Random

Dragon Boat races

Yesterday Justin and I drove down into Naha to watch the Dragon Boat races. It is a huge festival that is part of Golden week. When I googled what the races were actually about, here is the story that I found (sorry to the newspaper that I'm plagiarizing this from!!!)

The Naha Dragon Boat Races date back to the 13th Century in China and are based on a tale of the imperial servant, Kutsugen. Although Kutsugen was a devoted servant of the Chinese Emperor, there was also a bond and mutual friendship between the two. Because of this strong relationship, many vassals grew jealous and began spreading the rumor that Kutsugen had betrayed the Emperor. Kutsugen was horrified by this false accusation and committed suicide by throwing himself into a river. The Emperor was saddened by this tragedy, so he decided to hold a dragon boat race in his friend¹s memory. As the Ryukuan Kingdom actively engaged in trade with China, their histories are intertwined. After hearing this story, the King of the Ryukyu Islands, was very moved and wanted to hold dragon boat races on the island that would become known as Okinawa. To this day the dragon boat races are an extension of the Chinese influence on Okinawas heritage.

The same but different ...

Really?? Even here? Half way around the world in JAPAN, I have to deal with **shudder** Rebel fans?? Is it wrong that when I saw this, I was torn between knocking on their door to ask them where they were from and the urge to retaliate?? ;) Someone should send me a Bulldog flag STAT so that I can sneak up during the night and replace it!! ha ha ha!!

I'm going to have to start taking a different route to work and to the BX. I see this almost daily. I get all fired up!! It's good to know that I still bleed maroon and white I guess =)

Shopping in Japan

As i've gotten more and more comfortable with my surroundings, I've started doing a little bit of shopping off base. Yesterday, my friend Melissa and I were in "MaxValu" and she noticed that even in Okinawa, you can shop for a bargain -- Here are two bottles of the same chili spice ... only one is "Topvalu" brand. It's a lot harder to compare ingredients here than it is in the states to see if it is really the same, but it LOOKED the same, and the Kanji on the bottle was the same. And it was like 30 yen cheaper. Guess which one we bought?? :)

For those of you who know me well, you know what a direction follower I am. Especially when it comes to cooking. I hate when I ask people for a recipe and it calls for a pinch of this and a dash of that. Well, this experience is going to loosen me up in that arena. LOL I bought some gyoza dumplings yesterday and tried to cook them today. Here were the directions ....

Everything is that way. So when I end up with food poisoning, you'll know why! Ha! The dumplings turned out okay. I actually burned them a bit. Next time I'll have a better idea of how to do it. That's why I bought more than one package!

Random sightings

You never know what you are gonna find while exploring. This first picture is a park that I saw on the side of the road. I hope the figure out the significance of the fish flags soon. They must have some meaning for this time of year because suddenly they are every where. They are in the 100 yen stores, in our BX, in the Jusco...and then this random park. It was a really awesome sight to see ... just dozens of fish flying in the wind.

And here is a picture of the Agena bullfighting ring. Apparently bullfighting is big around here. Not like bullRIDING in the states or bullfighting in Spain where there's a guy with a red sheet, this is just two bulls fighting it out. The last one standing is the victor. Some places it's a fight to the death, but I from what I see online, they don't let it go that far here. So in that case, i'd like to see that. I don't think i'd want to watch if one of the bulls wasn't going to make it out in the the end. (Sorry if one of my two readers is a PETA advocate). I found the place, but I have no idea how to find out when they do the ... matches? Would that be the appropriate word? I tried to look it up online and just found directions. Thanks to my inability to stay still, i've got that covered!!

My name in Japanese

Today I went to my very first "Luncheon" for work. It was a big lunch that hosted all the different organizations that raise money for the different charities on island. They had representatives from some of those charities there to help show where the money goes and how it helps. It was cool. Leave it to me to find something trivial to get excited about ... but we all got name tags, and because several of the members of the group were Japanese (There were translators throughout the room to help bridge the communication gap) our name tags were written in both languages as well. I asked to be able to keep mine because I thought it was so cool seeing my name written out in Japanese. And because I thought it was cool, you guys get a picture!!

Erykah Badu

Last night, Justin and I had the opportunity to see Erykah Badu in concert here on Okinawa. It was really cool. Although...I must say that the WAITING to see the concert was less than cool. It was supposed to start at 8:00 and since it was a free concert, you can imagine how crowded it was (see photo below for an example) ... Erykah didn't grace us with her presence until about 9:10. Apparently her kids weren't feeling well. That long flight will get you every time!! lol Once the concert got started though, it was great. She sounds exactly the same in person as she does on her CD's. That rarely happens these days! We weren't able to stay for the entire concert because Justin had to get up EARLY this morning to get ready to head out for another trip, but we were able to see plenty to be able to check that off of our list of people that we'd like to see. Who would have thought we could have seen her here?? And free?! Too funny.