OK, ok, so it's been way too long since I've posted. I had a bet with myself at how long I could keep this blog active, and it looked like I'd almost lost it, but here I am to redeem myself with a newfound effort to add some more pics in the coming days, or weeks, or before the end of 2011. :) These pics are from the last few weeks of September, when we had our first official visitors to the island - Abuelo and Abuela! It felt so great to have them in our house and feel like (for a few minutes at least) that we were all back in California. Things don't seem quite so foreign with family around, which is great. We crammed a lot into their 2 weeks, and the typhoon that had been sitting off our coast for the days prior to them landing even managed to bypass us, so the weather was pretty nice the whole time! I'm missing pictures of some of our activities, but 1. I'm lazy and 2. I don't want to give everything away for those reading this that might still be coming to visit!
A. moped around the entire day after they left. We can't wait to see them on our trips back to the states!
There's this huge system of climbing nets at the aquarium that the kids all love to climb around on. She's getting so big!
This was to capture D's little legs. I think they're the perfect amount of chubby. :)
She's pointing to the sea turtle cut out of bushes at the aquarium.
At the "Tropical Dream Center". The name sounds kind of Native American to me. It was a really nice botanical gardens with tons of different orchids and some fruits we hadn't seen before. Now I can't think of what any of them were, but it was still cool. Actually, it was pretty hot walking around a greenhouse.
At the tip of the ferris wheel in "American Village". I guess it's kind of like America. There is a Starbucks there.
D with some fruit.
Playing in the sand up north at Okuma. There's a little military lodge place up north that we hadn't been to yet.
Beautiful water.
This is the log cabin that A. cried leaving after 2 nights here. We actually didn't spend a lot of time on Okuma. We kind of just used it as a home base to see some more things up north. All 4 adults and the 2 kids slept in this nice little wooden box. Abuela would tell you she was a little freaked out by the geckos that were sharing the walls with us, and I would say that too, but maybe sleep was calling me more. I think we'll probably be staying here again before we leave. The girls really enjoyed being out in nature.
I liked D. in her hat. It looks like she's serious about her phone call.
Who does she look like?
We got to see some very authentic Ryukyu dances when we went to Shuri-jo Castle. I wouldn't say it's the most expressive form of dance. Actually, it's probably the least expressive form of dance I've ever seen. I gather that part of it involves keeping your face as blank and focused as possible. There were a few sets of dancers, and they all moved very slowly and methodically, a few with fans, one with an umbrella. Okinawa was not always Japan's land, surprise, surprise. It was part of the Ryukyuan Kingdom from the 15th-19th century, so although people don't speak the Ryukyuan language much anymore, there is still quite a bit of history that relates to that time in their history.
Shuri Castle. This was almost completely destroyed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. They reconstructed it on the original site in 1992.
There are all these t-shirt vendors on the main tourist street, and they put their t-shirts on stuffed animal dogs. D. really liked stopping to get down out of the stroller and move them all around for the shop owners.
