Saturday, April 10, 2010

The Brasingtons come to Okinawa


Woohoo! We had more visitors. I thought living so far away would be prohibitive, but we're having just as many visitors as we did when we lived in England. Thank you friends and family for making us one of your priorities. It is so nice to see a friendly face, or in this case 3 friendly faces!
My sister, Monica, her husband Brian, and their 9 year old son, Andrew, arrived on Okinawa on Friday, April 2. I can tell you, that travel day from Florida is no April Fool's joke! After a good night's sleep we headed to Okinawa World. I figured a good way to start the trip was somewhere that showed them a little bit of a lot of the island.
We did go to the snake mongoose show again, but sadly there is no video (the room was too crowded and we had a bad angle). The snake won this time, but the mongoose had a false start (his tank didn't open the whole way at the start) and it was a close race.
I think all of us liked the cave most. For those of you new to the blog, the cave is the second largest cave in Japan and has the most stalactites of any Japanese caves.
I know you can't see much of the cave here, but Andrew is adorable!
Here are all the Brasingtons:
Of course they're supporting the Gators while in Japan!
We also enjoyed the Eisa dancers and Taiko drummers. There's no photography during the show, but you can pose with the performers afterwards:
The Brasingtons all dressed up and had their photos taken. Why, you ask, didn't I participate? Because we ran out of cash! I was sure that Okinawa World took cards so I didn't worry about hitting up an ATM. Well, they do take cards in the gift shops and restaurants, but not at the front gate. So, I had to shell out most of my money there (of course paid back later) and had to bargain with the dress up people to let them dress up for a slightly discounted price. Once again, the Okinawans showed their kindness and generosity.
Later that night I got to go the the squadron and pick Chris up as he returned from his extended stay in Korea. The Air Force relaxes its grooming standards the third month of the year for Mustache March. Technically, Chris came home 3 days into April, but look what his commander was nice enough to let him keep:
I am so glad he doesn't like having a mustache because it's a little creepy - perhaps it should be called a molestache.
The next day was Easter and we were lucky enough that the Easter Bunny found his way to our house to hide eggs for Andrew. Andrew was pretty excited and loved eating candy in the morning. We also had homemade cinnamon rolls that were perfection! Easter was the rainiest day of their trip so we played it safe and had a relaxing day watching "How to Tame Your Dragon" at the base movie theater and came home and dyed eggs:
It was a nice relaxing day. The following day we headed north to the aquarium. This really is one of my favorite places on the island. The tanks are always well maintained, the fish look healthy, and they have 3 whale sharks!
Here are Monica and Andrew on the topiary manta ray:
And a family shot in front of some gorgeous blue water.
I would hate to meet the owner of these while SCUBA diving!
Sorry I didn't take too many aquarium shot, but Monica has more that she might share. I know this next picture isn't that great with our squintiness, but I just wanted to show the breath-taking beauty of the water!
After the aquarium we headed to Pizza in the Sky for lunner (lunch/dinner). Despite the shadiness of the directions we were able to find this delicious eatery. Although I have no pictures of the delicious pizzas or salads we had, I did get this adorable shot:
The next day we went to a waterfall where you have to walk through the creek to get there. I don't know the name, but it's north of Nago. This was an awesome day and we were the only people there. Here's Andrew and his new friend:
The falls:
Chris and I had been to the waterfall once before, but we hadn't climbed to the top of it. We remedied that today. The climb was pretty steep and a little slick. It was so much fun! Please excuse the blurriness of the photos, I just want to give you an idea of the steepness.
After our full body workout of a hike we headed to Pineapple Park for some yummy treats.
That's all of us in the pineapple cart. "Do you know where the word pineapple comes from? From the words Pine and Apple".
That night for dinner we headed to Delicious Sushi. Trust me, the name is deserved. This is a one man show so it takes a little time, but the sushi is incredibly beautiful, fresh and delicious!
It was here that we discovered that my not-always-adventurous-eater nephew loves unagi (eel) and fish eggs! Who would have guessed?
What I would have guessed is that he's like the ice cream tempura!
The next day we took the Brasingtons and Rana to our favorite beach up north. There was just enough sunshine to light up the water:
I loved seeing Andrew and Rana playing together. They made a great combo:
Stayed tune for more Brasington Adventures! They'll be posted as soon as blogspot finds it fit to let me upload more photos. Have a great week and think happy thoughts for the Brasingtons as their journey continues to Tokyo and Kyoto.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

It looks like your visitors had a great time again. You are becoming like tour guides. How nice to see them. I bet they were thrilled to see you, as you were them. I've missed you. Glad the moustache disappeared!!!

Courtney said...

Your nephew is the cutest and I love that skull shirt he has on. Looks like you really know how to show your visitors a good time. And "molestache?!?!?" CLASSIC!! It is a look alright!
Courtney
adventures in tri-ing

JoAnna said...

Just discovered your blog and it's already a favorite. How did you get started running?