Okinawa Bullfighting

Last week I was able to experience my first bullfight here in Okinawa. It seems to be a pretty big sport here on the island, although it's different than what you would imagine. In Spanish and Mexican bullfighting, it's bull against versus Matador - and in the end, the bull is killed with a sword. In Okinawa bullfighting, two bulls are lead into the ring by their owners and then they fight to determine which bull is the strongest. I wouldn't call it "humane" but this would be as close as it could get. The Okinawa rules are - two minutes of bull on bull contact and then the crowd picks who was the best. One article I read said to think of it like Sumo wrestling....that's actually pretty accurate.

Now that's a face only a mother could love ;)

Before the actual bullfighting began, they did a little demonstration to show all the different moves that the bulls do.

The "Demo" bulls were even anatomically correct. The Japanese think of everything!!

The CHAMPION!!

Tug of war

I'm trying to do better with this whole "blog" thing. We'll see how long it lasts!

Here are some pictures from the Tug-of-war on Gate 2 street that Justin and I went to back in November. It was quite the experience. I wish I had a picture that really demonstrated just how big this rope was....! This was actually a SCALED DOWN version of the tug of war that is held annually down in Naha. Here are some fun facts about Okinawa's claim to fame: Around 15,000 people participate in a tug-of-war during an annual event in Naha, in Japan's southern island of Okinawa The rope used in the event - 200 meters long, 156 cms in diameter, weighing 43 tons and made from harvested straw - was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest rope. We're famous!!

Me....posing. Pretending like i'm actually going to participate in this crazy event!

Here it goes. Everyone pulling with all they've got. Chanting, "Pull, Pull, Pull, Pull" I think the rope actually moved about two inches, but it was enough to make our side the winner!!

Roller Derby

After hearing that I joined the local Roller Derby League, the Kokeshi Roller Dolls, some people have asked me if I've lost my mind. Maybe. But I am having a great time on that slippery slope to insanity! How did it happen you ask? What made me think, "Hey...I'd like to fall down, get hit, and skate until I want to puke!" Well, one day in December I was looking on facebook and saw an all call event for the league. And I thought about how much fun that would be, but "who am I kidding?? I can't join a DERBY LEAGUE! I have zero experience and zero skill!" But then I read the qualifications for joining the newly formed league. 1. Be at least 18 years old 2. Be a woman and 3. Have health insurance. Well, check, check, check! Turns out I was perfectly qualified!! ;) We have a wide variety of skating skills, but I can say that i've never seen such positive reinforcement from a team. It doesn't matter WHEN you fall, it just matters that you got back up. We practice three nights a week, skating our hearts out. Our first bout will be at the end of April. I hope I'm ready!

Christmas

Here's a little post to show just how much we got into Christmas in the Norton household. Even Shadow squelched her inner Grinch and got in to the spirit.

Blowing the dust off ....

My blog has been pretty stagnant lately (my inherent laziness) but I decided to blow the dust off and make a post. Hopefully i'm not too rusty! ;)

The day after Christmas, Justin and I headed to Kyoto (on mainland Japan) for a few days. It was awesome. Yes, Okinawa is technically Japan, but they have their own culture here. A mixture of Japanese, Chinese, and American. (I'm sure there are many other influences that I'm just not aware of) So needless to say, we were very excited to experience the Japanese culture.

There were so many amazing temples in Kyoto. They would be tucked back into alleyways and around corners....even in the middle of street shopping. I can't imagine trying to take on the task of visiting them all.

This street was a really cool street that you could walk down. So cool, just tucked down an alley right off one of the main streets. There were just tons and tons of restaurants on this street. We hit it up a couple of nights while we were there.

While in Kyoto, we had some amazing and different foods. Here is Justin trying an octopus on a stick. I have to admit that I passed on that one!

Some nepali food. DELICIOUS!

And sukyiaki --- basically just thinly sliced pieces of beef, vegetables, and tofu that you cook in a hot pot on your table. And THEN you dip into raw egg before you eat it. I was definitely worried at first. Can you say salmonella?? But thanks to the wonders of the iphone, I did some research while dinner was cooking and found out that the risk of salmonella from raw eggs is only 1 in 30,000. We decided to take the risk to get the full experience. (Justin was much braver than I was....I only tried it a couple of times and then ate the rest sans-egg, but he dove right in! Luckily we dodged that food poisoning bullet!)

On the day that we were leaving Kyoto to head back to Osaka to catch our flight, it started to snow. It was so pretty! AND COLD! It was nice to say that I saw snow before coming back to 65 degree Okinawa weather! (You will never hear me complain that it's not cold! I'm not a fan! lol)

So that's a quick synopsis of our trip. It was awesome. We were able to take the bus most places that we wanted to go. That was an experience in itself! We would have a full bus and I would think, "No way can one more person get on here!" and then we would make another stop and five people would shove their way on! Claustraphobics would not be able to handle a Japanese bus route, that's for sure!

Hopefully it won't be long before the next post. I'll try to do better, but I make no promises!

-Misty