Thanksgiving

Well, tomorrow is my second favorite holiday, and once again I'm not spending it with my family. :( When we lived in Texas I was the hostess. All of the single soldiers who couldn't afford to make it home, came to my house. I go ALL OUT too. My garlic lemon sage turkey, real cranberry sauce, the best mashed potatoes in the world, my own recipe for pumpkin cheesecake, butt rolls (that's a little hard to explain, for those of you who don't already know), etc. and I love it.

But as of now, all of my kitchen things are on a ship somewhere on the pacific and we're living in a hotel (more about that later). So, I've reluctantly accepted the fact that I can't be the hostess this year. We've received about half a dozen invitations, none of which I want to accept. I'd rather just wallow in the home-sickness I've come to associate with this time of year, or at least go find something just Jared and I can do. But we have to make some polite appearances, so I'll be plastering on a smile and suffering through whatever dry, tasteless meal is placed in front of me.

But I'm not going to be too down about it. Because in another month, we'll be doing it all over again. I apologize for the bummed out tones of this post and I really do hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I love you and miss you!!!

XOXO

Liz

Weekend Update

We had a really fun, exhausting weekend. I have a lot of fun pictures to share.

Friday we went to a 100

Yen store for fun random stuff. This is what we found::

I adore hilariously broken English. Or, as we affectionately call it, "Engrish".

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to be. If anyone has a good guess, let me know!

Here's another good example of Engrish. I was laughing my butt off in the store reading this.

After we spent too much money in the 100 Yen store, we wandered around the city bar-hopping. I say "bar-hopping" but really we had one drink in three different bars, then went back to the bar on post and played pool. It was nothing special.

Saturday, we went to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. It was AWESOME. It's on the northern

tip of the island, about an hour and a half drive, but so worth it!

This is me poking a starfish. You'd think they would be kind of squishy and floppy, but when I picked it up it was all bony and stiff. Not at all what I expected, and it freaked me out. And those furry black wormy things were cool. There was a kid near us who got yelled at for picking one up out of the water and hitting his little sister with it.

This was by far the coolest part of the aquarium. Their largest tank called the Kuroshio Sea had 3 whale sharks, half a dozen giant manta rays and a bunch of other less notable sea life. There was a huge almost auditorium looking room, where this was taken. I love this picture because you can see how massive that whale shark is compared to all the people.

I had a lot more pictures, but those are the best. We will definitely be going back there.

Yesterday we went to American Village and it took a lot of convincing, but I was able to get Jared to go on the ginormous Ferris Wheel.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to re-size that picture! But that's part of American Village and the East China Sea. It's a beautiful place! I'll cool it with the pictures for now. Today is our last night in this hotel. The government furniture will be in our house and we get to move our stuff in tomorrow. We don't really have that much, just a few bags of clothes and my computer. But that's all we have going on here. Time for me to get to the gym and find other things to do so I don't feel like a bump on a log.

XOXO

Liz

HABU SAKE!

Jared and I came across this in a store yesterday. It's Habu Sake. So named the pit viper, or Habu snake, whose venom is used to make it. This is definitely on my list of things to try while in Japan. The bottle in the picture is 18,055.55 yen, or about $234. I'll post more pictures when I've worked up the courage to try this, and more importantly the courage to spend that much money on a bottle of snake juice.

XOXO

Liz

LOVING IT HERE!

I'm finally here!!! I got in around 10pm on Friday. We're staying in a hotel on base, until our house is ready. Saturday, we went to American Village, which is sort of like a Chinatown, but American. The stores are full of nonsense t-shirts and Bob Marley things. We also went to a HUGE arcade called Club Sega. I probably used the word "awesome" 4 dozen times in that place. We sank a lot of yen into that arcade, but we'll be back. I think part of what made it so fun was that we couldn't figure out how to play any games. Sunday was kind of boring, but with all I've been doing, I needed a boring day. We walked to the BX and Jared showed me all the cool little Japanese kiosks there.

Yesterday was busy. For the Army it was a training holiday, but the Marines, Air Force, and Navy were all working. So, all the offices we had to visit were open, but not busy. We got a terribly ugly house. We asked them if there was anything else we could look at, but they don't have enough open houses to go around, so it was that or nothing. It's linoleum all the way through, has a tiled ceiling, and has nothing but fluorescent lights. It does have a nice back yard and patio, and I'll do my best to make the rest of it homey. We also bought a car and I LOOOOVVE IT! We pick it up on Wednesday, so pictures will come soon enough. Here's a teaser for you:: We've named him The Great Pumpkin. :D But by far the best part of my day was lunch. We ate at McDonalds. I had a teriyaki burger. I'm pretty sure it was chicken, and it was delicious. Next on my list of food adventures is the Mexican restaurant we passed by, or one of the half-dozen KFC's that are all within a 3 mile radius from our base.

When I first got here I fought off jet-lag like a ninja, but I'm pretty sure it's subtly wearing me down. For example, It's 7am and I've been up for an hour and a half. Oh well, I'll get it down eventually.

That's all for now,,

XOXO

Liz

Chilling in Seattle

Hello all!!!

Right now I'm hanging out in the Seattle airport. It's about 2300 Pacific time and I can't check in until 0150, so I'll be camping right in front of the AMC counter for the next four hours, then who knows. I have the first season of Community and a few seasons of The Office on my computer, so I won't be too terribly bored.

I'm a little apprehensive about my 13 hour flight. I don't really like plane rides as it is, and until today, I hadn't been on one for more than 3 hours. My flight here from Charlotte was about 6 hours and of course I was behind the guy who brought Indian food and had terrible gas the whole flight. But I'm chilling now. It sucks I'm here doing this by myself, but i'm managing. I'll post again from JAPAN!!!

XOXO

Liz