Sakurabana festival

Each year, the cherry blossoms bloom in Okinawa before anywhere else. Brandon says we're special. :)

Saturday afternoon, we drove up north of Nago to enjoy the cherry blossoms and attend a festival.  Today's word is "sakura-bana," meaning cherry blossom. Every year, Okinawa is the first place in the world where the cherry blossoms bloom.  It's the last weekend of January, and we're almost at the end of the cherry blossom season.

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Japanese Addresses

Just thought I would share this video I found on youtube a couple days ago.  I explains how Japan does address.  I still do not think it makes sense, but at least now I know where they are coming from and it greatly simplifies what I was told my first week on the island.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1zh49J5rsg

That said we are very quickly approaching one year out here!  It is crazy how fast one year goes.

- Brandon

Red Hot Chili Peppers!

A peck of chili peppers? Not quite, but aren't they cute?

Brandon's office building had a chili cook-off today for lunch.  He was asked to bring in a dessert, so I decided, what better way to celebrate a chili cook-off than chili pepper shaped sugar cookies?  :)

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It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

A gorgeous January morning on Okinawa!

How can you have a bad day when your morning starts off with this amazingly gorgeous sunrise?!  I hope this gives everyone "happy thoughts!"  :)

---Arielle

Game time!

Anyone "game" for some translating? :)

My wonderfully handy Japanese pocket translator (complete with Eng-Jap, Jap-Eng, Eng-Eng, and a Kanji dictionary) has been in desperate need of a case for some time now.  Up until now, I've just been shoving it into my purse to fend for itself.  As of today, it now has its own super-cute, slightly geeky case to help keep it safe.  (For those not of the '80s era, the case is inspired by the old Nintendo video game controller.) 

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