It's a Space Shuttle Wing!

The big day finally arrived...Jake got his cast removed! (Well, removed when it was SUPPOSED to be removed this time, hehe.) He now gets to wear his AFO boot, but is only allowed to bear 50% of his weight on it. He still has to use the crutches for the next several weeks.

Last week, Jake confessed that he thought there was something down his cast. A LEGO. He constructed a gadget with pieces of a clothes hanger and zip-ties to try to remove it. Unfortunately, he couldn't get around his ankle bone to reach the other side of the LEGO and pull it up. It wasn't causing him much pain, so he opted to wait it out until our scheduled appt. We were eager to see which piece it was.

And I'm sure some of you are wondering how a 12 year old accidentally gets a LEGO down his cast. I know I did. But if you visualize a kid sitting on the floor, cross-legged, surrounded by the LEGOs he's playing with...and then he goes to stand up, brushing the top opening of the cast against the ground as he pulls himself up...it's easy to see how a LEGO could slide in there, unnoticed until it is too late to retrieve it.



The ortho tech, working his magic with the cast saw



Jake reminding him of where the incisions are



The big reveal...



And there it is...growing into the side of his leg. Nasty, I know. Sorry about that. You can still see the surgeon's initials on top of his foot. (He signed it the day before surgery to mark which foot would be operated on. In this case, it really didn't matter, we just randomly picked a foot to start with.) Now to scrub that leg...ewww!!!



And just FYI...here's the AFO. It is custom molded for his foot, and will only allow forward motion, not side-to-side...so the bone graft can heal correctly. Here we go with phase two!

If you had one more day in paradise...

What would you do? Jake would have loved to have spent the day at the beach or a water park...but since those were out of the question, he asked to go back to Waikiki to take another spin around the International Marketplace.


We made one more trip to The Cheesecake Factory, so that Jake could order this monstrosity (he did eat lunch first).



There's nothing like this on Okinawa...which is probably a very good thing!



As we were getting ready to cross the street between The Cheesecake Factory and The Marketplace, we encountered a bird man. He was covered in exotic birds (obviously looking for "tips" for pictures). I saw dollar signs appear in the bird man's eyes as I rolled up with my kid in the wheelchair.



He paid special attention to Jake...



And of course, I fell for it completely!



Remember how I can't pass up a cheesy, touristy, photo-op?



Have I mentioned how extremely ticklish Jacob is? The most ticklish person I know. That forth bird trying to make his way up to Jake's shoulder with his beak just sent him over the edge.



We did some final souvenir shopping for the peeps back home, and I had to get a pic of this old graffiti tree. What can I say, I'm a tree hugger.

Then, we drove back to the hotel to do laundry and pack for our big morning tomorrow. Home sweet home, here we come!

Hawaii...it's been real. You will forever stay a honeymoon destination in my heart, but other than that...I want nothing to do with you. Nothing personal...it's the traumatic stress talking.

Surprises...Good and Bad

I got word a couple of days ago that Cliff and Co. would be coming home almost a week early. Which is always totally sweet! Yesterday, I received some phone calls with updates along his route, including a window of time and where to pick him up.

But before he landed, my excitement and anticipation turned to shock and sickness when I learned of the enormous earthquake that hit mainland Japan. Cliff was in the air at the time, and didn't hear the news until he was being transported by bus, from the base which they landed to the base at which I was supposed to pick him up. By then, we were under tsunami warning, and I was afraid that since the pickup point was at sea level, that he was going to get stuck in some kind of holding pattern.

Luckily, the pickup went almost as scheduled, just delayed a bit waiting for baggage to clear customs (but nothing can go totally smoothly with military movements. It's against the rules...so we had no complaints.)

After a quick kiss, Cliff loaded his gear into Apollo, and we headed for home. While we were driving along one of the busiest streets on the base...this is what we saw:


No, this is not a normal occurrence. Ducks do not usually walk down this street. Not ever.



They certainly don't try to cross the road. Then Cliff reminded me of accounts of animals fleeing areas where tsunamis are due to hit, which made perfect sense and totally freaked me out. Thankfully, it was a false alarm. The tsunami waves were only a few feet down here and caused no damage. We only wished this were true for all of Japan. At this point, we had no idea how bad things were. No idea at all.

We've Got Great Taste!

A few weeks ago while shopping at a Japanese market, I came up with an epic idea. I was looking at all the crazy flavors of potato chips they have here, some of which I had no idea even what they could be. Always looking to expose my children to the finer things in life, I thought, "What if we had a family potato chip taste test?" I spent the next few weeks gathering all the wacky flavors I could find, then last night we got to work.


This was serious business, mind you. I handed out papers for each person to number one through thirteen, so they could share their impressions, and guesses about the flavor in some cases, as we didn't know what some of them were supposed to taste like.

Here are the players:






And here are the tasters, hard at work.



Some working harder than others, HA!



We each wrote our notes individually, and didn't {or tried not to} share our impressions until everyone had had a chance to form their own opinions of a particular flavor. There's my sheet, pictured above. Guess which one was my favorite?



Oh my Umeboshi, bebe!

Here were some of our other impressions...and guesses:

1. Pretty much unanimously BBQ (specifically BBQ chicken)...although kinda sweet and weak.

2. Supposed to be pizza, but tasted exactly like ketchup or tomato paste.

3. This one looks like sashimi to me from the picture...but it got a wide variety of responses...fishy, no distinct flavor, Japanese people. (Yes, that last one was Coree. Weirdo.)

4. We thought maybe this was the Okinawan lime flavor? The picture wasn't very distinct. Impressions were: Bell pepper, banana pepper, peppercini, lemon pepper. You get the idea.

5. Shoyu (soy sauce) according to the label. Tasted like teriyaki...except Troy thought they tasted like sweet breakfast cereal. Either way, this one was a favorite.

6. Another one we couldn't really tell from the picture. But even before Googling the image, we could tell it was wasabi on the first bite. Yum. Only Patrick didn't like these.

7. The picture looks like grilled steak. The chips tasted exactly like Jack Link's beef jerky. Too weird, in my opinion, but popular.

8. Umeboshi. (Pickled plum.) I was in the minority here, but I wanted to marry these. In my opinion, the perfect combo between sweet and tart. We will have a long courtship, I can feel it. Troy liked them, too. Cliff and Jake were meh...Coree and Patrick were thoroughly disgusted.

9. From this picture we were guessing bacon and onion flavor. The flavor was so bland, none of us could really pick out anything. They had kind of a lard flavor, really...which is probably why 'pie crust' was the most common guess. Pass.

10. Seaweed. True to form, these tasted like salty seaweed...with a hint of sesame. Most of us were neutral. Patrick said, "seaweed belongs in sushi, not chips."

11. From the picture, we were guessing soba or ramen flavor. They tasted like very weak, bland ramen...with a bad, cheesy smell. Not sure how that was possible.

12. These appeared to be scallop flavor...but they started out bland, like plain potatoes...but finished with a bad fishy aftertaste. Patrick said, "Gross. I mean, fish & chips? Oh, wait...." Anyway, not popular.

13. Clams. Strong clam smell, even stronger clam flavor. Troy thought they were similar to escargots. Patrick just said, "Ew, ew, ew."

This was good, clean fun family fun! I highly recommend it, if you're local. And if you're not....come see us!

Driving Around Okinawa

I'm glad this man likes to drive:



Because it gives me much more opportunity to photograph interesting little tidbits to share with all of you:


Not that I'm opposed to photogging while driving...I've done it before. It just doesn't always work out when you have to keep your eyes on the road and aim in the general direction and hope you got what you wanted on camera.

These photos are not all from the same trip, I've just been saving them up for awhile, hoping a theme would emerge.

"Interesting stuff" is enough of a theme, right?



Driving under the monorail to the airport in Naha. (Riding on this is on our list of stuff to do.)



Just like the handicapped symbol...or the men's and women's restroom symbols...only this is the universal "we're sorry for your inconvenience" symbol. Effective, no?



Cool bridge we drove over in Naha.



Have any of you ever seen this logo before? Seems a little extreme for some cream soda, don't you think? This was taken not far from our home.



I love how the Okinawans try to make ordinary things more visually appealing (which is entirely subjective, I realize). This is a bus stop. A sweet, magic mushroom bus stop. This was taken up at the more...how shall we say..."rural", laid-back, north end of the island. You know, like the Seattle of Okinawa.



Kind of like the jellyfish man...this guy gets his point across, doesn't he?



I don't know which phrase I like better here..."Jumbo Tours" or "Pleasant Trip Together".
(I secretly think I'll come back to the US speaking like this and people will think I've lost my mind.)



Most of the time, I hate the stormy weather...but I loved the storm clouds behind the Ferris wheel in American Village.



I will admit, I actually went about a mile out of my way to get this picture. I saw it pass by and had to catch up. Eventually we landed at the same red light. This is the first sign (other than grossly exaggerated stories of protests in the news) I've seen of the supposed "anti-military base" sentiment here. I wonder if they were going for 'hilarious'...because if they were, it worked...I was busting up.

And That's No BS

Let me start by getting off-track. I'm wondering how many times I can reference Facebook on my blog in a week before people think I spend all my time there? I do have a life, honest. I even blog about it. But Facebook is my connection back to the USA, so I check it every day. I don't do any games or other applications. I refuse to poke people, or send them hearts or flowers. I simply scan my newsfeed and enjoy the glimpse into the daily lives of people I care about, and see if I can return the favor with anything worthwhile.

Anyway...there is a Facebook group called, "You know you've lived in Okinawa when..." that went viral. I haven't actually checked it in months (because it was getting redundant) but it was so much fun to laugh at the common experiences I've had with others, being an American living on Okinawa. One of the items I saw listed repeatedly had me baffled.

"You see a man walking his bull down a busy street like it's no big deal."

OR

"You see a man taking his bull for a walk by the nose."

What?! How had I missed this? Where would one find a man walking a bull down the street? A couple of people mentioned the area near Camp McTureous, which is just north of us but on the Pacific side of the island. I rarely get over there, but decided I'd have to go sometime just to witness the man walking the bull.

Well, on our way back from Peace Prayer Park today (which was a fabulous experience I will blog about later) on the very southern tip of the island, I saw a sight that led me to near-hyperventilation and back-seat-driving ("Oh my gosh! Honey...turn around! Turn around!!!")

We were on a very busy street, but Cliff made the next possible U-turn as I grabbed my camera. He pulled off on a side street and I bolted out of the van to capture this:




Just like people said.



And there's the rope through the nose. (Look at the first picture. You can barely see it...but if you look closely, you can see the knot at the end of the rope in his other nostril.) This is ALL the control this man has of his bull. He was so gentle. I even got to pet him.



The man was so patient. He gave the bull the command to stop when he saw me coming (he's probably used to crazy, camera-wielding Americans) and he just waited patiently for me to get my fill. He made a few size jokes with hand gestures (about the bull...not me) and then I reluctantly left the scene...



And he continued his walk, turning down the hill, toward his farm. All in a day's work, I suppose.

It made me wax a little nostalgic for this.

I love this place!

Unexpectedly Japanesey

Before moving to Okinawa, Japan...I had my ideas about what things I would encounter. Most of those ideas came from the movies...a few from people who had lived here before. But mostly those people talk about how much you'll love it, or sites to see, etc. Nobody really talks about the little things that are part of the picture.

The idea for this post came as I was standing waiting for a woman to arrange this bouquet of lilies:


I bought at my favorite flower place:


When you buy unarranged flowers from a florist, you can specify whether you'd just like them wrapped in newspaper (to take home for yourself) or wrapped more attractively (for a gift) for a tiny extra charge. I was bringing them to a friend for her birthday, so I opted for the wrapping. I was watching her tape, tape and re-tape the bouquet with each twist of the cellophane or addition of a ribbon, and I thought, "Man they use a lot of tape here." Really, a lot of wrapping in general.

While it's traditional to bring your own shopping bags to the grocery store (some will charge you for their flimsy plastic bags if you don't bring your own) almost every single item I purchase gets it's own plastic wrapping from the cashier...and each of those she securely tapes shut. If I've opted for one of their bags to carry it in...that gets taped shut, too...whether you are at the grocery store, a bakery, a hardware store or the 100 Yen store...there's a whole lotta tape! I don't think I remember standing at even one register equipped with its own dispenser of tape in the USA. Here, every employee has her own roll, I'm certain of it.



Running. Short distances or long...in heels or sneaks...whether you really need to hurry, or just want to appear to be earnest...there is running involved. It's like boot camp all over the place. (Trivia: In boot camp you are not allowed to walk anywhere. You must "double time" between points A and B. You are also not allowed to sit on any furniture...but I digress.)



Mayonnaise. I am serious. These people LOVE them some mayonnaise! (Maybe THAT'S why they run everywhere.) It's on sushi, burgers, sandwiches, slathered on deep-fried chicken cutlets...you name it...and LOTS of it. (Ugh!) When we were fairly new to the island, we ate at McDonald's just for the experience. It goes without saying, I was NOT expecting my teriyaki burger to be oozing mayo all over the place. (And yes, I bought this one just for the picture. Jake would only eat it after I wiped all the mayo off.)


Cellphone charms. These are mine. My collection is modest. I started with the Shisa-riding teddybear, then I won the beaded Hello Kitty, purchased a can of Pringles just for the Pringle charm...and a friend gave me Anpanman for my birthday. It's not uncommon to see an Okinawan with a softball-sized bulge in his/her pocket or purse from a collection of charms.

Since I'm already thinking of several others (but want to be done for now) I think this might be another recurring post...Stay tuned!