Pink Blossoms on a Grey Day

We haven't seen much sunshine lately but this weekend we traveled with friends up Mt. Yaedake and let the pretty cherry blossoms brighten our day. We also visited a little festival and a park for lunch and playtime. I thought I'd be safe buying these bready-looking balls for lunch at the festival but alas there were octupus legs inside!

Views from the Inside

We're all moved in. So here are a few shots of the inside of the house. It's open to the second level and has neat concrete beams. It also has a tatami room with shoji screens, traditional rice straw mats, and a cabinet for the (cremated) ancestors! There are also several fancy-schmancy toilets with seat heaters, bidets and a dozen different buttons that we don't have a clue as to what they do. The oven is so tiny half of our pans won't fit inside and there's a built in drawer aka a "fish cooker." But the best thing of all is we have a yard again! Ty was around just long enough to get us unpacked and then left for several weeks of training in Nevada.

Because we just don't move enough!

Actually, the title of this post should be because we just can't take apartment living anymore! Yes, I know we haven't been good bloggers lately. And this is why. We're moving this week. This is going to be our new house. I have been looking at houses to rent for several months now with no luck. Many of the homes here are very small and few have a yard at all. This one is quite large with a great yard, by Okinawa standards. It's also right around the corner from a park. We are having to give up our lovely ocean view, though, and we'll truly miss it. But you just can't have everything and room to run has become more and more of a priority! We will be offline for 2-4 weeks beginning Jan 17. I have sent out a new email address but please leave a message here if you didn't get it. Our mailing address and Vonage number will remain the same. The Vonage line won't be working until we have Internet access again. We'll share more pictures once we get settled.

Oahu

Hauoli Makahiki Hou! (I hope that's Hawaiian for Happy New Year!) We're back from Oahu and had a lovely time. What a beautiful place Hawaii is. So lush. The scenery was just gorgeous with the white sands, blue water, and tropical flowers all against a backdrop of jungle-green mountains. We had a lot of overcast weather during our trip, unfortunately, so picture taking wasn't the best. It didn't hinder our fun, though. We made a trip to the Honolulu zoo, Waikiki beach, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Diamond Head Crater and topped it all off with lots of shopping. What a luxury to walk into a huge Border's Book store and spend hours browsing. Thousands of books to choose from--and all in English! We've been missing that! Our cabin on Kaneohe Bay had a beautiful view (see the last picture) and each morning we saw sea turtles swimming right in front of our deck. It all made for a fun trip.