of buying a Christmas tree.  It was really more like Black Friday at Walmart.  You see, word spreads fast in this tight military community and when there are only 300 live trees being released to 50,000 military people, people get cut throat.  Our neighbors, Krimp and Dima, were panicking about getting a tree as they had heard rumors that they sell out within the first half hour - truthfully, I think the only thing that stopped her from sleeping out in front of the tree lot is that she's 8 months pregnant.  Anyways, they took off on Saturday morning, with Cannon in tow, to get our spot in line.  Shortly after, I was able to rally my crew and we arrived to find Dima and Cannon wrapping their arms around two trees.  I was told that one of these was our tree.  Fair enough, it looked good enough and since most of the trees that had been pulled out of the truck were already in other people's carts, I figured this was a good option.

The problem is when 300 people all show up at the same time to buy a tree, the line for check out is enormous!  Of course, it didn't help that the folks at the Exchange only set up ONE register!

But after 45 minutes in line someone figured out you could also go inside the Exchange to pay which speeded up the process immensely.

We took it home and set it up and it looks - and smells - beautiful!

Have sun roof, will travel - with trees sticking out!

Masquerade Ball

I actually was able to sucker Stevie into taking me to two balls since a lot of our friends and neighbors were going to the hospital's ball, and it was a fun sounding theme - masquerade!

So Friday night we all dolled up in our best semi-formal finery and donned our masks for a good time.

The neighborhood gang, Joe, Wendy, Mike, Kelly, us, Liz and Don