Sayonara!

Leaving Okinawa, 12:25 p.m. local time on December 19th

I like structure and symmetry, so since this blog began with a list, it seems appropriate to have it end with a list as well.

Things I Don't Miss About Okinawa

1. Figuring out where in God's creation I was actually going.

2. Ohmygoodness the heat in the summer. (Yes, I know NC is hot. This was oppressive for days on end.)

3. Grocery shopping: our eating habits, especially our love of dairy products, made grocery shopping a challenge. Yes, they sold milk, but only in quarts, so I had to buy at least 4 every time I went to the store. Also, I don't read Japanese.

4. The time difference between Okinawa and the U.S. I really missed talking to my mom whenever I felt like it. Despite email and social media, I just like the *idea* of being able to call someone whenever I want without waking them up in the middle of the night.

5. Homeschooling. I provided an adequate education, and I might even say I'm glad we tried it. (I might not say that though.) I learned that it's not for me, and that despite Maddox's incessant curiosity, love of reading, and generally good attitude towards school, she does better in a social setting with some semblance of structure.

6. The random, and sometimes unposted, hours of restaurants. Places closed when they wanted to and opened when they wanted to as well. It was a rough evening the night the local burger joint was randomly closed.

7. Doing laundry. I never really mastered the all-in-one washer/dryer. Our clothes never seemed completely clean and were always wrinkled. I can't say I *enjoy* doing laundry in America, but at least I can do it effectively.

Things I Do Miss About Okinawa

1. The most efficient grocery bagging ever. I think the cashiers must master Tetris as part of their job training.

2. Blue Seal Ice Cream, especially beni-imo, brown sugar, and Okinawan salt cookie flavors. The girls would probably say they miss the ubiquitous kakigori the most.

3. The sheer number of farmers' markets - open almost every day, all year round.

4. Sending my kids outside to play on the playground bars, out of my sight, and not thinking twice about their personal safety.

5. Vending machines everywhere. With coffee.

6. Beautiful sunsets almost every night. We have had our fair share of gorgeous sunsets in Albuquerque as well, but there's something about watching the sun set over the ocean that is particularly beautiful.

7. The general kindness and gentleness of the Okinawan people. Having lived in the South since I started college, I have become accustomed to Southern hospitality. However, the kindness in Okinawa was different, and Okinawa felt different to me than mainland Japan in this aspect as well. There is an attitude of helpfulness that extends beyond basic courtesy, and as a mostly confused American, I relied heavily on this culture of kindness.

The Bottom Line

The fact is that Okinawa was both amazing and hard, that I am glad we went, but found it very isolating and difficult many days. It was rarely the way I imagined it. But I learned a lot, our family learned a lot, and I am really proud of myself for saying, "Okay, let's do this" when John proposed the idea. "Spontaneous" and "adventuresome" are never words I have used to describe myself, and it was hard to push my comfort zone while trying to be a decent mom and supportive spouse. Pushing one's comfort zone seems better-suited to the 20's rather than the 40's. Now that I have had several months to reflect on the experience, I think it was pretty great. I would never have chosen to visit Japan -- it would have been far down on any travel bucket list of mine -- but I learned so much. I don't know what the girls will remember about our time in Okinawa. What I hope they take away in some part of their brains is that we can do things that make us nervous, that scare us a bit, that even give us minor panic attacks in the last days before the plunge; that life -- even sabbatical life -- is simultaneously awesome and difficult, and that it works best if we are kind, open-minded, and try to have some fun.

Or maybe they will just remember the kakigori. And that's okay, too.

Arriving in Seattle, 9:45 a.m. local time on December 19th
Yes, time travel is possible. 

Sayonara, readers. Thanks for sharing our adventure with us, friends. It has been fun to bring you along!

Let It Go!

Zoe rockin' the winter boots + capri leggings

The last week in Okinawa was full of goodbyes - to Meredith's family and to the many people at OIST who had been helpful to us during our stay. For Zoe, it also meant saying goodbye to classmates and teachers. Zoe had really kind teachers in Japan, including the two in the photo above. She actually has this photo in a frame in her room, and she still talks about them now. Although I missed some of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, in general I felt relieved to have a break from the holiday hoopla that we have in the U.S. This included not having to get worked up about appropriate teacher gifts! Zoe wrote each of her teachers a card, and we gave them each a tin of Moravian cookies from North Carolina that we had brought with us. (Yes, I inspected the expiration date.)

Cards for Misaki sensei and Mr. Neil

If you look carefully at the postcards, you can see that Zoe wrote her name in Japanese! I am so glad we have a couple of videos of her singing in Japanese as she has already forgotten almost everything. 

The last big event was the winter concert for Zoe's school. Although the actual concert took place on the day we left, we were able to see the full dress rehearsal a couple of days earlier. Zoe's class did an English and Japanese mash-up of "Let It Go", complete with hand-crafted microphones. It was pretty awesome.

Zoe wasn't quite sure about singing in Japanese, but she did her best. The chorus starts with the words "ari no mama no" in Japanese. For some reason, she nailed the "mama no" lyric. Puzzling.

In the photo above, there are kids from Japan, Germany, Russia, and Egypt. They all speak varying degrees of English and Japanese. The kids who aren't native Japanese or native English speakers are essentially being raised (at least) tri-lingual, which makes me feel pretty lame about my mono-lingual self.

I am grateful for the preschool at OIST. Zoe made one BFF who she occasionally Skypes with and whom she talks about frequently. This BFF has an American mom, so we hope that someday we will cross paths with them again since the girls were inseparable in Okinawa. Because Zoe was so happy at school, she went each day from about 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. which gave Maddox and I plenty of time to go on our field trips. I don't know what Zoe will remember about her time in Okinawa, if anything. If she does have memories, I trust that they will be generally happy ones thank in large part to her preschool experience.

Ie Island: In Which We Discover Fame

On the girls' bucket list was taking a ferry to the volcano. Although we were headed to Seattle after our time in Okinawa, a place where ferries are easy to come by, they really wanted to take one while in Japan. As for the volcano? Well, it wasn't a volcano, but it was a small mountain on a nearby island -- Ie Island -- that we could usually see clearly from our apartment window. So with just a couple weekends left, and the indispensable help of our friend Erica who made all of our ticket reservations, we headed to the volcano, er, mountain.

After we drove our car onto the ferry and began to walk up to the decks, we found ourselves in the midst of a rather large school group. The teenagers were giggling at our girls and repeatedly saying "kawaii".  I knew that in parts of Asia seeing some cute American girls would generate a buzz, but we hadn't experienced this on Okinawa since there is such a large American presence on the island. But it turns out these teens were from Osaka (not far from Kyoto), and were probably less accustomed to seeing Americans. And so the paparazzi parade began:

The teenagers did ask if they could take photos of the kids, and Maddox was happy to oblige although I could tell she thought it was a bit odd. What was interesting is that they were especially interested in Zoe, even though Maddox is the one with the light hair and blue eyes. Zoe didn't smile for a single photo, but at least she let the teens pose with her. Ah, the woes of the famous.

Notice that we haven't even left port yet!

I learned that "kawaii" means "cute", and if you ever want to learn more about the word, you can catch this classic YouTube video that my friend Meredith shared with me. You're welcome.

Two of my favorite stars!

So all of that was well and good, cute, laughable, great story, yada yada yada. While I was busy chaperoning the girls' photo sessions, I hear John call out, "Alice, turn around. Get a picture of this!" And this is what I see:

I wish I had also snapped photos of the guys who were snapping selfies with John. The whole thing was a riot - did they think he was famous? Tom Cruise visiting Ie Island? Run-of-the-mill American hunk? Who knows, but it was one of the top 5 laughs I had in 2014, for sure. They were completely uninterested in me, a fact that I am sure shocks my loyal readers.

After our eventful ferry ride, we drove to Gusukuyama, or Castle Mountain. Given that the island is only 9 square miles, it was pretty easy to find the big rock in the middle of it.

There were stairs and handrails going up which, although steep, helped us make it to the top fairly easily. The peak is about 575 feet, which is a lot of stairs! Once at the top, we were rewarded with a 360 degree view of the island, which is almost completely used for agriculural purposes: sweet potatoes, peanuts, chrysanthemums, lilies, and more.

I did manage to snap a photo of the famous members of the Dolbow clan once at the top.

The teens were also hiking the mountain, and took the opportunity for a few more shots, mostly of Maddox, when we reached the summit.

What goes up, must come down. Thank goodness for the stairs or we would have all had to slide.

After lunch at a local burger establishment, we had some time to drive around a bit before we had a reservation for horseback riding. We stopped at one area called Wajee which had beautiful cliffs and great views of the blues in the ocean here.

The other bucket list item for Maddox was riding horses while on Ie Island. We had made reservations for a ride along the beach for the afternoon.

It turns out that this was quite possibly John's first time on a horse. I can't imagine a more unusual setting for an inaugural horseback ride.

Zoe wasn't interested in being on her own horse, which was fine with me. She did crack a smile for the selfie, but I think she was pretty uncomfortable as two people don't easily fit on a saddle.  The proprietors of the horse barn led the horses the whole way. Maddox had been wishing for, and likely imagining, the opportunity to gallop freely along the beach, but that will have to wait for another day. (Also, she's never galloped.)

Our horseback ride along the beach

It's really too bad that I didn't send out Christmas cards for 2014, because this is the perfect photo! Let's just say it was 2015 and I'll send it out this year, deal? Deal.

Despite Ie Island's small size, there were parts of the Battle of Okinawa fought here as well, and 3,500 people died. One of those who died was the journalist Ernie Pyle, and there is a memorial on Ie that honors him. Although we didn't visit this or any other wartime sites during our day, I was struck again by how devastating the Battle was, and how pervasive the fighting was - it even reached this tiny farming island.

We were ushered back on the ferry by a beautiful evening sky. There is something about looking out over the ocean (or the sea in this case) that brings me great calm. On this night, it even brought some calm and sisterly love to the kawaii-est girls we know.

Although I have a post or two left before I say "sayonara", this was the last major adventure of our time in Okinawa. We couldn't have asked for a better way to wrap up these few months. I mean, it's not every day you discover fame on a ferry.

Bada Bingata

Maddox and I took a couple of last field trips before we wrapped up our homeschooling adventure. Our last castle visit was to Katsuren located in Okinawa City. Katsuren Castle had it's heyday in the mid-15th century and was the home of Lord Awamari before he was overthrown by the king. Maddox clearly doesn't need a lord or a king...she can rule all by herself, thankyouverymuch.

We saw so many castles during our stay that it was tempting to be rather non-chalant at this last site. But the views of bays on both sides of the peninsula and the extensive curved walls really did amaze me once again.

At one point I had hoped that we would make it to all 9 of the World Heritage sites that are in Okinawa. We ultimately made it to seven of the nine, which was pretty darn good! And Maddox's trips to all of these castles fulfilled one requirement for a Brownie Try-It badge. I'm betting she'll be the only Girl Scout in Durham with this cool badge!

I think that I probably learned more about Okinawan history than I have learned about our adopted hometown of Durham, NC or my native hometown of Keene, NH. Already in the few months we have spent in Albuquerque, I feel my adventurousness waning as the usual pressures of daily life creep in. It is not possible (for me anyway) to live life in a "sabbatical state of mind", but I do hope that there are aspects of this mindset that I can find a way to nurture when life returns to its regular rhythms.

For one of my favorite field trips, we went with a friend from OIST to Shuri Ryusen in order to see some of the traditional Okinawan art called bingata. This artisan store revived the traditional method of this unique art in the 1970s. Although this fabric art dates to the 14th century, the traditional methods were abandoned after World War II, but have been resurrected in recent decades.

The store produces rolls of this time-intensive handiwork that is absolutely beautiful. We were able to see some artisans at work, and then we went to a DIY section where we got to try our own hand at some crafts. The bingata requires a great attention to detail that I wasn't sure that Maddox and I could sustain, but our talented friend gave it a shot!

Bingata brushes

The woman did a demonstration of exactly how to dab the specialized brushes. The painting is actually done on the back of the fabric.

Our friend worked with painstaking effort for quite a while and when she thought she was finished, she called over the woman helping us. She had to continue correcting and re-doing parts of it until it was deemed satisfactory! It would be a great "road block" on an Okinawan leg of the Amazing Race.

I knew that Maddox and I would be better off with a slightly less precise craft, so we tried our hands at coral dyeing. We were given paints, a variety of coral shapes and sizes, and balls of fabric that were used to rub the paints on top of the coral patterns.

Maddox chose a tote bag to decorate, and she covered every inch of it with color and patterns, both inside and out.

I chose a scarf. I wish I had a better eye for colors and patterns, but I had fun playing designer anyway. As you can see in the photo below, some of the coral pieces were quite large, and allowed for some cool layered stencils.

My finished product!

Maddox's finished product, complete with coral, fish, and OKINAWA!

This was such a fun hands-on experience for us and we still use our handmade souvenirs from that day. Less than two weeks left until departure, but still so much to see!

Next up on the blog: John goes viral on Twitter and Zoe is kawaii!

November's End

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday, and we always have a house brimming with guests in Durham. On the one hand, I appreciated the respite from the hustle and bustle of the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year's stretch; on the other hand, I knew this season would bring some homesickness. 

Japan does celebrate a Thanksgiving holiday, called Labor Thanksgiving, during which they give thanks for hard work and production. Labor Thanksgiving typically occurs on November 23, though this year it was on Monday, November 24. Although I was missing our usual celebrations, we made up for it by celebrating Thanksgiving twice in Japan - once on November 24 with another family from the U.S. at OIST, and once on November 27 with our U.S. friends at Kadena Air Base.

I didn't have many kitchen tools, but with store-bought pie crust and disposable pie plates, I managed to adapt "Nana's Sweet Potato Pie" with a common Okinawan ingredient -- beni-imo, the purple sweet potato. "Nana" is John's paternal grandmother, and her pie is legendary in the Dolbow clan. Although I never met Nana, I have come to love her through her recipes. Her sweet potato pie - usually made for our Thanksgiving by my mother-in-law - is nothing like the sweet potato pie that you often see, which is made with orange sweet potatoes and tastes similar to pumpkin pie. Nana's sweet potato pie is made with white sweet potatoes and almost has a custard-like consistency. And although my attempt did not taste quite like Nana's, the beni-imo sure made it pretty.

On Labor Thanksgiving, we joined another family for our first feast. Zoe's BFF from preschool and her parents invited us for a wonderful meal at their apartment in Onna. The mom had ordered a turkey online, and we all enjoyed the traditional side dishes.

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from our American Thanksgiving, but it was a huge success. We joined my high school friend Meredith and her awesome family, along with some other friends of theirs, for a huge turkey, a ham, and all the fixins. There was too much food, lots of kids running around, and plenty of laughs. Just like home.

Maddox and her friend pretending to be Shisa

The rest of November just kind of puttered along. One day, Maddox and her friend read a story they had written to Zoe's class. It was super-cute, and Zoe felt very proud to have her big sister there doing something so important.

Another random November day found us at American Village where the girls could get a little taste of Christmas, albeit while wearing shorts.

We passed some time at a place with optical illusion paintings which made for fun dramatic play and cute photos.

No, Zoe! Don't let go!

Careful, Maddox!

The final event for us in November was a fundraising event for the preschool and daycare which Zoe attended at OIST. They had several handmade crafts by members of the OIST community, games, baked goods, food vendors, and an enormous yard sale. Maddox made a few dozen Rainbow Loom bracelets which she donated to the craft tables. They went like hot cakes!

Maddox and her friend also got henna tattoos which made Maddox feel like a teenager. Speaking of teenagers...somebody got a hold of Daddy's Ray Bans and gave us a glimpse into our future.

Here ends November. Just a few posts left in December before we return to the U.S.A.!

Where It Ends and Where It Began

We had already been to many sites near the southern tip of Okinawa, so we wanted to make sure we made our way to the northern tip of the island as well. So on this beautiful clear day, we headed to Cape Hedo, the northernmost point in Okinawa. The drive was about an hour and a half, mostly along the western coast.

The monument above commemorates the end of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa, and the return of Okinawa to Japan in 1972. I am not sure why this monument was placed here, although perhaps because it is just 14 miles south of the island that marks the next prefecture in Japan.

Cape Hedo also marks the place where the Pacific Ocean (to the East) and the East China Sea (to the West) meet.

The cliffs are about 230 feet high...

...which of course seemed like a perfect reason to go exploring on them.

We walked down a path the girls discovered near the cliffs and came upon this small altar where they left a couple of coins. I do love that there are so many nooks and crannies in Okinawa. It is almost always worth it to go off the beaten path.

This monument was given as a symbol of friendship to Kunigami Village (where Cape Hedo is located) by Yoron Island which is the next island in the Japanese chain. According to one website, this is a statue of a Kariyushi which is a legendary bird-fish creature, but I couldn't find corrobration of this fact, or why it would symbolize friendship. Whatever it is, it was worth a photo!

Maddox at Cape Hedo (Hedo-misaki)

Panoramic looking east towards Pacific Ocean from Cape Hedo

Peace is part of the ethos of Okinawa.

Before leaving the end of the island, we needed a quick lunch. It took us some time to decide between the Octopus Balls and the American Dog.

After lunch we headed just a few minutes down the road to Dai Sekirinzan, which is thought to be the geologic birthplace of Okinawa. These were the first rocks to emerge from the ocean to create the island. The limestone here is over 200 million years old, and the soluble limestone has been eroded over the ages to create some really cool formations.

After taking a shuttle bus from the base of the park along some roads that were "less traveled", we arrived at the visitor's center. From there we chose to start our exploring with the "Strange and Big Rocks" path.

There were many signs, all in Japanese, that showed how some of these formation were supposed to look like other things: dinosaurs, faces, birds. It took a lot of squinting, and seemed a lot like finding shapes in the clouds, but the formations were really cool regardless!

There were also sites that have sacred meaning and which have been places for worship throughout the centuries. On our way along one trail, we came upon a group of worshippers as this is still considered a location of significance and power.

At the top of the hike (thank goodness there were lots of stairs to facilitate the "hike"), we got a wondeful view of Cape Hedo. This was almost more beautiful than being at Cape Hedo. It's cool to see the tip of the island from this vantage point.

After some refreshments, we walked back down to the base through an equally interesting forested path. Not great lighting in the photo below, but this banyan tree was one of many that were along our hike.

Dai Sekirinsan ranked as one of the top three places we visited on the island. Admittedly, my rankings are related to the happiness of my kids at said places, but this was one of our favorite days. I am so glad we kept making the effort to explore, even as our time on Okianwa was nearing an end.