"Ohayo Gozaimasu" translated means "Good morning". However, "Thank you" is translated "Arigato Gozaimasu". Can you see how that could be confusing?! Well for me, it simply means that when Arthur and I go shopping late at night, buy something, and leave by saying "Ohayo Gozaimasu"... It just leaves the store attendant to laugh at me, and me not realize it until Arthur says "What did you just say??". Learning Japanese already has proved to be pretty difficult, and at times embarrassing. But it's also fun! It's fun trying to say hi to the locals and they sure appreciate the effort.
This last week was really fun. Jackeline surprised us on Monday night and took us to a Botanical Garden that has a light show each year around Christmas time. It was beautiful!
Later that night, Arthur (pronounced Aw-sa in Japanese) and I went to the mall about 15 minutes away from where our temporary housing is. The malls are so strange here, but awesome!! Instead of a large building with smaller stores inside, it's one large building and then all the individual stores are just open. We walked around for a while and then decided to grab dinner at a little place in the mall. There are so many different kinds of food here and they all sound or look (they usually have plastic food displays of what the food is) really good! However... I went with a waffle this night... but you can't blame me because it was covered in caramel and ice cream and whip cream! So healthy. Arthur got some type of curry that was delicious!
And of course we got a GIANT snow cone. MMMM..
There are a few American restaurants on the island that seem to be pretty popular. The first, of course is McDonalds. They also have Burger King, A&W, Starbucks, and KFC. Which, a typical Japanese Christmas consists of Christmas cake (kind of like a fruitcake), and getting dinner at KFC. They love it! We have been trying to eat at different restaurants off base now that we have a car. We tried a popular sushi restaurant, the only one on the island with a sushi track. The sushi they had at this restaurant was so strange. They had fried chicken sushi, hamburger sushi, egg salad sushi, the list goes on and on...
Their ordering process is pretty cool though. You can either grab sushi off the track, or order on the screen at your table. When your order comes through the track, your screen plays this loud music letting you know you can grab your order. We tried the fried chicken sushi roll, which as you could guess tasted like fried chicken and rice... but we have yet to try the cheese hamburger roll. Maybe next time.
We have visited quite a few stores while we've been here and they are all pretty unique. One store we went to was "Don Quijote". I went with my friend Amanda first and she described it as "Wal-Mart on crack", and I think that description is pretty perfect. I took Arthur back so he could see it and we spent at least an hour there.
They have everything at this store. And more. If you need a tiffany necklace, you can get it here. If you need apples, you can get it here. If you need wigs- they have it here. What about a halloween costume? Sure thing! Bikes, phone cases, Japanese candy, cameras, humidifiers, crepe makers, the list goes on. We also bought a lot of candy...
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| All of this was only $20!! |
We also went to a store that is the Japanese version of Ikea. It is so cool! They have tons of cute things that are reasonably priced. However, a lot of their things are fit for the average Japanese person. Considering Arthur and I are pretty much GIANTS here, we seemed a little too big for some of their stuff. (ok, most of it). I'm still shopping here though. Little things make me feel smaller... (kinda)
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| A little blurry, but you get what I am saying.. |
We also visited the American village...which actually isn't very American. But at night and around Christmas time, it is really pretty.
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| shopping & starbucks!! mmm... |
I have learned a few things this last week that will prove to be helpful in our time here in Okinawa. Do NOT park in unregistered parking. As in, park ONLY in designated areas for where you are going/shopping/eating. Arthur and I parked across the street from a store we were going to because the parking lot was completely full. Upon arriving back at our car, we discovered that they closed a metal gate near our car. The one we entered in.... We had to hop the gate and thank goodness we found an exit in that parking lot, but it was terrifying! So I guess we won't be doing that anymore. Maybe we will just buy mopeds and park on the sidewalks;).
Sunday funday wasn't as eventful as the last, but it was still plenty of fun. This time, we drove south to Naha, the capital of Okinawa. I thought the area that we lived was large and populated, but it is nothing compared to Naha! It is a giant cluster of shops, businesses, houses, apartments, attractions, and parks. We drove around A LOT just looking at the city but also trying to find parking, which proved to be a challenge. We stopped at this park for a little bit and then went to a mall where we looked around for a while and decided to grab food at this cute little restaurant. Little did we know, we were entering an authentic Japanese restaurant. This meant that when we arrived, we took off our shoes before entering, bowed to each person who helped us, and sat criss-cross at a table in our own little room. We also were entertained with some traditional Okinawan music and I got to practice my Japanese by asking "Can we please have the check?'. The food was good and the people were even better. They were all so kind!
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| Naha, Okinawa |
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| The streets kind of remind me of Europe |
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| Criss-Cross Dinner |
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| Arthur's food. He didn't realize he ordered some type of Tofu dish... haha |
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| Our musician! |
We have been searching for a church while over here. We were given the name of one pastor so I emailed him and have been trying to get in touch with him. Meanwhile, I found around 4 churches that we are going to check out that are pretty close by where we live. Yay!!!
Random fact about Okinawa. The legal alcohol limit for driving here is 0.03%! Just over a third of what it is in the U.S. Pretty interesting!
Anyways, we miss everyone so much and hope everyone is doing well :). We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!! xoxo.
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