North to Hedo Point

Rachel wanted to cover the island North to South, but we also made it East to West and hit BUNCHES of places in between :)

Hedo Point is the most northern point of the island where the East China Sea meets the Pacific Ocean (which is what we believe this monument says :)

Life imitates art!

Being pretty much in the middle of nowhere, we never expected to find a soba (noodle) shop up there! Complete with drink vending machines and decent bathrooms!

Rodney climbing around on the landscape. Notice the arch in the rock peeking in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.

Rachel's holding the East China Sea in her right hand and the Pacific Ocean in her left!

A little side road from there takes you to this giant Yaeburu Rail. It is an endangered species located only on the northern part of the island. But, just in case you're wondering, they're not all this large!

The view of Hedo Point from inside the bird.

We then started our journey south to head home, but had a few more adventures along the way....

Our first Oki visitor!

After about 24 hours of travel, Rachel has arrived on the other side of the globe!!

She loved the sign we made for her :)

While we were waiting for her plane to land, Rodney and I wandered around the airport and found a "penny" machine!! (Since they don't use pennies in Japan, the machine was loaded with penny-sized copper discs that would be pressed into the design.)

Rachel's #1 request was to travel the island all the way North and all the way South (which we did!). So, that's how I'm going to tell our story........

Children's Day

The fifth day of the fifth month (May 5), as part of Golden Week (week of celebrations), the Japanese "set aside a day to respect children's personalities and to celebrate their happiness"! They traditionally hang out carp windsocks as the carp need strength and health to swim upstream representing the well-wishes of strength and health for all children. These carp are hung out at their homes, businesses, and over the rivers. This is Tengan River right outside our housing area.

Some are 4-5 feet long, ...

...while others are about a foot.

These banners were hung along the railing.

Notice the hand prints on the banner above and the carp below. I can imagine that they were each part of a class project :)

I think the self-portraits on these are adorable :)

I would have loved to have been able to read these!

They were fun to watch blowing in the breeze! Our river looked quite bare once the colorful flags were gone!

PS~Check out "the rest of the story" on Wikipedia :)

Penguins!!

For those of you who don't know, I've been a penguin collector for many years. So one of the things Rodney wanted me to be able to do before we left San Diego was the penguin encounter at Sea World!!
We got to go behind the scenes where they talked to us about the penguins and their habits.

Isn't he CUTE?!?!?

Then we got to pet him :)

(This picture makes Rodney look like the Penguin Whisperer!)

Following that we were able to go into that REALLY cold enclosure and get some up close pictures!

This little guy seemed to be showing off for us :)

What a super memorable experience!!

Go Padres!!

So excited to get to do the #2 thing on his list!!!
We took him out to the ballgame--Padres v. Diamondbacks.

It was a great last evening and wrap-up to his visit :)
Now, if we could just get him to Okinawa!!!