Saturday morning Jake took me to Forest Adventure Park. It is a Zip-line and obstacle course. We had a bit of adventure getting there! It is about 40 minute car ride. We were to look for Route 6 - well Route 6 went in about 6 different directions, so after many turn arounds, we got there 1 hour and 45 minutes later. Then they tell us it is Yen Only to pay - of course the closest base for us to get money is 20 minutes away! We get there and get funds and it starts to rain!! We decide to head home at this point, when the rain stops - so we turn around and head back. We take the short tutorial to learn how to properly hook the zip-lines and we are on our way. This is my first Zip-Line experience and I don't know if other places are this way, but there didn't seem to be a good way to "stop/land" and I basically wiped out on the first three zip-lines. I started to pout, so Jake decides to help catch me and help me land on the next one. Sounds good in theory! Well the next one was a long zip line and I picked up a lot of speed and you can see where this is going! (I wish so much it had been caught on video.) Basically my body slams into Jake, who flies through the air and I still hit the ground! He said in all of his years playing football that he never got hit so hard! We laughed and laughed at ourselves! To my pleasant surprise later that afternoon Jake had arranged for us to get massages - which felt really great after getting beat up earlier in the day.
It rained every day this week, except for Wednesday. I decided to research the climate here and learned that Okinawa averages 87.5 inches of rain per year (that is 7.3 inch avg per month) and that on average it rains about 12 days a month ( I think this avg is low!) That is more then double what Seattle and HBG PA get (averages 40 inches a year/3.4 inches per month). The temperature has remained around 60, with average humidity around 71%. Jake has been great about taking me to do things at night this week, since he knows I have been limited on what I can do during the day due to the weather. We saw a movie on base one night, we went to dinner twice and went grocery shopping - which was quite the adventure! The Commissary on our base is small in comparison to the one on Kadena Air Force base. We decide to go there to stock up for the holidays and to be able to get more things. It was like Black Friday at the grocery store. I am not joking when i say the line to cash out was wrapped around the whole way to the milk/dairy section at the back of the store! It took us over 2 hours! The one Restaurant was Okinawa Soba which serves pork dishes. When our pork dishes arrived about 95% of the "pork chop" was fat or gelatin and only 5% meat. We looked around and everyone's plates were empty, but we didn't want to eat the fat part. We picked the meat off and afterwards we were still hungry so we went to a bakery across the street and bought donuts! The second place we went to was Yakininku - an all you can eat buffet. The center of each table is a gas grill and most of the buffet is raw pieces of meat/fish/veggies that you bring back to your table and cook for yourself.
This week's fun facts:
1. On base, prior to a movie starting, the national anthem is played and everyone stands at attention.
2. Every morning here at 7am the song "What child is this" is played all over town for everyone to hear. At noon and five other songs are played also.
3. The Commissaries are only open until 7pm and when you check out, someone bags and deliveries your groceries to your car (you tip them). It is mostly elderly Japanese who do this.
4. The current YEN rate is around 77 to $1.
5. My spouse ID card arrived this week - so I can now get on base without Jake having to be there! YEAH!
Links:
View from our Apartment
Forest Adventure Park
and
I have tried several times to correct the view of this one, but it doesn't seem to save correctly.
Until next week!
Natasha and Jake
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