Welcome to Okinawa

     Hello to my old readers! It's been some time since I last wrote about my adventures in China but fast forward five years (where did the time go?!) and given our recent move to halfway around the world, I thought I should restart my old writing habits. We are 14 hours ahead from EST so all of our communication is disjointed. I hope writing about some of our adventures, frustrations and other life happenings keeps everyone better informed. If I don't respond to a text or call, it's because I am asleep or my phone didn't receive the text- still working on that bit!

    So, here we are in Okinawa, Japan. I'll begin with our trip over- not so ideal. We were far too spoiled from our lovely trip to Italy! On this trip we flew with other families on a military chartered flight- about 48 hours of traveling in total. We felt greasy, nasty, and, yes, of course a little hangry as we deboarded but we caught a ride from our sponsor who ordered us food and then dropped us off at our hotel. Thankfully, as we were so exhausted, we had no issues with jetlag! Anyone reading this knows sleep is quite important for me so that was a relief! 

    Over the next few days we wandered around, orienting ourselves to our whereabouts and checking out the local food I'd heard so much about. Three takeaways in three days: the food is delicious, the drivers are a bit crazy, and I have a bit of Japanese to learn! The Okinawan people are extremely polite so the least we can do is learn some Japanese to help communicate but thankfully, a fair amount of people speak English. I will post more about our house, our first ER visit and other new endeavors in the coming days!