American Village

This section of town (about 5 minutes from our house) is called "American Village."  It was designed to resemble the streets of San Diego, and it's ADORABLE!  There are tons of little stores to shop in (very expensive) and a lot of restaurants, as well.  In fact, they have Tony Roma's here!  The menus are different from the states and more expensive, but it is nice to visit an area that looks a little like "home."  Although, most things are still written in Japanese, so it's not totally American, but cute nonetheless!!  Also, they have a fancy movie theater there that we haven't attended yet, because it costs around $20.00.  We figure we'll save that splurge for when HP7 comes out!  Enjoy the pics!

 Okay, let me explain...I took this pic to show you how some of their crosswalks are.  They are actually diagonal!  So all traffic stops at one point to let people cross once, instead of twice.  Genius!!

 Notice the "Coco-Cola" logo?  It's EVERYWHERE here!  They LOVE it!

 The other thing they love...bowling!  There are alleys everywhere you go!

 Aren't these shops adorable!  Expensive, but so dang cute!

Pier by our Home

We thought we'd go down to the beach closest to our home and see the sunset, but there were too many clouds.  So we watched the GAZILLIONS of crabs everywhere and the surfers playing in the waves instead.  This area isn't a beach that you would play around on the sand...hence, no sand, but it is beautiful for walking along and watching the people surf.  Enjoy!!

 This is the first sign you come across as you venture up to the walkway...silly, hu!!

Thought I'd through this pic in; it's of a bunch of kitties and their mama, on the street behind our house.  Every time we approach them, the mama goes all freaky on us and tries to attack!

White Beach on a Naval Base

We didn't actually swim here because there was too much sea life to explore!  Snorkeling would have been awesome, but we ended up spending over an hour just walking around the coral and the islands at low tide.  Within that hour, the tide was coming in and had risen about a foot...crazy!!

 Umbrellas are a MUST for fair skinned people here...they are a life saver!

 Can you see the cute little blue fishies!  They are all over the place here!

 There were cool Navy ships all over the place here.  Hence, a naval base.

 Really. Gross. Sea-Slug.  Don't know what they are, but ewwwww!

CREEPY cave.  This went in about 6 meters and looked perfect for an octopus during high tide.

This video is a short clip of some creepy crabs.  They looked like they were covered with fur or some sort of seaweed.  In fact, we thought they were little sea-bushes until they moved!  You have to be really careful where you step or you end up killing or maiming many little creatures!!!

This video is of those creepy slugs we found and a sea urchin.  This family was catching sea creatures and taking them home in a sand pail (sad, hu).  I didn't like how rough they were with the sea-life...we try not to disturb them and just observe, but you can't control other people unfortunately.  :-(

Bios on the Hill

This place was AMAZING!  Then again, so is everything here...  We spent around two hours at this park and still didn't see 1/3 of it (the humidity got the better of us, so we had to call it a day).  Sorry about the amount of pics to look through, but really, it's so dang hard picking just a few!!  I'm excited to go back here when it's a little cooler and we can spend more time (and when I know the language better:-).  Enjoy!!!!!

 Try to ignore the geek and focus on the beautiful flowers!  I shouldn't make fun (yet I will), but a lot of the people here make the peace sign in ALL of their pics.  So I'm just trying to be a "local!"

 Awww, shucks, it's just such a tender moment!

 This was the beginning of a boat ride to see a lot of amazing things...although we couldn't understand a bit of what the tour guide was saying; we still got to see come cool things!

 Mom, you, Gena, and Katie would go nuts over the floral life here!  They have fern curls the size of my ARM!  Not kidding!  Everything is size humongous here!

 Don't look mom...it's a snake (lot's of them around here--I think they're cute!).

This last shot is a video clip of the last of our boat ride.  I wanted you to be able to get a feel for what it's like to not understand any of the language around you.  Makes me feel like a "stupid American" pretty much everywhere I go.  However, I'm signed up to take language classes starting next month.  Yeah!!!

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

I thought I was in heaven at the aquarium in SLC, but this one tops everything I've seen!  We spent HOURS there...choosing just a few pics was near impossible.  I'll be frequenting this place quite often...

 Geek with the translator mechanism around her neck...Yeah, we were the only ones with them. :-)

Playing on the beach!

There are so many beautiful beaches here that it's really hard to choose just a few pics.  This is our first true excursion into the water...it was so much fun!

 One of my favorite places...so peaceful!