Holiday Weekend Fun

It's been a wonderful holiday weekend so far and it's not even over yet!

We spent Thanksgiving day with some old friends from Jacksonville, Sean and Beth. They had invited some other friends over so we got to meet some new people who are spending Thanksgiving in Okinawa as well. It was a fun mix of people and we are already planning another get-together. We're thinking a progressive dinner would be cool. It's always fun to see what kind of living arrangement people have over here. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, we do have a regular Thanksgiving meal here with the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc. Our commissaries offer the traditional foods. We don't have a Thanksgiving Day parade to watch and no football - at least during our regular daytime.


We decided to participate in black Friday over here. It's not as wild and crazy as it gets in the states, but the PX/BX do offer coupons on that day. We used ours for a much needed vacuum cleaner - woohoo. Actually, most of our shopping entailed going to all the scuba shops on the bases to compare prices and gear. One of the shops has a big sale at this time of year and we waited on Noa's gear, which is his birthday gift, in order to take advantage of the sale. He got a Sherwood Magnum BCD, a dive bag, and he'll most likely be purchasing an Apex regulator and second stage this week. Now, we're cookin'!

We did purchase gifts at a bazaar that was being held at Foster. It was basically a bunch of vendors selling goods from all over this area: Japan, China, India, Thailand, the Philippines, etc. We also found some great underwater shots of a sea turtle and clown fish for our guest room (slowly, but surely our apartment will look finished!), but the best thing I saw were the signs for the neighboring vendor. It was a rug vendor with Persian rugs, which normally I don't really pay attention to because it's not really my style. However, the sign for the vendor totally caught my eye. Check it out:

You'd think they could have thought of a better name. Anyway....

Today was our diving day. It was a perfect day for diving - sunny, warm, and the water was not too cool. We dove the Kadena steps (north) and had a blast seeing all kinds of fun creatures, including sea snakes, a moray eel, a lion fish, a cuttlefish (looks kinda like a little squid), and lots of other assorted fish. The coral was beautiful. However, by the end of the second dive I was ready to head out with a splitting headache. I learned that my mask was probably on a little too tight (the "mask face" is just now starting to disappear). Here's a look at the sight and if you look closely in the second photo you'll see some cute crabs sunning on the jacks.

Finally, the BIG countdown is on - 5 days until the dogs come home!!