A Visit to Dr. Seng

Well... I had my dentist appointment this morning. It was just your regular routine cleaning and exam. It turns out that I am going to need a root canal! It is NOT because of poor oral hygiene, it is because my canine (tooth #11) has a crack in it (from either grinding my teeth or something) that is deep and is causing the tooth to die! Needless to say, I was a little unhappy to hear that news. I knew that something was wrong with the tooth, because it had been giving me problems for almost a year now!
I tried to take a picture of Nate while he was being my dentist, but he refused... quite adamantly. I then thought maybe I could take one with my cell phone camera. But under no condition was I allowed to take pictures :) Nate is such the professional dentist!!

Jody's Birthday

Last night we celebrated Jody's 27th Birthday... with KARAOKE!! We all had such a blast singing the night away.

This was our second time to this karaoke bar (Kuganea sp?), and needless to say... we love it!

Labor Day Weekend

FRIDAY

Friday we had our household goods delivered, which kept us very busy. We did venture out to eat to a place called Izakaya Genki with Matt & Jody. They have very large and delicious sushi rolls. We also dined on a staple dish here… Yakitori, which are kebabs.

SATURDAY

We ventured to our first secluded beach on Okinawa! We went with Josh, Suzanne & their two boys, Max & Brand; Ray, Cat and their daughter Lauren; Soon (who is a dentist for the Navy) and his girlfriend Kiko; and Tran (who is also a dentist for the Navy). We had such an amazing time! Not only was the beach beautiful, Nathan was very excited to try spear fishing for the first time! He came up empty handed, but Josh and Ray both speared a couple of fish and also an octopus. I snorkeled, but didn’t stay too long for the spear fishing adventure… but I did see Ray come back to the surface with his octopus still alive. You have to free-dive down to where the fish are, so Nate is going to have to work on how long he can hold his breath.

SUNDAY

We went to church on Camp Foster, and the priest is one of Nate’s patients. He is a really nice, funny guy. After church we decided we were going to have an adventurous day!

We first had lunch at a restaurant Nate has been wanting to try. It is called FAB. It is a curry restaurant in Sunabe. Sunabe is a very short drive or bike ride north of where we live. The food was delicious and our view was even more amazing! We were outside looking directly at the East China Sea.

After lunch we started driving north with the intention of going to the Ocean Expo Park… which is the 2nd largest aquarium in the world behind Atlanta. We actually didn’t ever make it there because we stopped at so many places along the way! Our first stop was Todoroki Waterfall. It is located in the village of Sukuta. The waterfall was a short walk back in the woods, which was so great to be out in nature… away from the cities. It wasn’t a huge waterfall, but it was so peaceful and pretty.

Moving more north, we thought that it would be fun to stop next at the Nago Pineapple Park! The pineapple park is a very popular tourist spot for Japanese. The park is situated near a pineapple field. You get to tour the park in a very cool Pineapple Golf Cart! After the tour is over we got to sample 3 different types of pineapple wine (very good) and also sample all types of pineapple foods and normal pineapple. We were definitely stuffed with sweets by the time we left!
By this time we had driven over an hour and thought we would head back south, but we did stop at a glass blowing factory along the way! The glass factory is called Mori Gurasu Kobo (Forest Glass Factory). We watched the guys working for a while. It is a really neat process, and they work very quickly!
On Sunday night we went out with Matt and Jody. We ate at a place by Araha Beach (where we both live) called Jet City Burgers. They have the most innovative burgers I have seen! I had a Hawaiian Burger that had the burger, cheese, avocado, pineapple and some other things I can’t recall.

MONDAY

We decided we should do some final organizing in our apartment. Then we explored the local 100Yen store (Dollar Store). The 100Yen stores are so great here! They have everything!! We also checked out a store called UniGlo. People have told us that UniGlo is the Japanese Gap. It turned out to be a great store… we didn’t get anything yet since Nate is bigger than most of the clothes.

We had Matt and Jody over for dinner and grilled chicken. Nate loves to grill now (which I love too)!

Furniture!

It was a very exciting day yesterday at the Seng apartment!
We finally had our household goods shipment delivered. We have been living in our apartment with very little furniture for the past month.
Monsy was very happy to have more places to lounge. He made himself right at home again at his usual old spot on the couch. He is so funny.

Things are still going great here! Nate really likes his clinic and is getting to do a lot of different dental procedures/things. I am going to have my first dental appointment with him since he was in dental school! I go in on Sept 8th, so I will be sure to report back on how that goes! haha
I really like my new job as well! The people who I work with are really great... and that makes it all the better!

More to come later... time to get packing up to head to a beach on the Northeast side of the island. It is a secluded beach that we hear is awesome... pictures to come later!

Internet, Beer Festival, Karaoke

We FINALLY got our internet set up today! It seems like we have been living without internet for ages, but it really has only been about 3 weeks. It is amazing how disconnected you feel from everyone!

We don't have our Vonage line set up quite yet... but we hope to have it up and running within a day!

We are so excited to be able to call & receive calls from everyone. It has been so long!

We went to the Orion Beer Festival this weekend, which was our Japanese version of Strassenfest this year. After the festival we had our first experience at a Japanese Karaoke Bar! It was SUCH a good time! We are definately not microphone shy!!

Awesome Sunset

Last night we were out grilling & saw the coolest sunset from our place!

We have not seen a sunset like it since we have been here & wanted to share it!!

3 Weeks In!

We have been in Japan for a little over 3 weeks now! We apologize for not updating our site & emailing as much as we would like. As you can imagine... we have been very busy getting settled. Finding a new place to live, getting Japanese driver's licenses, getting new cars, moving in to the new place, Nate checking in to his new command.... and so on.... have kept our days very full.

We also do not have internet in our apartment yet. We thought it was going to get installed yesterday... but that was just our "inspection" for internet. Our new date for internet installation is Aug 26th. We should also have our Vonage phone line up and running that day. Once that is installed we will be able to call and receive calls from the US like a normal stateside number! We can't wait for that!!

We have been snorkeling and are getting ready to do a SCUBA certification. The coral reefs here are beautiful and can't wait to get in the water more! We got full-body wetsuits today. I need mine to keep warm & we both need them to protect from jellyfish. We have been told they are the worst they have been in years. Yikes.

We are really enjoying the Japanese cuisine! We love going out to eat with new friends & trying all sorts of interesting dishes. The price of going out to eat here is much more reasonable than what we were used to in South Carolina, so that is very nice! We were at one restaurant where no one spoke English... I am pretty sure we ended up eating a small bird egg, liver and some cartilage.

Monsy is a very happy kitty here in Japan... he really likes our new place and has his favorite spots to hide already. We have tile and hardwood floors so he slides around a lot when he is playing, but he is getting used to that! He is having some allergy problems, the vet said it has to do with the coral dust in the air. We are going to take him in next week to get checked out, just to make sure all is ok.

We will be sure to post pictures soon!