Our Adventures: Random Pics

OK, OK, I STILL haven't done a good job of taking pictures here, because we haven't hit up a lot of touristy areas, and I don't really see other people whipping out cameras at restaurants, so my words will have to do for now. Soon, though! Just as soon as I'm brave enough to venture off the 58, our main thoroughfare between bases, I will take pictures of some "culture". :)
Did I tell you we now own 2 cars? J. in the '96 Odyssey is below. Our other one is a 3 door Mitsubishi RVR. I won't make you jealous and tell you that our hotel bills from 3 1/2 weeks was just less than what we paid for both cars combined. Used cars run cheap around here, but you have to pay big sums for inspections every 2 years and you have to fix what they want fixed, so maybe that will make the cost even out eventually.

Already after a few outings, we can feel it might not be the best pick for outings, nor is the 4 seater small SUV-type car he got, as it's not much shorter or narrower. Already we've scraped the remade bumper on the Honda multiple times pulling U-turns, had ladies glaring at us as we pulled into their lane trying to get into parking lots, and just the other night, almost got stuck in an alley between a lightpole and a house. The only sedan-type cars I've seen over here have American drivers. The Japanese are smart enough to drive cars that fit into their parking spaces - lots and lots of box cars with short fronts and no trunk. We may be in for a trade already!
Anyway, We decided to go south towards Naha the other night for dinner. A. fell asleep in the car so we drove around and pulled into a couple places, but didn't feel quite ready to "go for it" at places with absolutely no English on the menu. Lo and behold, we find written in English -"Jimmy's- Island Restaurant, Grill and Bakery" I'd seen an ad for the bakery part and thought it looked good so we went for it. "Jimmy's" introduced us to our first Japanese-style buffet. Meal presentation is really big over here, from what we've heard and seen already. Instead of regular round plates, we ate off white square plates split into 9 trays. Most of the food we chose from was already portioned off in it's own tiny box - a bite of squid, 2 bites of meatloaf. It was actually pretty classy and the food was pretty great for a buffet, enough American to make us feel at home.
A. was feeling sick the whole time though, so I had to take her to the bathroom 3 times. We were left staring at 2 doors on the first trip - should we choose the one with the RED circle and triangle or the door with the BLACK circle and triangle? Behind the red door was peachy tile, so we hurried into a stall and I told her to be quiet in case a man walked in. :) She was moaning and groaning at the table so I tried to tell her that she'd have to wear a mask like the people next to us if she was loud, and that we didn't have a mask (yet), so she should quiet down. D. responded by pulling down the fake plant from the ledge beside us. . .I'm not sure if it's because they are very aware of their close quarters, but you see people with masks over their mouths everywhere you look, which is actually very smart and considerate and something we probably all should do when we have colds. Here they are used to it and no one seems to even notice. To tie this up, We think A. might have had food poisoning over our entire move-in weekend. We contemplated taking her to the hospital multiple times, but her stomach pains came and went and now they're gone. On Saturday night, all 4 of us plus the body pillow ended up in our bed. We don't have blinds on our big windows yet, and when we moved in we discovered that we do actually have an ocean view from our bedroom. Not a great one, but we can see water (through some power plant nets)! Anyway, it's been nice to wake up to the sun peeking out from above the adjacent tower.