Okinawa, Here I am....

Of course, there is not much more exciting than looking out the glass doors from baggage claim and seeing your daughter, son-in-law, and grandson waiting for you to come out especially when you haven't seen each other for precisely a year. Facebook reminded me that morning on my phone that they left Utah on April 30, 2015.  Now it was April 30, 2016.  I hadn't planned it that way, but it was a fun coincidence.

My parents came to visit us in Hong Kong when we had lived there almost a year.  I remember how great it was to see them and also how great it was to share Hong Kong with them.  Finally they were going to be able to see and experience the things which we had been sharing through our letters.  I think that Tosha and Austen felt similar feelings--they loved seeing me and they loved sharing Okinawa and their friends with me while I was there.  Sometimes I had to blink and remind myself that I was now the mother visiting and not the person living here.  It brought back so many memories of living in Hong Kong as a young family.  Although we miss them so much, I am also so grateful that they are getting this amazing experience in another country.  I know how it will impact their lives for good in the future.

We headed out of the Naha airport and had our first cultural experience by having lunch at a local lunch spot.

You will have to look carefully in the picture to understand my explanation of this restaurant.  All of the tables are large booths and on the end is connected to a rotating moving belt which carries small servings of a large variety of Japanese foods.  The food comes out of the kitchen through a hole in the wall, proceeds to follow the loop by several tables and then heads back into the kitchen. You simply grab the plates of the food you want to eat as they pass by.  If you want a specific food, you use the screen (in the top left of the picture.  We were table 22) and order what you want.  They make it and put it on the belt on top of another bowl (which indicates it is a special order so no one is to take it) and then you get a message that it is coming around so watch for it.  We took rice and then a variety of sushi, chicken, and bits size dim sum-Japanese style.  The plates were different colors which indicated their price per plate.  At the end of your meal, the waiter came and counted all of your plates and fixed the price for your meal.  (There is no tipping in Japan.)

Niki was great during our meal.  He ate well but was also good to let us talk.  You can see he is concentrating on playing with his cars which is one of his favorite things to do.

It took Niki a few days to get use to me, but he was happy to play hide-an-seek in the couch the first night.  He loves that game.

I spent two Sundays in Okinawa and was able to attend Church with Tosha, Austen and Niki. I always love the chance to attend Church in another ward and this was even more special because of the many similarities between here and Hong Kong and the differences as well.

Their ward is almost entirely of active American military people and their families. There are a few who teach at the schools on base who aren't active military and a few others who are here for other reasons, but the military is the main part.

Niki looking sharp for Church

As does the whole family

Here is the Okinawa Chapel.  Small parking lot but enough to manage the cars which attend at the same time.

Inside you would feel like you were in a Church anywhere in the US, except if you happened to pick up the hymnbook in Japanese or review the other ward's bulletin board in Japanese as well.  They had one cool feature of a small courtyard in the middle of the building.  I imagine because there isn't really outside space that some Primary teachers take their kids for a walk during class in the courtyard when everyone needs to get out some wiggles.

The ward is filled with mostly young families with several new babies or babies on the way.  Niki is a social child and he loves playing with the kids during the meetings and in-between.  It has been fun for Tosha and Austen to have friends with children here in Okinawa.  Their closest friends were away during my visit so I missed meeting them but it was nice to see some of the other families they interact with.

The second Sunday I was there was Mother's Day.  The lesson which was given was one from the April Conference "Refuge from the Storm".  The teacher did an excellent job talking about how we need to be someone else's refuge from the storms of life--whether big or small.  She spent a moment talking about the call to help refugees but then remind them that they were also strangers in a new land.  Then followed a discussion which made me feel I was back in Hong Kong over 25 years ago. They talked about learning and showing respect for the culture they were living in, giving back to the local people, being kind, etc.  It was a good reminder for the present and a sweet reminder of the past. I loved it.

Back to my first Sunday there, after a great dinner and a Sunday nap, we headed down to the sea wall and had an evening Sunday walk there.  Niki is a walker (and sometimes a runner) but mostly in the direction you want him to go.

This is a great path along the sea which is a favorite for walkers, bikers, and roller-bladers (is that a word).  Lots of people were walking the dogs.  You can take some steps down to actually walk out to the rocks and to fish, but the path was perfect.  You had the view of the cityscape on one side and the ocean with the darken skies on the other.

Niki took a break to test out his car.

Well, this picture didn't turn out--unfortunately this is the one picture I took of the vending machines which literally are at every corner and sometimes in-between.  This one was along the sea wall so it was put up a bit higher to protect from rain or sea water.  That is why it has a little cinder block step at the bottom.  They sell mostly drinks and water as far as I could tell, but they would appear in the most unlikely spots and sometimes you would see 3 or 4 within steps of each other.

So the part with the glare is where all of the choices are located.

My first full day in Okinawa is "in the books", as they say.