Moving on up...

Temporary Lodging Facility

 

We finally had our farewell with the notorious TLF. Moving out and up to bigger things. I supposed this is an important milestone as we are out on our own. We better like the house that we picked and the area that surrounds it because this will be our "home sweet home" for the next 4 years. But before we get started on the new home...lets pay a little tribute to TLF for memory sake. One of my new "hobbies" of travel is leaving a dead body behind for housekeeping.  Its a cruel and hilarious prank a friend posted on FaceBook and I have adopted it as my new custom. I don't know why I find it so humorous, but I do. To the point that the entire time I am meticulously stuffing pillows in the blankets and wrapping them all up in the comforter I have a child like giggle that does not seize until I walk out the door, locking the evidence behind.

 

 

 

Now some may say this is far too cruel, but let me add my disclaimer...We made friends with our fellow Okinawan housekeeping ladies. They loved Riloh and we "chatted" as best we could through the language barrier on a daily basis. Now you may be saying, "Well that makes it even more cruel." BUT I did leave the ladies a Thank You note and some traditional chocolate ladybugs that symbolize good luck. And furthermore, it was only 1 dead body...we had 3 rooms! You do the math-- that's the potential for 3 awesome dead bodies. I did a good deed :)

 

 

Look at this sweet little Marilyn baby poser...pretty cute, eh?!

 

This was our sweet little bathroom. It kind of resembles a motor home bathroom, but it served its purpose. Have you ever showered or taken a bath in a tub made by Yamaha?? We HAVE! The shower was very short, Todd had to duck under the spray nozzle to get his upper half wet and he's only 5'10''.  Most of the bathrooms I've seen here have little miniature step ups (or step downs) into them...let me just say, when you are used to level floors throughout your residence this step is like a step of death. Especially when you are a clumsy pregnant fool that takes many half awake trips to the restroom throughout the night.  The soap in the photo is the coolest soap ever, I'll tell you more about it later. But its everywhere, perhaps their equivalent to "Dove" soap. Fun little fact for you there, I know. ;)

 

This was our humble abode. You walk in to a cute little kitchenette, dining table, desk/work area and living area. The furniture was perfect for Riloh! Everything is made short and much lower to the ground. Pretty cute and cozy.

 





 

And yet some more mundane details...Japanese appliances. The ovens here are smaller than what a traditional American microwave is like and they all have a special compartment for boiling fish and ONLY fish. Its cute and all in Japanese. But we figured out how to use it after about 5 failed attempts. It was so small, Todd had to break a frozen pizza in half to fit it inside. Oh and as we were moving out, I found this handy dandy little chart for converting Fahrenheit to Celsius. Would have come in handy while Todd and I were debating who was more correct in self calculating the conversion, ha! This microwave was pretty fun too, in a make you feel dumber than a dodo bird kind of way. But the numbers were in English and once we figured out how to open the door and plug the cord into the wall, we had microwave popcorn in no time. Oh TLF, you were so good to us. And now for the next chapter...

 

 

 

"I don't always fuel up my car, but when I do...I make sure I use 86" ;)

 

 

This photo is not staged in any way, shape or form...Some of you may have heard my recent rant about Todd being the biggest "backseat driver on planet earth", well, here's my proof: I WAS DRIVING. He kindly plopped himself in the PASSENGER seat after securing our precious cargo in the car seat behind, leaned back to tell her something and was seriously pretending to hold a steering wheel. THIS IS REAL. Really funny. Now to work on the part where the drive beside him is as silent and charming as this photo. He's getting better, day by day, but may I add, I am the most patient and loving wife to endure some of his backseat instruction. Oh how love conquers all.

 

 

Home Sweet Home

 

So we set out from TLF and headed to our rental agency to pick up the keys to our new place. The government was meeting us sometime that morning with some loaner furniture while we waited for the delivery of our personal items. Todd and Riloh greeted the crew for our loaner furniture while I set out on a peaceful solo drive to meet my new midwife. Wow it was peaceful, stunning ocean views, windows down, a cool breeze blowing my hair as the sun kissed my cheeks, no child screaming at me and no husband barking driving instructions, I couldn't have asked for better alone time. I kept my heiny on the liney and I did just finey! And when I returned we had beds and a dining room table to get us through the week.

 

 

Reading to Riloh on our "loaner bed." It was nice to have a bed. Fun little fact about this one, it made our room smell like mildew or an old basement/cellar. It gets very hot and humid here, so my guess is, it was put away wet...Or its growing something! Eek. Hey, it got us through the weekend a.o.k. and that's all that matters.

 

Our first shipment arrived that Monday. I was a little worried at first, because this was just a small shipment of some clothes, dishes, crib and baby items yet two fully loaded trucks arrived. These guys pulled up and went straight to work. Jumping up the side of the truck like samurais, pulling the crates up and out by hand and carrying each item up 4 flights of stairs at warp speed. I never saw them use a single tool, like a ladder, carry lever or dolly. Just the tooth side of a hammer to open the crates and box cutter for unwrapping our loot. It was quite impressive. They were in and out in about an hour tops. Oh and may I mention the language barrier may have prolonged their stay...Todd asked if they could come back another day to pick up the empty boxes. They shook their heads yes. We proceeded to tell them Friday would be great. And they continued to bring boxes up. Well I noticed as I was unpacking boxes of kitchen gear and linens, these Okinawan men started unpacking too. Again this was all done at warp speed. We were emptying boxes and collapsing them faster then they could come up the stairs. By the time everything was unloaded, it was unpacked, all boxes were out of the way, packing paper collected and the moving crew was on their way. I was pleasantly surprised at how expedited this process was. Then I got to thinking, was this all a misunderstanding? They were supposed to come back Friday for the boxes and paper, but they left none behind. Now you tell me, is this their stellar work ethic at play? Or did they misunderstand and think Todd told them to unpack us as well?! We shall never know... Riloh was excited to be reunited with her things like her chair, books, some toys and her ride on car. She stayed in her room and played the entire time.

 

Two trucks of loot pulled up. This was not all our things. These busy bees were just going from job to job.

 

They were like spider monkeys, jumping up the side of the truck, wedging their feet against the truck and the crates and wiggling them loose to pull out with their bare hands.

 



 

This guy just jumped right up there to open the crate. I wouldn't be surprised if he could jump from the ground all the way up... That's some serious CrossFit box jumping action there!!

 

I'm not lying when I say these guys didn't mess around. They loaded their bodies full and practically sprinted up four flights of stairs. Pretty impressive.

 

We received the rest of our shipment a few days later and had everything set up and unpacked that night. It was a similar process with the efficiency of the movers, however this time they did not unpack the boxes for us. But they do build and reassemble all your furniture, which is nice.

 

 



 

Now my inner genius kicked in without my knowledge. I started with Riloh's room and she was up and running in no time. I didn't even mean to be such an Einstein, but she took to her room and kept to herself long enough for me to complete some serious unpacking. Her room turned our really cute. It's bright and playful and she has a lot of space to play. Now we had a struggle getting her to sleep in here for the first few days because once the sun comes up this rooster wanted to play. I can not use any of my old curtain rods or curtains here because the Japanese ones are completely different. Different rod/track system and different attachments on the curtain itself. Luckily, we found a Japanese "IKEA" and a new set of curtains fixed our issue.

 

 

Riloh playing away. She was so busy she didn't even notice I was standing there taking her picture.

 

 



 

And look at her big girl bed!! She's growing way too fast.

 

Oh dear...

 

 

Todd was fiddling with something in his closet when I noticed he started to jump up and down a bunch of times, like he was trying to get a glimpse of something but wasn't quite tall enough. His hat was the only item on the seemingly "empty" top shelf and well within reach so I watched a little longer in amusement. "There's something up there," he said through winded breath as he kept jumping. I was fearful that he had found some sort of mess or debris up there as we have just moved into yet another unclean house (sad face). I told him to grab a chair, so he pulled it up and retrieved a small portable hard drive. "Sweet a hard drive! I totally need this for my computer!!" he exclaimed. My response, "Oh that's so sad, what if they just lost the last 4 years of their family photos and children growing up...there's no way to get it back to them- I'd be devastated!"...Now this topic really hits home for me, while we were packing up back in the states I tried backing up my photos and deleting them off my computer, well I thought I lost EVERYTHING from the past 5 years, including the birth and growth of our daughter> the most violating and sickening feeling ever> but the apple store was able to retrieve it all for me. Phew...Back to the story. He plugs the hard drive into his computer mumbling "this better not be a virus," and says "Oh babe I think you're right, here's a folder titled Baby." So he opens it thinking we will be catching a glimpse of their sweet little baby photos- you know the classic rollover, eating in a high chair with food smeared all over the face, laughing and cooing, grabbing things, crawling, walking, the works...Nope. Sadly, this was not the case. And sadly, I may have permanent unwanted images etched into my brain! Baby was NOT their child. It was their own homemade 'sugar and spice' and not intended for other eyes to see! Baby was far too graphic for me to go on about, so I will end it with..."Oh Dear!!!" The files were destroyed, but I am still haunted. Ha!

 

 

This is what the shelf looked like, and this is what he found. Now some may be thinking that is "bad karma" or nosey to go through a hard drive and keep it...But let me inform everyone:

1. There is no way of contacting or finding these people to return their possession to them. That was the first thing we thought of. They are long gone, on an unknown continent with unknown contact information.

2. Todd had 2 options, throw it away in the trash or use it. Trashing it is completely wasteful. And in order to use it, you must delete all the info that was previously transferred onto the device. Those of you that know Todd, know he is very paranoid- so he had to check for programs and anything on the device that could potentially damage the precious computer that he spent many hours building with his bare hands.

3. That being said, there was no way of avoiding our "oh dear" moment. But I will say, it sure would have helped if I was in the kitchen playing housewife instead!! Bah haha.

 

The breathtaking views

 

Todd and I were sitting on the balcony looking out and reflecting. And we just can't get over the fact about how lucky we feel. Through all the ups and downs and the places we have been we really feel so lucky to be HERE. What an experience we are going to have. And the sights aren't too sore on the eyes either, somebody pinch me!...

 

 



 

This is a view of the East China Sea. This is what we see when we look out to the right from our balcony (but this picture was taking from the Marina, not the balcony). The beach is a 2 minute walk if you cut through a brush trail (that Todd is certain is filled with poisonous Habu snakes, haha), or about 5-7 minutes if you walk up and around the houses on the street. And up to 20 minutes if you walk with Riloh beside you-- time dependent on how many times she turns around to walk the opposite direction or how many fascinating rocks she decides to collect along the way.

 

 

This is the Marina directly in front of our house. The water gets crazy aqua turquoise blue colored. You can go on whale watching tours, take scuba diving lessons and fishing trips. There is also a cute little sashimi restaurant and fish cuttery on the corner of the marina.

 

 

This is the view of the Marina from our balcony after sunset. There's a lot of action that goes on here during the day, seems like there is always something to watch from above. Peekers! haha

 

Some of the wonderful sites around us

 

We absolutely love the location of where we have chosen to live! Kadena AB is like 15-20 minutes away and we are completely fine with it! There is a small Army base called Torii Station about 2 minutes from us if we need to run to the ATM, rent a movie or pick up something quick from the shopette. We have the beach and marina for water fun. A pancake house behind us that is deeeee-licious and quite reasonably priced. A grocery store for shopping and a fresh local produce market about 2 minutes away. There is also a little surf group behind us called Happy Surfing Okinawa, they have a little guest house and do surf lessons and rentals. We did not know any of this when we decided on this residence, its funny how things just fall into place. God is so good!

 

 

 

 

This is our little Japanese grocery store called MaxValu Aeon. Most of the stuff we have no clue what it is, but its definitely a fun experience shopping here. They take yen and cards, so that is a plus. Most places will only take cash so finding a place you can use your plastic at really helps. They always ask first if you want a bag and after they have carefully loaded it with your groceries, they delicately tape it shut. The carts here are AMAZING! They are like those 360 degree spinner luggage pieces and they maneuver like champions. This one is a child seat and you just place the basket on a rack in the bottom. Riloh loved it.

 

 

 

Yummo!! Don't these little squid treats just look divine??! I'm taking orders, so if you want me to send some your way- shoot me an email. ;)

 

Oh here's a story I absolutely love telling...Its called "Todd Poison"

You see, Riloh was having a conniption toward the end of our grocery shopping endeavor and went into full meltdown mode. So Todd grabs this little minivan blue hot wheel car thing next to the cash register to entertain her. I stay to pay as they run out the door. He gives Riloh the car and finds this little wrapper inside the package. So he opens it and puts it in his mouth. I was thinking of those little silica packets that come in shoe boxes and are super poisonous if ingested and I look at him and say, "Did you just put that in your mouth?! What if it's poison??" He looks at me like his numbered days are over and spits it out on to the ground in a hurry. Riloh watches. I say, "Did you smell it? Does it taste like poison? What is it?" He's slow to respond, "I think its gum" but he's still hesitant. I touch it, smell it...HA! It's totally gum!!! "It's GUM" I laugh uncontrollably. Todd smirks and puts the rest in his mouth still a little fearful. Riloh says, "Daddy scared of gum." We all start laughing uncontrollably. I can't even look at these photos with out laughing. Probably not even remotely funny to others, but to us-- highlight of our day! And Riloh tops it off by randomly reminding us days later when she says, "Daddy scared of gum."

 

Up close shot of the "poison"....Bah Hahaha!!

 

 

 

This is the little produce market near our house. It's simple and small, and the prices are great. Except Strawberries are very expensive here, not just this place, but all of Japan. I've heard watermelon is expensive too- up to $50! And mangoes, one lady was selling 4 for $25! Yikes. I sure love this little produce market though! They also sell farm fresh eggs. This place is so "me."

 

 

View from entry way as I was walking in.

 

 

View from inside, kinda blurry sorry. It wraps around to the right side of the wall and a little behind the view point of this shot. Small. But sweet. You can grab the necessities and you're in and out.

 

 

 

This is the sign for the additional parking section for the Pancake house near us. This sign is right behind our parking structure, it's that close. In order to get to the house you have to walk up the street, over and down to the other side, or you can cut through the Habu jungle trail (the same one that leads to the beach). Very close to us. Very delicious. We are very excited about this!

 

 

Cute little sign on the outside of the house

 

 

The amazing pancake house itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

Todd and Riloh watching the sunset. Love this little series of photos. Like father like daughter.

 

We are getting settled. Learning the roads, learning the neighborhood and exploring somewhere new everyday. There is so much to catch everyone up on! But I will keep it coming. We were without sufficient internet for 2 weeks so I am slightly behind schedule. But I will have more shortly. Love you all!!