Azalea Festival 2013

It recently came to my attention that people were having some trouble commenting on my blogs with the program I was using.  I have since reverted back to my old commenting system, so hopefully that works better for you! 

The second weekend in March, we took a trip with ITT¹ here on base.  We had never taken an ITT trip before, so we figured now's a good of time of any.  Being new on the island we got a 10% discount on tours (offered to people here 90 days or less), which was even better.  A little before 9am we met the bus, and boarded for a little over an hour.  Our tour guide was great! She was Okinawan working with the base for years, and had some really funny stories to tell along with history of places we were driving past and other events and places she recommended us to go to.

Located on the East coast of the northern part of the island about 45 miles away (see map below), is an amazing little hill top with over 50,000 azaleas grown and taken care of by the village people of Higashi.  With a great view of the ocean, there were tons of trails winding in and out of azalea gardens and mangroves.

There were some great viewing areas all around, and actually, my favorite spots were down in the valley walking along the mangroves being able to look up at the azaleas.

Love these trees!

The festival lasts for about 3 weeks, and along with beautiful views and trails, there is a small area (that doesn't interrupt nature) where they have food stalls, flower demonstrations, a small farmers market and live music.  Of course we had to try some things while we were out.  Lunch time after all, don't want anyone getting a case of the hangrys.

We split an order of nikumaki onigiri, which, if you love onigiri like I do, this will blow your mind.  It's simply a rice ball wrapped in meat.  You can't go wrong with this, trust me.  Mine was pork, but they come with beef also.  It's a thinly sliced piece of meat marinated in a delicious sauce, wrapped around a rice ball and then baked or fried, it's then coated in more sauce.

We also split some takoyaki.  This is a go-to snack/street food in Japan, you'll see takoyaki stands EVERWHERE.  It's delicious so no wonder why.  It's a doughy ball filled with octopus (tako), green onion, and ginger which is cooked in this special grill pan.  After it's done cooking, it's coated in a takoyaki sauce which is like a bbq sauce with mayonnaise and bonito flakes.  There are a lot of variations of this, but the dough and octopus stay the same, otherwise it would be a different dish.  I really enjoy takoyaki, but with a little less sauce.  This guy was drowning in it.  Just my preference though.

More adventuring.  Aaron had a good time trying to read all the Japanese signs.  He was able to pronounce a lot, but we had no idea what the translation was.  That didn't bother me at all, I was busy taking in the views and taking pictures.

I have never seen this many azaleas before, it was awesome!

Once we made it to the lower area, there was a small stream and a boardwalk around the mangroves and some beautiful trees.  I could have stayed here forever.

Towards the end of the trail, as we were making our way back up to the entrance, we spotting this elderly couple taking photos of themselves.  It was so cute the way the man was pushing his wife up the hill (which was pretty freaking steep to be pushing ANYONE up, never mind doing it at that age).  They reminded me a little of my grandparents, how sweet they were with each other, and I really love this picture.

¹ITT (Information Tickets & Travel)

A service offered on our base (and many other bases) that supplies information and tickets for events off base.  Trips usually include transportation.  They also offer discounted tickets to many things including special events/activities/hotels, and can make reservations for flights and hotels off island.

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April Monthly Recap

Only a week late with what I was so excited to start doing. Our monthly recap!!!  Below you will find random photos of random experiences in random order that happened randomly in the month of April.  Sometimes were purposely left out because I intend to do a full blog post on, some I will expanding on in other posts both here and at Kacey's Kitchen, and some experiences aren't here because we didn't take pictures!  Enjoy!

If you are looking for a pet, they sell chipmunks at Tabata, a hardware store right at Naval Kadena.  I know.  A chipmunk, for the low price of $100(ish).  A freaking chipmunk!!!

Earlier in the month some of the squadrons here celebrated what's called "Warrior Week".  It's a moral event/tradition involving heritage room crawls (aka a bar crawl), pranks, gifts, a banquet, and yearly awards. I barely participated by helping sew and stuff tiger tails (Aaron's squadron is the "Young Tigers") which were eventually placed on squadron commanders cars in the middle of the night.  I also helped by making some tiger fudge as gifts.

My friends KayCee and Erin (and little Kaylee) came over to help with the tails.  Well, Kaylee managed to play with every item in the living room while Erin did a nice job sneaking up on her pulling out some dvd's.  

Because if you didn't understand the words 'rest room', or a picture of a toilet, someone sitting on a toilet should get the point across.

One day I randomly ran into Shin Koyamada at the Foster Exchange.  Running into the store for a can of spray paint, I managed to stand in a line of only 5 people waiting for an autograph and photo.  Koyamada played opposite of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.

Driving over to a fabric shop, I ran into some insane traffic.  I eventually arrived to the source, a building had collapsed into the main road. Whoops. It appeared to have been undergoing construction or demolition already...but I don't think they intended it to fall where it did.

I found an amazing store called ETWS here on the island.  A strange big store that's half housewares half Spencers gifts, with some interesting costumes.

After lunch and a stroll on the beach, we found some rubber shisha dogs.

Please clean away your dog's dung.  With a picture of a pooping dog.  Nice job Japan.

The sunsets here are gorgeous.  What's great about living on this little tiny island is, we can drive 20 minutes to the beach to watch the sun rise, and 5 minutes to the beach to watch the sun set.  While having dinner and drinks one night with friends, we caught this beauty.

A monthly roundup wouldn't be complete without an appearance from the cat.  Never before has she been interested in the dryer, but lately, she wants to climb in it all the time.  We'd like to say she's helping us do laundry, but we know that could never be the truth.

Aaron spent a couple of days working in Guam.  'Working'.  Here's his view from the hotel room.

Here's a photo from my seat at the warrior banquet.  It was held in a hanger and TONS of people we there.  I think something like 6 or 7 squadrons and all their spouses.  Here they were presenting some awards, looks like we may have won something here with how many of our team is standing.

The base offers lots of free (and paid) classes/presentations.  I took a 3 day Japanese For Busy People class and followed it up with a Washi paper craft class.  We made a Japanese candy box.  Might not have been the most exciting hour ever, but it's a great way to get out of the house and meet people.  Know I have no idea what to do with this thing.

Another class I took was a Kimono wearing class. We learned a little about the history of them, and then we each got to learn how to put one on.  It takes forever, even for people who wear them often, depending on the style it could take up to an hour or more to put on.  Fun Fact: A kimono are typically made from a single piece of fabric that's almost 40 feet long.  I'd post more photos, but they weren't at ALL flattering.  This was a lot of fun to do, and now I would actually consider buying one, and actually wearing it.

Oh man, the signs here are great.  Good thing it was here, otherwise I would have tried to pet a snake.  Or not.

Exploring on the island is always amazing.  There are lots of castle ruins on the island, and this was the first one that we checked out.  I'll do a little blurb about this later.

Believe it or not, not every day is sunny and perfect here.  In fact, there were a few weeks in April where it rained and poured every single day.  I used this time to do some crafting.  We have intentions to build our own dining room table at some point, and in the meantime, I found 5 chairs in 2 different styles for FREE (only 1 style shown).  They needed to be stripped down, re painted, and reupholstered.  I'm not sure on the colors of my finished product, but it works for now, and much, much better.

 One of my favorite beaches here.

Beach time always calls for ice cream time.  A famous American ice cream shop here adopted by Okinawans.  Everyone loves Blue Seal...and I mean EVERYONE.  They have some amazing flavors, mine is Ube (purple yam) and Aaron's is Beni-Imo (Japanese sweet potato), both are purple, the beni-imo has a smoky flavor.  Plus, look at their cute cones!!!

Another exploring day (aren't they all exploring days?) with some new friends, we checked out Okinawa World, which is a little heritage park filled with underground caves, craft/heritage village, habu museum and demonstration, and Eisa dancing.  More on that later, but I just wanted to share with you these awesome Shisas! I want to build one!!!

More snake signs.  BTW, there are a shit ton of snakes on the island.  They will bite and kill you, and they will eat your children.  Just saying.  Also...don't throw stones or trash at THIS snakes.

Another beach (I keep showing you pictures at low tide) on the East China Sea side of the island.  This was a great little spot.  When the tide is down you can walk out really far...all the way to the dark part of the water past those last rocks/coral.  Lots of locals were here this day picking scallops.

When on a beach with millions of hermit crabs, the only logical thing to do would be to race them.  We held 2 races, mine lost both.  Next time, Aaron's not allowed to pick out my crab.  We did have couple cross the finish line though.  It was waaay more exciting than it should have been.

Well, even though that doesn't show you everything that we had done this past month, I hope it gives you a little window into our daily life.  I'm excited to share with you some of the food we've been splurging on over at Kacey's Kitchen soon.  Keep an eye out!

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Interesting Signs and Products Found in Japan (February and March 2013)

You asked for it, so here it is.  A whole post of weird, funny, unique, and sometimes troublesome signs and products from Japan.  This won't be the end of it either, I plan on including these in my monthly recaps in the future.

Bathrooms deserve their own post, but I couldn't resist with sharing this now.  Below you will find something I found in a bathroom stall. Similar to a hand sanitizer dispenser, this is clearly a little more special.  According to instructions, a little cherub coming in, ripping off some toilet paper, spraying it with this Purelet dispenser and cleaning the toilet seat with it.  It's quite deceiving.  In real life, no little angel flew it to help me out.

One of the first silly signs I saw here.  At first glance, it just looks like a dog sad because it's not allowed to run on the track.  Not so, this poor little mutt is sad because it has a chicken wing as a leg, and CAN'T run.  Poor pup.

Vending machines.  Everywhere.  It's something I looked forward to when moving here.  We haven't found anything too 'out there' yet, mostly hot & cold beverages, cigarretts, phone cards, and ice cream.  But if you look closer, you will very often find a can of creamed corn along side the beverages.  It's served hot.  And no, we haven't tried it (yet).

Where can you find one of those creamed corns you ask?  Simply one of the many vending machines located at your nearest street.  Tommy Lee Jones will be there, on the front of the machine, posing like a BOSS.  There are lots of American celebrities on advertisements here...and they are always at least a little on the strange side.  You'll see.

Gargling fountain.  Weird at first, right?  But once you try it, GENIUS!!! Seriously.  We found this at the aquarium, and after eating lunch and spending a few hours walking around, we all had that dry stale mouth.  Until we used the gargle fountain.  Simply turn it on by placing pressure on the step, and something that sort of looks like water, but isn't shoots out like a water fountain.  I would describe it as mouthwash, but it tasted completely different than what we are use to.  Gargle for a few seconds and then spit it out.  It was AMAZING how it perked all of us up.  Why don't more places have this!?

I love the packaging here. I don't think I'll ever stop loving it.  It's not just the packaging, but the little cartoony characters on it.  For example, here's a cat, cleaning out it's own litter.  It's also the most unique cat litter I've ever seen, we'll have to give it a try one day and see what Sammy thinks.

I believe this was the first time I've been to a 'ticket' restaurant.  This one is a small chain on the island called Ramen Kagetsu Arashi, or more commonly known simply as Arashi.  When you walk in the door, you are greeted by a vending machine.  These are your choices to order.  No real detailed explanation on them, enough is in English to sort of figure out what you want.  The pictures help too.  I'll do a little review over at Kacey's Kitchen at some point, but thought it was interesting to share with you.  You insert your money, choose what you want, and a little ticket prints out.  You go find yourself a table and hand your ticket to the waiter.

 

At another Japanese fast food place, I enjoyed their descriptions of spicy levels.  BTW, Japanese sit down fast food is waaaay better than in the states.

Thanks to the commissary, we do get the food comforts of back home, but I was still surprised to see this hot sauce from my home state of New Jersey.  I've never seen it in a commissary back in the US, so I wonder why it's here.  

Here we go with the American celebrity advertising.  Leonardo DiCaprio holding a GIANT glass of Jim Beam filled to the brim.  I mean, there's so much booze in there the ice cubes won't even fit.  Stay classy Leo.

It's sunny here, so why wouldn't you buy a hat for your cat.  No joke.  These are cat sized hats made for cats.

Okay, I'm not sure about this one.  Obviously if you have hats for cats, you should have shirts for dogs.  Obviously.  But I'm curious, is this a fad everywhere that I've missed?  Do they sell/display dog shirts like this in other countries?

After your done shopping for Fido, make sure you don't leave in him the elevator.  Don't worry though, there are signs to remind you.  Watch out for your jump rope too!!!

Cats are loved here, except when they aren't.  Don't want a stray marking his territory all over your garden?  Simply line the area with this spikey plastic mat, aka cat repellent.  It'll make them cry.

And as a reminder, please leave the hermit crabs where they belong.

The real winner of this post is this.  A handful of friends have received these already as gifts from me, but we all still can't figure out what it really is or WHY.  WHY. WHY.  Wait, maybe we don't want to know.  No, it's not a condom.  It's a self inflating goose with adhesive to go over your cloths. The real question is why the fuck is there that creepy dude on the packaging.

Well, hope you enjoyed this catch up of weird shit.  The month end is coming up, so I'll be doing another roundup, this time, of all things April soon.  Stay in touch!


If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

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