Memorial Day Picnic

We had another awesome neighborhood fun-time on Monday with the first annual "Snob-Hill" Memorial Day Picnic - or as our friend John called us "Lester Heights".  It was fun to get together with all the neighbors to grill out and enjoy some great food.

Kellly and her son, David

London chowing down on corn on the cob.

Attempting sparklers!

Salt of the Sea

Okinawa has many unique products and customs and believe it or not, salt is one of them.  Masu (salt) is valuable to Okinawans not only as a seasoning, but also as a protection from evil and harm.  I found out that when Okinawans return home after a funeral or other Buddhist ceremony, they will lick a little salt and sprinkle salt on their head and shoulders before entering the house. When buying a new car, the owner will sprinkle a little Awamori and salt on the vehicle to assure safe driving. (They might need to do this a little more based on the number of accidents I've seen!)  When moving house, Okinawans carry masu and miso (the base for miso soup) into the house before anything else, at high tide. It is common for people to carry salt with them in a small bag as they go about, and an Okinawan will certainly have some salt in his or her car.

With the importance of salt in their lives, and given that they live on an island surrounded by salty seas, it is no wonder that there are some really good salt made on Okinawa.  I once read that a salt made on one of the surrounding smaller islands is one of the top salts in the world (as deemed by culinary experts far better than I, because salt to me is salt.)

Anyways, I took the family on a little excursion to make our own salt yesterday.  There is a place I had heard about and since it was a fairly blecky day, I was ready for a diversion.  The place for all my Okinawan friends is called Gala Salt Factory and it included a series of buildings that demonstrated the salt making process.  This included an eco-friendly condensation tower where the sun aids in evaporating the water, the brewing center where the water is boiled in a special large pan over a roaring fire to evaporate the water,

 and finally the solar crystallization house, where the salt is put into the containers that are made of the characteristic Okinawan red roof tiles to dry by the sun.  There was also a salt museum, salt tasting (the kids liked this - salts from all over the world),

salt rice cracker bakery, ice cream parlor featuring such flavors as - you guessed it - salt and salt caramel (as well as green tea, black sesame and soybean flour?) 

The culmination was an open air pavilion where you could make your own salt by boiling extremely concentrated (by 7 times) seawater over a hibachi stove until you ended up with a very fine, VERY salty, sea salt.  Couldn't be fresher! 

The kids really enjoyed it and it was a good opportunity to show them where we get salt from (other than the grocery store.)  Of course, in the Japanese way, our homemade salt was then packaged in a cute little Okinawan pot and beautifully wrapped to go home with us.

Cannon picking out our salt pot.

After visiting the Salt Factory, we wondered across the road and down onto a cool little beach with a stone jetty.  I would like to go back to that beach when the sun was out as I'm sure the water would truly be an amazing site.

Emmy's New Cape

Emmy's going through a cape phase and while walking to the Shopette in her new "Japanese cape" she looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, do I look like Batman?"

"No!", I say.  "You're Wonder Woman!  And remember, just like Wonder Woman - you can do anything you want!" (I thought I'd take this opportunity to encourage her to break all barriers - do great things - go for the gold!)

"So," she says, "I can jump in the puddles?"

Well, this isn't exactly what I was thinking ...

Look What the Cat Drug In...

Ok, it's less what the cat drug in, more the cat that was drug in!  By me.  After Emmy and I found it stuck behind the air conditioners at the boys' school. 

Ok, I'm a sucker, but when the little thing crawled up on Steve's shoulder and bedded down, I knew she was ours to keep.

So introducing the newest member of our family...Kimono!  (Kimmy or Mono for short)  Afterall, if we have the obi, we have to have the kimono :)

Her first bath!

Braces

Tuesday, 9:05 AM...

Tuesday, 9:05 PM...

Sammy's

It was our friend Tom's last night in Okinawa before ending his "deployment" and heading back Stateside so we took him out to one of his favorite bars which will soon be one of our favorite bars.  Sammy's is a little back alley place that has managed to combine a sultry atmosphere with a huge selection of liquors, especially bourbons much to Tom and Steve's enjoyment!  It was a fun time and we will miss having "DT" (Doctor Tom as the kids call him) around.

Stevie's gonna miss his friend...

With the bartender

My only female companion (it's a manequin!)

Kin Kannon-do

Trying to sneak in all the outings we can with Dr. Tom before he leaves the island, today the kids and I (Stevie was on call) took him to an awesome spot that we had originally gone to back in November. The seclusive place is called Kin Kannon-do and it's located about half way up the island on the eastern side. This place is another one of those unique Japanese combo businesses - it's a temple and an awamori distillary.

The temple is the only one on island that did not get bombed to smithereens during the Battle of Okinawa so it's really quite old. This temple is dedicated to the Goddess Kannon who is the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.

But the most interesting part of this tandem business is the little natural cave opening you see off to the right when you stand before the temple. By purchasing tickets in the nearby store, you can descend some pretty steep, and a little trecherous due to the recent rains, steps into a natural cave system.

And what is in these caves? Not bats, not rare blind cave crickets, but stacks and stacks of bottles of awamori!

Awamori is the unique drink made on Okinawa which is a distilled rice liquor versus sake which is a brewed rice liquor. The distillary that sits just behind the temple offers a unique opportunity. Purchase a bottle of awamori and for 1,000 Yen extra you can store it in the cave to age for 5 to 12 years! Each bottle (and we estimated that there are several thousand bottles in the cave) has a tag attached to it with the date, catalog number and a message from the owner. Although most are in kanji and cannot be read by my eyes, some have English messages with Happy Birthday or anniversary or one today I saw had a newborn baby's footprint on it!

It really is an incredible site to see all these bottles tucked neatly into wine racks preserved alongside the stalagmites and stalactites!

Let the Summer Begin!

After seven months of sweat-free, very enjoyable weather (which is very surprising given how stinkin 'hot it was when we first moved here), I think the summer is officially upon us. Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday it POURED rain (most rainfall since 1978 on Okinawa). It was really quite impressive to see such sustained, heavy rain. I was beginning to fear that the "rainy season" we had heard about was going to be seriously dreary to get through.

These photos were taken by my neighbor, Kelly.

Water gushing from the bottom of our hill.

Kelly's son, David, running through the flooded road at the bottom of our hill.

But then the clouds cleared this week, and then, the humidity, no, the STEAM, set in. Whew, how easily I forgot about the sweat-provoking stuff. It's the kind of weather that makes your little toe sweat the minute it sets foot outside the door of the comfortably air-conditioned house.

But summer brings so many things, and yesterday we headed back to the beach to try out the water and it was lovely and warm (enough for me to get in and I don't usually get more than a toe wet until mid-July - I like bathwater-warm water!) The snorkeling wasn't too great as the water was a little murky, but still good enough to see some pretty awesome tropical fish and for the kids to enjoy a splash.

ABC Parade

School studies are already beginning to wind down and so our calendar is full of "special events" that commemorate the year. This past Friday London had his "Alphabet Parade" with an alphabet potluck after. It was all very Kindergarten cute - each child had a letter assigned to them and they had to come up with a costume of something starting with that letter. Then the parents had to come up with a dish to share that also started with that letter.

London was assigned "N" and since then we've had lengthy discussions on what kind of costume he would have. Have you ever considered that there are not many animals that start with "n"? Newt and needle fish were the only ones we could think of. Some other ideas the kids came up with were nail, noose, nose, Neptune (the planet - not the god), and nickel (my preference, but London would not have it). Finally he decided on numbers, a - thankfully - fairly easy costume for me to make (painting numbers on a t-shirt)!

This poor girl's mom had to design an "oryx" for "O". Where do kids come up with this stuff?

Emmy, London and friend, Sam, enjoy our "noodles" (ie. mac and cheese).

Who Needs Cocok's?

Cocok's is a fancy nail salon here on Okinawa that has gained great popularity among the Americans for their "toe art".  Toe art are fancy mini-paintings they meticulously paint on your toes.  I've tried it once or twice, but honestly, a pretty pink is just as good for me.

This afternoon, Emmy decided to play Cocok's - on her Dad!  She started with beauty parlor and proceeded to put every one of the new hair clips Grandma just sent in Stevie's 1 centimeter long hair.  It was great!

Then she decided it was time to do his nails.  Usually, Stevie paints her nails, but today turn around was fair play.  Right in the middle of painting his nails, Emmy's little friend Becca knocked on the door to play.  So then he was treated to a dual pedicure and manicure by 3 and 4 year old manicurists! 

What a trooper and how pretty he looks...