The sun has finally returned to Okinawa, so we headed north for a day trip. First stop was the Butterfly garden. Catie requested to go here a few weeks ago, but we were waiting for the nicer weather. Finally!

After checking out the butterflies, we headed to Ufuya- “Big House” in the Okinawan dialect, for lunch. We had read that it was a beautiful place to go, but had no idea what we were in store for-

The restaurant was nestled up to a hill, with dining rooms opening out onto the hillside and waterfalls. After eating a yummy soba and goya lunch, we went climbing up the hillside. There were numerous waterfalls (all artfully man-made)

with various rest stops along the way

and a perfect spot for throwing kids into a pool!

And we finished off our visit with brown sugar/pineapple vinegar soft serve ice cream, which is much, much better than it sounds…

We’ve had a little success with our stuff growing in window boxes in the back yard. Sean and Catie have been eating carrots (the smaller ones are better according to them)

The tomatos are taking forever to ripen with the cooler temps and lack of sunshine, but hopefully we’ll have some fresh tomatoes soon.
And here’s the faucet that was missing from the last post

So this will be another picture heavy catch up post. We took Sean and Catie to Shuri castle on day. Catie had her pictures taken with all the shisas she could find and we got to watch some of a show of traditional dances and costumes( and check out the cool faucet )

Another weekend we attended an exhibition of eisa and traditional bull fighting. Sean and Catie keep asking to go back for more bullfighting, so we may need to do that before we leave here. Catie was brave and got up on top of a previous champion bull for her photo

Here are the “bulls” they used to explain the different moves the bulls will use

And the actual fighting

And Catie made friends in the stands with some women from Taiwan, they thought she was “Kawaii” and when she cried because she didn’t win one of the few prizes they were giving away, they gave her theirs that they had won.