Tide Pools and Okinawa World

Hi there everyone, hope your year is going well so far. We've been pretty busy these days with school and with getting ready for the new baby (updated due date is July 13th), but I've been wanting to update the blog and post some pics for a while now and finally sat down to do it.

There's a big mall in Urasoe called Parco, right between a US Marine Base called Camp Kinser and the ocean, and right in front of the mall is a great spot for exploring tide pools. We took the kids out there a few weeks ago to look at the local sea life and had a lot of fun. We saw lots of sea slugs, some coral, a few crab and shrimp, and lots of pretty blue fish that always darted away and hid under rocks before I could get a picture. 

The kids had a lot of fun exploring and touching the sea slugs. Clara wanted to help all the ones that were out of the water by picking them up and placing them in the nearest pool, but there were so many that eventually I told her they'd be fine until the tide came back in XD. The kids had their crocs on but Braden and I were wearing regular shoes and didn't want to get our shoes and socks wet (and going barefoot was a no-no as there was a lot of broken up coral all over that would certainly cut your foot open) so we navigated around the pools like they were a big maze, and the kids had fun helping us find the best pathways to and from the beach. The tide was really far out so there was tons to explore, and we didn't get even halfway out. 

During Spring Break we took the kids to a fun place called Okinawa World in Nanjo, Okinawa. It's a theme park type place with lots of fun activities and museums, and we had a blast. The park celebrates traditional Ryukyu culture and history (before the islands were conquered by the Japanese, they were called the Ryukyu Islands, and they had their own language and culture distinct from Japan).

Underneath the park is a huge limestone cave with boardwalks and low blue lighting, and park visitors can follow a one way route from one side of the cave to the other, a walk that took about twenty minutes at a leisurely pace. The cave was filled with stalagmites, stalactites, and clear pools of water lit up with underwater lights.

We walked through the cave first, and after coming out the other side we entered a tropical orchard filled with fruit trees of all sorts, including pineapple, kiwi, mango, star fruit, papaya, and more. After the orchard there was a cafe selling fruit, smoothies, ice cream and souvenirs. Next was a crafting area with a glass blowing workshop, where artisans make traditional Ryukyu style blown glass. For a fee we were able to participate, and both Taran and Clara helped make their own glass cups.

After walking through the glass blowers gift shop, we entered a small street lined with museums, shops, and game booths all built in the style of traditional Ryukyu buildings from the last century or so. The kids did a ninja shuriken throwing game and we browsed a small museum filled with ancient Shisa statues (guardian spirits in the shape of a lion dog) and some artifacts from the war.

The next venue was a stage where we got to see three shows. The first was a drum concert, similar to traditional Japanese Taiko but accompanied by traditional Ryukyuan dance. After that was an act featuring dancers in a Shisa costume teasing another dancer pretending to be an old drunkard.  

The last show we saw was the habu snake and mongoose show. I was told that in the past they used to showcase a snake and mongoose fight, but new laws protecting animals have made those illegal. Now what they do is have a snake handler bring out a habu snake and show it off to the crowd, and then try to tempt it into attacking a balloon. The snake we saw that day wasn't interested in the balloon, so the handler just jokingly gave it a bad grade like it was in school and put it back in its kennel (they were obviously prepared for that possibility and just made it part of the show). The snake handler then brought out a cobra and let it slither around, and teased it with a tap to the head to make it spread its hood. The last bit was a race between a mongoose and a sea snake. They had the animals in two separate tubes and they were released from their starting positions and started swimming to the other side (which I think held a snack). The mongoose won by a landslide, since the sea snake got his tail caught on the lip of his entryway, and then once in the water he just wanted to chill (Sorry for the lack of pictures, I was too absorbed in the show to remember to take my camera out. And no video since video taking was prohibited).

Past the stage area was the Habu Snake Museum, which actually housed a lot of different snakes and other local animals, including fruit bats. At the entrance to the museum they had a place where you could have your photo taken with an albino python. I personally like snakes and was insistent on the python picture lol. Clara was all for it as well. Taran was a little reluctant, but once we all got sat down and the snake was brought over he did fine. 

After the museum was the park entrance/exit, near where we began by entering the caves. We spent most of the day at the park (we were lucky to go on a day with really nice weather) and loved it. I would totally recommend it to anyone planning on visiting Okinawa.

I don't have many pictures of the other places we've been since coming to Okinaway, like the Peace Memorial Museum, the Churaumi Aquarium, and American Village (which is a large outdoor mall near Kadena Airbase with lots of restaurants and shops full of surplus military clothes and bags, along with t-shirts, hats, and other touristy gear). We haven't done as much tourism for the last month or two. The rainy season just ended after nearly six weeks of rain. Like, seriously, it rained every day for weeeeeeeeks. I had to buy an indoor laundry rack to hang my laundry on, since I couldn't hang it outside to dry. And then, one day last week, BOOM, it was sunny. And when I looked at the forecast, it was ALL sunny. Our Okinawan friends say the rainy season is officially over, and now we have hot, sunny, but still humid days ahead of us. We are also entering Typhoon season. I've been told that the city has good infrastructure and the power rarely goes out, and our apartment building, like all the other buildings in the area, is made of concrete and the windows have bars on them to protect them from damage. We also made some 72 hour kits, just in case, and the school has sent out letters with the protocol for picking kids up in case of emergency and how to know if school has been cancelled.

Speaking of school, the kids are adjusting well. They have Japanese language lessons four days a week and they like their Japanese teacher a lot. They're picking up the language slowly but steadily, and although they still don't speak it a lot, they seem to understand more and more everyday. Clara's class planted green peppers and she's already brought home several that we've eaten with various dinners, and Taran's class has a beautiful row of morning glories outside the school. They eat lunch at school every day, and thank goodness my kids like rice, because it's included in nearly every lunch. Occasionally they'll have a western style lunch, something like spaghetti and a roll with a side salad, but most of the lunches include traditional Japanese or Okinawan dishes.

My next post will probably come sometime after baby #3 is born. He's getting big in there and wiggles a lot, and I'm looking forward to the day he can be held by someone other than me, haha. My c-section has been scheduled for July 13th, and we have all the paperwork squared away. I will be in the hospital for at least a week, assuming there are no complications, and then soon after I get home the kids will start their summer vacation from school. Braden is taking a couple weeks off of work to help out, and Clara especially seems eager to help too, once the baby is here. 

Until then!

School!

 The Japanese school year has begun!

Clara and Taran finished their first full week of Japanese public school and they did great! No tears their first day, and they've had a really good attitude every morning. It's been a steep learning curve for all of us, lots of materials to prepare and organize and label and we've made mistakes, but the teachers have been very patient and understanding. Since Taran is a first grader, we also got to participate in a special ceremony for kids starting Elementary school, called a Nyuenshiki. All the first grade kids and their parents got all dressed up and listened to speeches from the Principal and others, and then the kids were shown their classroom while the parents mingled outside. Taran was very wiggly and I had to remind him to be quiet a few times, but we made it through. 

I've been walking the kids to school in the morning and picking up Taran in the afternoon, since the first graders get out earlier than the rest of the school. I walked Clara home the first few days, but she's already okay with walking home without me, and there are a lot of neighborhood kids she can walk with, including a couple kids who live at our same apartment complex. 

Japanese school kids help clean the school and take care of the school grounds, and Clara is very proud of her green pepper plant and Taran has his own flowers that he takes care of. All the kids at school (minus those with allergies/special needs) have to eat the lunches provided by the school, and lucky for me, my kids love rice, haha. They're pretty picky when it comes to veggies, but they like Japanese food in general and so I haven't had to worry about them going hungry at school, which is nice.

Clara and Taran have a Japanese Language Instructor who tutors them four times a week and helps them know what to do, where to go, etc. She's also been super helpful at answering my questions and letting me know if the kids need anything. Homework has been pretty manageable so far. They always come home with a math worksheet and a couple sheets of Japanese writing to practice, and they haven't had any trouble with it so far. Clara was supposed to be in 3rd grade, but since she doesn't read any kanji yet, they recommended she start in 2nd, and so her Japanese teacher is going to help her review her hiragana and katakana and then help her catch up on 1st grade kanji before she starts 2nd grade kanji. Since Taran is in 1st grade, he'll be going at much the same pace as his Japanese classmates, in writing at least. Clara and Taran are the only Japanese language learners in their school this year. I know they miss being able to talk to classmates, but they get a lot of one on one instructions as a result of being the only two kids in Japanese class and I'm confident they'll pick it up quickly. 

Taran is studying English reading at home too, a little everyday, and his English reading is coming along really well. He can read a full page in his reading book now (we're using a text called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons). Clara still loves to read and we have lots of English kids books that we got from a fellow American Jet, and the local library has a good sized English section too. 

In non-school news, the weather has warmed up already and the humidity has begun to set in. It's not too bad yet, we haven't needed to turn on the air conditioner, though we have had the fan on a few times. Our apartment is on the second floor and when I open the door and windows we get a nice cross breeze that cools down the house nicely. 

I'm almost in my third trimester of pregnancy now and so far everything is going well. It's hard to sleep because my hips hurt and I have to turn a million times a night, and sometimes I get bad heartburn, but other than that I'm fine. The baby is very active, especially in the evenings, and the kids like watching his movements and feeling his kicks. Clara is SO excited for this baby to be born, she wants to talk to him and wants to hug my belly all the time. I have to keep telling her that sometimes mommy needs her personal space haha. 

Braden is enjoying his work at City Hall. He says his coworkers are all really nice and the office atmosphere here is a bit more laid back than it was at the Prefectural Office in Nagoya. He does English story-time at the local library once a month and also does school visits in addition to his work doing translation/interpretation at City Hall. He has a little segment that he writes for a local city newsletter, and a lot of people at church and other parents at the school read it and tell Braden they enjoy his articles. 

Sorry it's taken so long to write an update on the blog, I've been pretty distracted and kept putting it off, but I hope you enjoyed catching up with us!

New Furniture and Explorations

Hi all! We got some furniture last week and the apartment is looking much homier now! The sofa and table came as is, but the kitchen cabinet, a bookshelf, and a TV stand came in flat boxes and I put them together myself while Braden was at work. I was pretty proud of myself for managing it, but boy was my right arm tired when I was done.

I got a small oven from a yard sale page on Facebook, so I can bake now. It's also a microwave (those Japanese sure are inventive when it comes to space saving devices). A couple days ago I bought a washing machine and it's coming tomorrow (yay for not having to walk uphill with a bag full of laundry). All we have left to get for now is a TV and a car. The car is going to be a lifesaver around here. The buses only run once an hour most of the day, and they're often late... or early. 

The kids and I have done a lot of exploring recently, mostly in the big Urasoe Park behind our apartment complex. The park is huge, and we still haven't seen all of it. Last week while we were walking we saw some wooden steps going up a small cliff with some stone masonry set into the hill, so we went up to investigate. 

Google called it the 'Iso High Tomb'. There was an explanatory placard nearby but it was all in Japanese. I found an English explanation on a sign elsewhere in the park.

It says: "This tomb was made from a cave in the middle of a cliff and the front of which was sealed with stone masonry. The entrance to the tomb is large and of an old style, and it is said that Esonoyononushi, the father of King Eiso and three Aji (local rulers) are entombed here." The kids thought it was pretty cool and asked me if a zombie or ghosts would appear haha. 

Speaking of ghosts, Urasoe park surrounds a pretty massive cemetery. We walked by it today on our way through a different part of the park. Okinawan cemeteries are really different from the ones on the Japanese mainland, which are all concrete and consist of many small monuments all crammed together in a tight space. The cemetery in Urasoe was full of small stone buildings with monuments out front, all lined up in rows like quaint ghostly houses. 

We saw one that was particularly large and even had its own stone courtyard of sorts. Taran bravely went in to investigate.

Another interesting thing we did today was walk down a cobblestone road that is more than 300 years old. I was following the Google maps navi trying to find a nearby shopping center, and it took us to a really rough, stony road that went very steeply down into a ravine, over a small stone bridge that traversed a narrow river, and then very steeply up out of the ravine (apparently the King who had it built did not believe in switch backs. Only the shortest route was good enough for him XD).

We found an explanatory placard at the bottom of the ravine giving a little history of the road and the King who was known to traverse it frequently. The final paragraph says: "In the valley where the Makiminato River flows, an approximately 200m long and 3m wide stone paved road remains. The road in this area was called 'umadukerashi' (umakorobashi) as the slope was so steep that horses often collapsed from exhaustion. The bridge over the river was rebuilt in the Taisho and Showa periods."

All in all it's been a pretty interesting last couple of weeks. I found a couple of Japanese tutors for the kids, and we made some new friends at the local LDS church. One of the families had us over for dinner a couple nights ago. They have five kids and Clara and Taran had a lot of fun playing with them. Their little girl Noa, who's four, wanted to follow Clara everywhere, and Taran was in awe of their eleven year old son Riku and his set of battling tops. I'm going to try and find some for Taran's birthday next week. 

Well, that's all for now. We're hopefully going car shopping this weekend or sometime next week, and I hope we'll have one by the time I make my next post. 'Till then!

Urasoe Shi

 We made it to Okinawa!

Sorry for the wait, we've been pretty busy the last few days trying to set up house and such. Okinawa is beautiful, and the weather right now is great, warm but not stifling, and it feels like there's always a breeze coming from the ocean. 

On Monday we met in the lobby of the hotel where we did our quarantine with the other JETS, and then we were ushered onto a shuttle and to the Haneda airport. The flight to Naha was fairly smooth, no problems, and then the nice people from Urasoe City Hall met us at the airport with a cute banner that said "Welcome Braden, Melissa, Clara, and Taran." They asked if we were hungry (we were very hungry, as we had not had much to eat at the airport or on the flight) and Clara was craving McDonalds, so our first stop was Mcdonalds haha. After two weeks of cold meals the hot burgers and fries were amazing. 

After that, Braden was taken to the real estate agent's office while the kids and I were taken to a big park containing the ruins of Urasoe Castle. It was really interesting.

The views were AMAZING. The ruins were cool too, you can see them on the right of the picture where Taran and Clara are running up the path. I'll have to take a better picture of them next time. After Braden finished at the real estate agent's office, we all met up at the apartment and the real estate agent showed us the apartment and gave us the keys. It's a really nice little place, clean and well maintained, though the exterior is not very attractive.

For the last few days we've been doing a lot of shopping and exploring. The people at City Hall have been really great, taking us shopping and showing us where we can get good deals. We ordered some furniture from an outlet store, delivery on Wednesday, and then we were able to buy a stove and food. I'm glad I can finally cook again. Despite not being a very adventurous cook, and despite regarding cooking as a chore, I love eating home cooked food. 

We live very close to Urasoe Park, which is BIG, and contains not only castle ruins but a big playground and slide as well. The play area is on the other side of the park, so it's a bit of a walk, but totally worth it.

The kids really enjoyed playing around in the park, even though the big playground was closed due to Covid concerns. They still got to ride the big slide though. There were so many butterflies and birds, and it was so sunny and warm. It's easy to forget that it's November!

Braden is getting settled into his new job at Urasoe City Hall, and today he got to interpret for a couple of Marines who called City Hall with questions. 

The kids liked the big tree outside City Hall. It had a lot of vines on it and the kids told me it was the tree's beard. The building itself is pretty large, and Braden works in the International Relations Division on the 4th floor. It's only a ten minute walk away from our apartment, which is very convenient. 

Yesterday we got to visit Urasoe Elementary School, where the kids will start school in April (the Japanese school year begins in April, and we decided to homeschool until then so that the kids can learn a little more Japanese before they start). City Hall told us that all the kids starting first grade next year are required to have a health exam, and it happened to be yesterday. So we went, along with a bunch of other Japanese parents and their five year olds. We were the only foreigners that I saw, but the staff were very helpful and patient with us as we tried to navigate from one room to another. It was a fairly basic health exam, with quick checks of vision, hearing, teeth, speech and development, and then a doctor checked his heart and lungs. Taran was very sweet and told everyone ever 'konnichiwa!' and was greeted with smiles every time. Clara had fun tagging along and watching the proceedings. When it was over, we took the kids to the local convenience store for an ice cream.

Today, the kids and I rode an Urasoe City Bus for the first time. We don't live super close to any grocery stores (very different from when we lived in Nagoya and there were THREE within easy walking distance). We went to the nearest department store called San-A (in Japan, a large department store is like a small mall, with lots of stores and even a food court). We had fun exploring and then we ate some food and had ice cream at the food court. I filled a backpack and a big bag with stuff and managed to get it home, though I was sure tired by the time we got off the bus and trekked up the hill to our apartment (we live nearly at the top of a big hill). 

Anywho, that's all for today. Tomorrow we're going to a JET meetup near Okinawa City. Next week, our furniture is coming and I'll take another pic of our apartment when it's more filled up. The big appliances will come later, when we can get to a second hand shop. In the meantime, someone at City Hall gave us a medium sized fridge and we have a coin laundry nearby, so we haven't gotten a washing machine yet.

Until then!