Food adventures with the girls!

Yesterday my friends and I went on a random adventure.  It all started because we hadn't eaten lunch yet, and I needed to buy curtains for my guest room.  We decided to go to Jusco (our little version of a mall here) and see what food places they had there.  We got there and started our search for a soba place, but when we found one it had a wait.  We were pretty sure we were starving, so we let the soba craving go and settled on Chinese food.  We were obviously hungry, because none of us got any pictures of our food.  I guess that just means we'll have to go back sometime and eat there again!

After we were all stuffed, we went to the home store to search for some curtains.  My brother's girlfriend will be here next week for a 9 day visit, so I needed the curtains to finish the room and to make sure the sun would stay out and not wake her up too early!  We walked around and didn't really find anything that would match the room decor too well so we left empty handed. 

We were going to just call it a day and go home, but it was still early in the afternoon and we we didn't want to waste the beautiful sunshine we had.  There is a hardware type store, Makeman out here that has a 100Y store (our dollar store, except way cooler), so we drove a ways to that.  Anytime I walk into a 100Y store I feel like a little kid.  I have to walk through the whole area and check everything out!  Eventually I did make my way over to the curtain area though and I found some awesome curtains!  What do you think?

We thought we deserved a treat for finding such great curtains and since it was so hot out, we wanted something cold!  We made our way over to Cafe Rachel and ordered us some Kakigori.  Kakigori is shaved ice with fruit syrup, fruit, and condensed milk.  It was delicious!  Towards the end mine got pretty sweet, so I didn't get to finish it, but I'll definitely be going back to try the other flavors! 

 
That put us all on a nice little sugar rush for our commissary trip (my friend put her arms up and "flew through the store")  and I crashed on the couch immediately after dinner.  It's amazing how the heat here can get to you.  We're in our rainy season and it will be raining and still so hot out!  I hope I can handle later in the summer when the real heat kicks in! 

What kind of fun adventures have you been on recently??



Friday Fill-In

Do you think civilians, in general, understand the meaning of Memorial Day?

Not really.  I think people know the meaning, but don't ever take the time to really think about it.  They see it as their long weekend that begins summer. 


What are your plans for the Memorial Day Weekend?
We are going to a friend's for a BBQ.  We have a typhoon that is supposed to hit tomorrow, so we'll probably be locked on base and spend the day relaxing. 
What skill/talent do you wish you had? submitted by The 3 Turners
I wish I could cook!  I've always been a baker...I can make all sorts of sweets, but I am afraid to experiment much with my cooking.  I tend to stick to simple recipes and when I find one I like and I'm good at, you can expect me to make it often! 


Which came first: the chicken or the egg? submitted by I Married Into The Army
The chicken.  God created the chicken and the chicken laid the egg


What is the best thing about your post (base)? The worst? submitted by Randomly, Robyn
Pros:
The warmer weather year round
The beautiful beaches
Our base is a smaller on on the island and it's nice to be in a quiet area
The culture we get to experience
 
Cons:
Being away from friends and family
The language barrier
The humidity...my hair does crazy stuff out here sometimes!
 

Don't forget, I'm taking questions and suggestions from my readers!

Questions

I've opened blogger a number of times in the past weeks and I just can't write anything!  I haven't done anything too exciting lately.  I have my first visitor to Okinawa next week, so I'll have plenty of blogging material afterwards, but I need help blogging right now! 

So...I'm letting you ask me questions!  Any question you want (let's keep it appropriate) you can leave as a comment and I'll post the answers in a few days.  Also, if there is anything you'd like to see me blog about, I'm open to suggestions.  Thanks!

Friday Fill-In

What is one of the things you always do special when your husband returns from a deployment? submitted by Keep Calm and Soldier On
We haven't had a deployment yet.  He has been gone for different schools and trainings, but nothing too long yet. 


What do you do to help your spouse and/or yourself re-adjust after a deployment or long separation? submitted by Diapers, Dogs and Deployments
Again...no deployment yet. 

Are you a crazy coupon clipper (I'm becoming one, so share your secrets with me)? submitted by Married My Airman
I wouldn't say I'm a crazy coupon clipper, but I have started carrying my coupon organizer with me.  Here in Okinawa, our commissary will take coupons up to 6 months past their expiration date.  Our families send us their expired coupons and I have little coupon exchanges with some friends.  I haven't saved an incredible amount yet, but it is nice seeing that I'm saving something each time I go grocery shopping. 

What's your most treasured memory of you and your spouse (not counting your wedding - that's a given)? submitted by Scrubs, ACUs and One Crazy Ride
The weekend of our first Marine Corps ball together.  I flew out to NC for the weekend and we went to the ball, I got to see him all dressed up for the first time, and then the day after he took me to Mike's Farm and we just enjoyed the time together.  I loved that weekend!

If you could live anywhere overseas, what would you pick and why? submitted by Little Moments Like This
I'm living in the place I would pick!  This was hubby's first choice and when I found out he was being stationed here, I asked him if he would sneak me here in his luggage.  Instead he asked me to marry him haha.  I spent 6 years out here when I was younger and I really loved it out here.  I couldn't wait to get back and hubby couldn't wait to explore all the food places! 
 

Link up to join the fun!

Ahh, the joys of living on base

I actually really enjoy living on base.  Some of my closest friends are in the same high rise tower as me and I can trot over to their apartments in my pajamas and never think twice about it.  When we get together for a birthday party, nobody has to worry about driving home...we just take the elevator to the correct floor!  Living on base saves us money out here.  While we think it would be fun to live off base and experience that, it's expensive!  There are so many fees when you rent a house or apartment out here and I'm just not wiling to deal with that right now. 

Tonight though, I'm mad at our base housing.  I HATE the floors we have.  Back in October, I had to file a request for new floors becaus my "cafeteria tile floor" was lifting all over the place and had multiple cracks.  People tripped over them and it was horrible.  I asked them to put in carpet, but they said they no longer do that here.  I gave the man my saddest look and he said they would replace the front part of my apartment with new floor.  I was overjoyed!  We had to move all the furniture around and I had half a dozen Japanese workers in my apartment all day with the nasty smell of the floor adhesive, but it was worth it to me! 

Now??  Well I just got done spending almost an hour on my hands and knees scrubbing my floors with a magic eraser because that is the only way these floors will look clean.  I'm a pretty clean person.  We have a dog, but I try to keep my place in good shape.  I mop, I use our Shark steam mop, and nothing works.  You can actually see the difference in color when you move a carpet.  It's disgusting. 

Tonght it all started with my dog.  My normally well-behaved dog decided to steal hubby's egg salad sandwich from the table and drop it on our cream colored carpet.  He also walked through it to make sure he really got it in the carpet.  Brat!  We had to pull out our carpet cleaner to clean it up, and from there I went on a cleaning frenzy!  I mean...if I'm going to shampoo my carpets, I should vacuum the whole apartment, right?  And then I should mop!  I finally got fed up with my mop not working and started scrubbing.  The floors look much nicer now, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to yell at the first person to drop soemthing on them or walk across them wearing shoes! 

Now I shall enjoy my clean house and time with hubby.  Thanks for listening to my little rant!  Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Check out my baking blog!

I would appreciate so much if all of my lovely bloggy friends would head over to my new baking blog and follow along!  It only has one post right now, but I'll be posting more as I bake more.  I'll still post on this blog too, so no worries.  In fact, I'm hoping I will get more into my blogging now! 

http://bringinghomethebakin.blogspot.com/

Thank you so much!  Update to come soon!