Lunch Out

Since today is our last official day of Bryan's vacation (he does have tomorrow and Sunday off) and being Friday we wanted to go out and have a good lunch. So we ditched the base restaurants and went to a local restaurant that I have heard good reviews on.

We went to Capital's Steakhouse which is a Teppanyaki style restaurant. Which is where they cook the food right in front you at a grill at your table. Like Kobe's Steakhouse in Omaha, and we were hoping Captial's would be better since it is a local cuisine. Lets just say, we were NOT disappointed! It was amazing food!!! We will definitely be going back again! Probably at lunch time as well since it was half price lunch specials! It was on the pricey side with our lunch totaling  3,760 Yen, which equates to about  $49! So at dinner time we would have spent about $100! But it was really yummy!!

This soup was so delicious! It was a potato mushroom soup! Mhmmm 

And of course each meal came with the traditional Okinawan salad, it's more like coleslaw lettuce and it always comes with Thousand Island dressing...I don't think they believe in ranch dressing here.

We opted for an appetizer, and got the Onion Flower, kinda of like Outback's Bloomin Onion...except better and of course served with Thousand Island dressing.

Our Personal Chef...we were the only 2 at our table...and the only 2 in the whole restaurant! We went right around 1:30 so normal lunch time was over.

My lunch! Bryan and I both got the Triple Combo, which had chicken, beef tenderloin and shrimp. It comes with potatoes, bean sprouts and spinach as well. I also got rice.

Bryan's meal, he got the same as I did except instead of rice he got bread.

It's starting to look like Christmas...

At least in our house...not outside! The weather is a blustery 65 degrees today (haha sorry to all you with snow and/or freezing weather). The sun has finally made it's appearance again after being gone for about a week or so. It's been nice, not to have the rain so much. Everything is finally drying out, even the baseball players were back yesterday playing and being LOUD.

On Friday I FINALLY got around to locating our Christmas decorations and put what little we brought with us out and about. When we were getting ready to move over here everything I read said that we wouldn't have a lot of storage place for items we used only once a year so we got rid of lots of our seasonal decor. We went from 3 HUGE tubs of Christmas decor down to one small tote. Now after arriving here and having our apartment, we definitely could have brought all our decorations. We have so much storage areas, but again that is due to living off base. If we would have been on base we would have had a tiny little place. Oh well, live and learn I guess. Plus that just means I get to attend all those 75% off Christmas sales after next Sunday...well if they have those here!

So here is our little Christmas tour for you all! There were some decor that didn't make it out of the box, but at least we now have Christmas spirit around our place!!

I love this shelf! This is the first thing I bought when we moved here to Okinawa! I just rearranged the shelf and added Christmas figurines to it!

Our tree. Yes it is only 1ft tall! We refer to this as our Bella Tree =)

Our tree stand. And a package of gifts from home!! Can't wait til we get to open gifts on Skype!

My dancing/singing penguins of course found a spot on our tv stand! If Bella was here she would be barking at these! 

Our new ornament for this year. We thought it was very fitting since Bryan joined the Air Force this year to have an Americana Santa!

2010's Ornament since we bought our house in 2010.

2009's Ornament.

Bella's 1st Ornament, and Bryan's Titans ornament.

2008's Ornament. Our 1st Christmas spent married!

...

I can't believe December is here already, well actually it's almost half over! Crazy! It's also crazy to think that Christmas is just in 9 days! Okinawa doesn't really scream Christmas, it doesn't really scream winter either (that part I am okay with!). However we do feel like it's no where close to Christmas this year, maybe because we have yet to decorate, or the fact there is no snow and it is still in the 60's (which is as cold as it gets here at all). Either way Bryan and I are just not 'feeling' Christmas this year.

We miss home. We miss our family. We miss snow (gasp!). We miss our Little Bella very very much. The list could go on, but to refrain from feeling like a bah-humbug I will stop.

Christmas this year is definitely going to be different. It was strange to actually mail out our Christmas presents back to family. And it will be even stranger to open gifts over Skype. However I am very thankful for that awesome invention! Maybe it will make it seem like we are not that far away, I can hope anyways!

We are thankful that Bryan's job is being overly nice this year and giving every one a week off! He doesn't even have to use his vacation days!! So awesome! All the guys either get the week before Christmas off or the week between Christmas and New Years. Bryan gets next week, we wish he had the week after Christmas off, but we are not going to complain since it's 'free' time off! This Air Force thing isn't that bad after all lol

We hope all of you are enjoying this Christmas season, and your snow! We will hopefully get more into the Christmas spirit as the week goes on! And I am still counting down days til I get on plane to head back to Nebraska! Only a few more weeks!!!

Our Thanksgiving Weekend!

Thanksgiving weekend was an awesome weekend! It started on Wednesday (Bryan got off at noon!!!) and went until Sunday (obviously). It was a glorious 4.5 day weekend and it was spent doing lots of stuff! Besides Thursday being devoted to cooking and dishes, Friday was spent shopping AFTER 2pm, Saturday was spent watching movies and just being together and Sunday in the morning we were able to Skype with my family while they got together for their Thanksgiving dinner and then we went on an All Day tour with our base's ITT office. It was a great weekend and we are sad that it is over and that Bryan is back to work for the week.


The tour we went on was the Explore the North tour. It was fantastic! It started bright and early Sunday morning at 9am (okay maybe that is just early for me lol), and we didn't get home til after 5pm. We got to see lots of the North part of the island that we haven't seen yet, so just the drive was great! Who knew that we could go from flat land to mountainous land with jungles?!?! It was great!


We started the tour at the Nakijin-jo Castle Ruins, and even though the original castle is long gone the walls are still in tact, and there are some smaller buildings still standing. I myself love history and all things that have to do with long ago times. So this was a favorite on the trip for me. I love seeing where people once lived and see what still remains today! Plus the views were breathtaking!

This was a little hut outside the gates to the ruins, and they sold lots of  little treats to eat.

Bryan being impatient because I was trying to figure out the settings on my 'good, fancy' camera lol

It was breathtaking views on the top of the ruins! 

And a self timer shot! With our little point and shoot camera resting on the top of a very unstable rock lol

After we left the castle ruins we were off to Okinawa Fruits Land, which is where we had lunch! It was a very yummy lunch. We partook in a Yakiniku BBQ lunch, which is where each table has their own grill and you grill your own food! This was a first for Bryan and I, and we had so much fun doing this!!! And the food was awesome! We are already talking about finding another restaurant that has this!  (The pictures (except for the first 2) from this stop were taken with our Canon point and shoot because it was too crowded and I was too hungry to mess with our DSLR lol)

Okinawa Fruits Land!

Bryan sitting at our little table, all the tables were connected! The rest of the people you see were on our tour bus, there were 37 people total.

Cooking our food!! All the meats and veggies were sliced thin so they would cook fast.

Bryan cooking his food!

The restaurant. This place could probably seat close to 200+ people!

My lunch! Yummy, rice, beef, some type of noodle (or veggie not sure but it's in a lot of dishes here) and cabbage.

Bryan's lunch, he wanted the veggies!

Salad, dipping sauce (which is awesome) and our Miso soup that we cooked as well!

Drinking my Miso soup, they don't do spoons here! You drink your soup.

Our next stop after lunch was the Nago Pineapple Farm. This place was really interesting. I guess I always thought pineapples grew on trees, guess not they grow under the ground. We also got to sample lots of yummy products made with pineapples! Also there is a rare sweet potato that grows here in Okinawa and it's called the Purple Sweet Potato, and when they make things out of it they call the flavor Benimo, and it's actually pretty yummy. They make icecream and chocolates with it!

Our self portraits never turn out good, oh well. Us at the Pineapple Farm.

Pineapples growing on Pineapples?!?!

People left their coins in this 'guard dog' at the Farm. Maybe like our tradition of throwing coins in a fountain?

After the Nago Pineapple Farm, we then went to the Ryukyu Glass Factory. They make lots of handmade glass products all the way from glasses, to little figurines! It was a really interesting stop and we also got to make our own glasses!! The interesting part...it's a Glass BLOWING Factory, so you blow in a long tube to form your glass! 

Bryan blowing his glass to make his glass!

Learning how to roll the glass into the right form.

Me blowing my glass.

Forming his glass.

Me forming my glass, our glasses will be blue...it is just red because of how hot they heat it up!

They had these cute cut outs made from different colored glass!!

After the Glass Factory we headed to the Orion Beer Factory which was our last stop on the tour. The Orion Beer Factory was the first beer factory on the island and started shortly after the war ended here in Japan. It is named after the Orion star which rises in the East and is considered good luck here in Japan. Even though it is named after Orion, here it is pronounced Or-re-on when translated to English. The tour lasted about 30 minutes and we toured the whole factory from start to finish on making beer. It was pretty neat the whole process that it goes through. After the tour we got to either sample the beer or another beverage product that Orion produces. 

One of the machines to make beer...I have no idea, I was kinda 'lost' on the tour lol

We got 'play' with the hops that goes in the beer. 

Bryan drinking his sample!

I tried their tea that they make called Oolong Tea, it was pretty tasty.

Well that is all our tour! Whew that was a long one! Hopefully you made it to the end, if not I don't blame you! Hopefully next month we get to go another tour, we are trying to see what dates work for us, sadly most tours happen on Sundays, so then we have to miss church which we don't like doing every week. But hopefully something comes up we can do!