Coutney's visit days 4 and 5 Aquarium, Okuma and Cape Hedo

We had plans to spend the night in a cabin at Okuma and decided to show Courtney the aquarium since it was on the way.  

Inside there is a great petting area and Reagan loves holding the various sea creatures.  This is my favorite picture of Courtney!  This is her response to me telling her she MUST hold a Sea Cucumber!  

Reagan is persuasive and here Courtney is "grinning and bearing it" while holding the sea cucumber.  

The kids playing at the park outside the aquarium.  We decided to see how tough Brock really is on this rope climb.  

 Courtney took this picture, and I've been meaning to post one for awhile, but keep forgetting.  This is a japanese toilet in the women's rest room, I try to avoid them at all costs.  

This photo is also one of Courtney's, pretty great, right?

So, after the aquarium, we drove a bit farther North to our cabin at Okuma.  We went with the nicest one available...I'm not much of a camper :).  I want a flush toilet and shower all my own!   This is our cabin for the night. 

Because we were there on a Tuesday night, it was dead and we had the place mostly to ourselves. 

We walked over to the restaurant for dinner, this is the closest got to all of us looking :).

I forgot Brock's beach hat, so we improvised... 

On our way home we decided to drive North a bit farther to  Cape Hedo point.  This is the Northern most point in Okinawa and has stunning views.  The pictures just don't do justice to the water colors.  

Courtney's visit Day 3 - Shuri Castle and Kokusai Street

Today we set our for Shuri Castle and Kokusai street.  We got there around 10:00, and it was getting hot!

We took the inside tour, which was very interesting.  Here is one of the tour people.

Before entering the building, we were each given a plastic bag to put our shoes in.  We did the whole tour in socks/barefeet.  

I wish I could tell you what this stuff was, but most of the signs are completely in Japanese.

Courtney and Reagan always posing :)  I'm not sure whose head actually fits in these super tiny holes.  

After the castle, we were starving, so we headed to Kokusai street for a bit of shopping and lunch.  We randomly picked a Yakiniku spot.  Yakiniku places have small grills in the center of the table and you order raw meats and vegetables to cook yourself.  We decided not to do that and just order off the menu.  

Brandon struggles with the Japanese tables, he can't sit cross-legged well and never knows what to do with his legs....see below :)

By the end of the meal, all of us needed to stretch our legs!

Okinawa soba.  The meat on the left is pork belly, I don't know what the white thing on the right is, I don't usually eat it.   Taco rice is pictured in the upper corner.

Kokusai street - notice the habu snakes in the liquor bottles in last photo.

Courtney's visit, Day 2

Sunday happened to be Courtney's birthday, so we celebrated with a Sunday Brunch breakfast and a trip to Okinawa world.   This was our first trip too, so we were all looking forward to it.  

Here we are outside of Okinawa World.  Brock is finally looking at the camera!

 Our first stop was an Eisa show, which features Taiko drummers, a two-person dancing shisa dog and some other characters.  No photos were allowed for the show, but before the show started, this was the scene... Brock and Reagan get A LOT of attention everywhere we go, and today was no exception.  Someone recently told me that Japanese people think rubbing a blonde person's head brings good luck. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I certainly think they are fascinated by blonde people.    This group of school kids kept wanting to hold Reagan's hand.  Reagan is left handed and tends to shake hands with the "wrong" hand, so it looks like she's the queen offering them her hand.  I ended up taking photos on each of the school kids cameras as well as my own. 

We bought our fortunes for the year at the Futenma Shrine on New Years, but we talked Courtney into getting one here.  It took her 3 tries to get a fortune she didn't hate.  I'm not sure if you get to keep buying new ones until you're happy, but whatever.  Courtney had to tie her bad fortunes onto this thing so that they would fly away in the breeze.  

Okinawa world also features a cave system.  Here we are descending into the cave.  

It was drippy the entire time we were down there, and we came out wet looking.  

Underground waterfall

This was such a pretty tidal pool area.

A rare family photo, thanks to Courtney.  

 Habu snakes are very venomous and are found all over the island.  There is a brand of Alcohol that you can buy that comes with a habu inside the bottle.  At this factory, you can see the habus that are waiting for their bottle.  

You could get your picture taken in Japanese dresses for 500 Y (about $5.00 per person). 

Brock, hanging out in the carrier...

Reagan, pretending to blow glass. 

These things are everywhere, Reagan and Courtney are testing them out.  

Reagan is a snake lover, which drives me nuts!  I am so afraid of snakes, as are most people.  Reagan was able to hold and get her picture taken with this constrictor.  She was in heaven, I was completely grossed out.  She said it was very heavy...yuck!

For Courtney's birthday dinner, we headed for Four Seasons for some teppanyaki.  We had a good time, but the food wasn't as great as the other times we were there.  Next time I think we'll try someplace different.    

The sign says to rub the belly for good luck.  Courtney and Reagan couldn't resist.  

A nighttime shot of American Village