We Meet Again!

Hello friends and family! This website is still in Japanese but I clicked around until I found the right buttons :)

Where to begin....SO much has been going on since we left the states. The plane ride was very long. VERY LONG. I hated it. I think Johnny did alright and probably would have done better if I had not been there pulling my hair out and getting up to stretch every 4 minutes. We were up for over 24 hours when we landed here on the beautiful island of Okinawa. It was shockingly cold. It has warmed up since we've been here thankfully but for the first week we had to wear jackets (which completely threw me off since I was prepared for a tropical island?!!?). The first week we woke up early and did all kinds of fun newcomers orientation type things...got our japanese drivers license, bought a car and got a pretty cool house :) We went to bed early every night after eating Anthony's Pizza and Taco Bell way more than we should. We did go on a little adventure to get sushi one night....Johnny enjoyed that. He decided we should go on an adventure out on the island to find food and I said "no, I think we should have a plan of where to go before we head out..." so he finds a restaurant that looks good and writes down what he thinks is the address. We get in our taxi and tell the driver where we want to go. He has no idea what we are saying and calls all of his taxi friends (Japanese taxi drivers are really nice like this) to find out what these Americans are trying to say. To no avail. We throw the plan out the window (not literally) and just say "sushi, please?" So off we go through the winding roads of our little island, far away from any signs that are translated into english, and arrive at a little place on a very quiet street. The taxi driver says he will pick us up in 2 hours...I look around and say "how about one hour". We walk in and the waitress hands us a menu which we proceed to "read" upside down at which point she motions us to go sit at the bar where we can look at the raw morsels of fish and meat. The chef is very nice and patient with us as we try to communicate what we want to eat. He gave us pieces of raw salmon, octopus, shrimp rolled in wasabi (that sure wakes you up) and finally a bowl of very peculiar green plants. They are a stem with little translucent green beads. I muster up every ounce of adventure I have in me after the raw salmon and octopus and chop stick a big mouthful of green things in my mouth. As I'm smiling and thumbs upping the chef I bite down to my horror of exploding sea water flavored mucus. After I tell Johnny that it's not fish eggs he quite enjoys the little sea plant. I, on the other hand, had just about enough adventure to last me awhile.

There is one little place I really like called Mos Burger. It's a fancier version of a Japanese McDonalds but their burgers are not like ours. I really can't tell you much about what is in them or what they are except that they are really yummy and that's all that I care to know :)

We moved into our house on Saturday and have been trying to make it cozy. I painted three rooms the other day (which took me all day because the store was out of painters tape) and I am VERY happy with the results. Our new furniture arrived yesterday and we are both very excited about it all. We need to get some area rugs because the floors here are tile. Not very cozy. Hopefully our shipment will arrive before May 20th because I have been cooking with my one pot and plastic spoons. I need to go to the store today.

As you know we have internet know, thank goodness. But we are still waiting on our phone service. It could take another ten days but we will have free calling between here and there so it will be a good day :) Thank you all for being patient as we've tried to get settled and get connected. It has been a bit of a frustrating process and I know you are all curious about what life is like here and how we are. Just a little bit longer and communication will be easy and frequent!

ALL of our love. (oh and pictures to come soon)