From Iowa to Okinawa: March 2014

Brandon's mom recently spent a month with us for a visit. These pictures are not in chronological order of her trip.

Here she is when she arrived in Okinawa after about 24 hours of travel. Her trip started off a bit crazy. I received an email notice from United that the flight from Cedar Rapids to Chicago was canceled due to weather. The notice arrived in the middle of the day for me, but that meant it Donna wouldn't see it until she was already on the way to CR for the flight. Plus, the day they rescheduled her for was predicting a blizzard, so I spent a couple hours on the phone with United trying to find an alternate route for her. After calling her in the middle of the night, we decided that she needed to get up and go right then to catch a flight from Des Moines instead. It all worked out in the end, but it was hectic and not a great way to start vacation.

The first weekend, we went to Thai in the sky for lunch and then hit the Peace park. Here they are enjoying the view after lunch.

I have a lot of photos of Donna eating (sorry Donna). I guess we were always trying to catch her reaction to Japanese food :). Here we are at a noodle place. I'm pretty sure this was her first attempt at chop sticks and she was able to eat soup with them. Pretty impressive! What you can't see is that this is a table that you have to sit criss cross applesauce at.

Another meal out. This one is hard to see, but it's fried rice from Arashi's. This fried rice comes out with a raw egg in it and you have to mix the rice yourself. The pan is screaming hot, and it's a fun meal.

Here we are having Soba at Gen.

I had to go back to the States for work for one week, so Donna helped watch Brock and keep the house running while I was gone. Brandon took her to a Japanese department store one day. This is the arcade section of the store - they all have one.

At the peace park in Okinawa. I've done a few posts about this before, so I'll keep it short. This is the Japanese memorial park for World War 2.

Brock wanted to watch the water, so we took a break. I really like this park, but so wish we could read/understand the memorials. Very few have English translations.

We think the building up on the hill is the memorial at the cliff that thousands of people jumped from to prevent being captured by the US.

While I was gone, they took a trip up to Okuma. It apparently was cold and windy that day.

We are at the Tee house restaurant, there is a good view of the flight line and Brock likes to watch planes take off and land while having lunch.

Having Yakiniku for lunch on Kokusai street. You pick the meat/veggies that you want to grill on your table.

We took a trip to Ryukyu Mura one day. It was a first for us and represents an old time Japanese village.

There is a huge tug of war here every year. This is part of the rope used for the tug of war. They attach smaller ropes off of it that people can hold onto.

If you've seen some of my other posts, you know that Reagan likes snakes. She wanted to go to the Habu show at Ryukyu Mura, so we agreed, somewhat reluctantly. When we got there, most of the seating was taken up, so we stood at the back. Being the super friendly and helpful people that they are, the staff slid people over and we ended up with front row seats! The guy starts off giving a speach, which we don't understand a bit of. The other people in the crowd are ohhing and ahhing and seemed properly frightened, so of course, that cranked up our anxiety a bit. The guy riles up the snake so it starts biting his foot - the plastic wall seems short, right?

Then, before we know it, he's dangling it over the crowd. I wear a backpack for Brock's diaper bag, and I'm positive the woman sitting behind me had the bag on her lap. Donna and I were leaned back as far as possible without sitting on their laps.

Oh no, the fun doesn't end there, he asks for volunteers and starts wrapping the snake around people's necks like a scarf. Guess who pops up from her seat... yep, Reagan! I wish I could say that I got a picture, but I didn't. I was holding Brock on my lap and trying to use him as a human shield. Brandon was able to video tape it though. The funny thing was that the guy really wanted Brandon to do it and he wouldn't. Afterward he said that he would have, but had to much stuff on his lap....yeah, sure...right...

A trip to the Glass Factory

Brandon took Donna to White Beach on one of the few days it didn't rain when I was gone.

I realized this Veterans Day that I have very few pictures of Brandon in uniform.

This is at the local Japanese hardware store. They have amazing orchids.

Of course we had to eat Teppanyaki!

A trip to Comprehensive Park

Sea glass hunting!

Brandon took a few days off during the week, so we headed to Shuri Castle one day.

Brock took a seat on this rock and before we knew it he had attracted the attention of others. He posed for photos with other people's kids :)

Leaving Shuri Castle you could get dressed up and have your picture taken. Before Donna knew what hit her, we had plunked down some yen and she was being dressed up.