I(Heather) turned 27 on the 27th of last month…and what a golden birthday it was! Mike came home from work all excited the night before the big day (AND he was home early, by 5pm!). He hid in the study for about 5 minutes to wrap my birthday presents, and came out beaming asking me to open them early. I begrudgingly obliged (sarcasm implied). What I found on the back of one of the presents was a list, “What to do on your birthday” list. “Number one – Snuggle with your husband who is on leave for the day” – I shrieked! Best present ever! My birthday was my last day before work started, the last day before we knew the chaos of schedules would prevent us from being able to be adventurous on a random day or just to relax together, and he had taken the day off and planned it!
So, the day of, we played one of my birthday presents (Lego Pirates of the Caribbean – for a girl that didn’t have video games growing up, this was quite fun!), went for a walk on the beach, hiked around a park near our house that has paths carved out by the ocean water (quite relaxing), and walked to try out a restaurant near our house. It was yummy Okinawan soba and gyoza for lunch, and it was delicious! After our lunch, we walked to the grocery store to get new trash bags (you have to buy city trash bags to put your burnable trash in) and we happened to also buy the sweetest looking (and tasting) cake from Patisserie Porusche – chocolate cake with strawberries amongst the heavenly filling….yum.
My birthday didn’t end on the day of! Since we both had to be at work the next morning, we went to bed at 2030 (830 pm), so we didn’t do the out in town birthday dinner until Saturday. Justine and Andrew met us at Genki – a fabulolus sushi/yakitori/yum restaurant by Araha beach.
The sushi rolls were HUGE! And delicious. We tried out Wasabi yakitori – a little zing, but flavorful. Mike was brave and tried about the stir-fried squid… 
I tried it and it was quite flavorable, and not at all chewy like the calamari rings we have had back in the states. It was quite an intimidating dish though with the squid legs dangling off plate . After the four of us downed 3 rolls of sushi, wasabi yakitori, fried squid, and noodles…we decided to head out for ice cream at Blue Seal. On the way to the car, fireworks were exploding on Araha Beach! Andrew joked that they had planned the whole thing! The fireworks show ended and we headed to get ice cream. As we arrived at Blue Seal, we heard a sound we had heard during Obon – a guitar that is used in traditional Okinawan music. We walked around the ice cream shop to the adjoining Starbucks, and Eisa dancers were set up and dancing away…at the Starbucks! Ok, so I know that the dancers weren’t there for me, but it was still a pretty cool birthday dinner – and it was very much an Okinawan birthday. Slowly, we are making our apartment feel like home, and as we grow more familiar with our area, Yomitan is feeling like home. We still miss our friends and family terribly, but I think we are getting the hang of embracing the adventure before us!
Here is a piece of what we say outside the Starbucks…cuz that happens in the states ALL the time…
