Brasington's - Part Ni

Alrighty, on to the second half of the Brasington's time here in Okinawa. On Wednesday morning my English student, Michiko, was kind enough to come over and teach Monica and Andrew bingata. She is so sweet and patient. Chieko and Takako came by too to meet the family. I was lucky enough that Michiko brought one for me to do also!

That afternoon was a little rainy so we went souvenir shopping on Camp Foster. The next day was full of fun though!

We started the morning off at Forest Adventures. After checking Andrew's height twice, we got harnessed up and flew through the trees with the greatest of ease. Chris was with us, but he's the magic behind the camera:

Andrew and Brian showed no fear! Monica and I might have been a little nervous, but Monica was great at pushing herself out of the comfort zone.

Man, we're cute:

Here's a little video with Chris:

After zip lining Chris took Andrew and Brian up for an island plane tour.

Monica and I are very different, but we share the Hester curse of major motion sickness so we opted out of the tour. From what I hear we made the right choice because the afternoon air was a little bumpy. It looks like the guys had a gorgeous day for the flight though.

Andrew even got to fly the plane!

While the boys were flying Monica and I went to Jusco so she could get treats for everyone!

On Friday we finished up souvenir shopping in the morning while waiting for the weather to clear up, ate lunch at Delicious Sushi again, and then headed out to snorkel. The water was amazingly clear at Maeda Flats.

Andrew is great at entertaining himself, especially if there's a tidal pool around!

Here are some of the fish we saw:

Then this fish got hungry!

It was a great afternoon and a good reminder to me and Chris that we need to get out and enjoy the island more!

The following morning Monica and I got up dark and early to meet my WOOT ladies for a trail run. This was by far the hardest run we've done so far. After parking we went up, up, up! Seriously, we summitted Mt. Yamada. The payoff was great though - check out this view:

It was a really hard run, especially with the super slick trails, and I felt a little guilty bringing Monica out there, but she was hard as nails and pushed to the top.

The trails were so slick that we thought they might be unsafe coming down so we headed to the roads. Again, we had awesome views!

You gotta love living on a tropical island!

While Monica and I slaved away on the trails and road, Brian, Andrew, and Chris rented a sailboat from the marina (sorry no pictures).

After that hard work out Monica and I went to Cocok's to get pampered. Not only did we get pedicures, but I swear the calf and foot massage was at least 30 minutes. It was heaven. Here are the final results:

Monica showed her school spirit and got some orange and blue in honor of the Orange and Blue game going on back in Gainesville.

I went with cherry blossoms . Even though they're long gone here on Oki I'm hoping they're still hanging on in Tokyo and Kyoto so Monica can see them.

Their last afternoon we went snorkeling again and had an incredible time. It was a little more crowded, but we might have seen even more fishes. It was awesome!!

We're getting this hosting thing down so go ahead and book your tickets for a visit.