For the longest time now, I thought Round 1 was a bowling alley. It isn't. It's a bowling alley plus SO MUCH MORE, and right down the street from our base in Ginowan City. Its a mega sport and game complex that is perfect for one of the many rainy or way-too-hot Okinawan days. Do you feel like hitting a few at the batting cages, having a round of mini-golf, playing some arcade games, or rollerskating? How about riding a mechanical bull? Or a mini-bike? Or maybe some slot pachinko, darts, pool, or karaoke in your own private room? How about just relaxing in a massage chair?? I think you get the point...
A couple weekends ago, Matt and I decided to meet a couple of our friends up at Round 1, because it was kind of a rainy Saturday. The building is huge and the 7 floors are hard to miss. An added bonus is that it is located right beside the Ginowan Marina on the East China Sea, so you get some really nice views of the ocean from the inside looking out. Besides the fact that I was sore all over for days and could barely walk without looking like I was disabled, I had a great time! The only thing I didn't get to really try was the rollerskating or mini-bikes, but we bought membership cards, so I'm sure we will be back again soon. Did I mention they have archery? Oh, and did I mention that I beat Matt at it?? ;)
I still don't really understand what Spo-Cha means, but that's what they call this type of game/sports place I think
The exterior
View of the Ginowan Marina
Inside one of the floors
Check out this video clip of the skating rink: And yes, those ARE full-grown men on mini-bikes, and there IS a Japanese person dressed up as a life-sized bowling pin.
Me playing the boxing game and practicing my numbers... Ich, Ni, San, Chi, Go!
Drink and soup machine on the Relaxation floor
Me in the relaxation room trying to figure out how to work the massage chair since the remote was all in kanji symbols
The open-air top floor that has mini-golf, archery, basketball, tennis and batting cages
There was a whole section of private rooms, although we weren't sure exactly what they were for or if they were free or not... this one was a "massage room"
A "stage room"
A "love room"???
The Pachinko and slot machine floor
Matt trying to win a stuffed animal in the claw game
Hello Kitty w/ a bunny on her head...
A claw game where you win ice cream as a prize!
Bears!
Matt attempting to understand the point to their coin games
Check out this video clip of a crazy Japanese guy playing one of the games:
I guess a more appropriate title for this week's blog would be "A Ride in the Park", because we did much more bike riding than actual walking the other weekend at the park. However, let me start at the beginning of our day - pancakes! Jakkepoes, which is apparently Dutch for I have no idea what, is an amazingly adorable little (and I DO mean little!) pancake house in Yomitan, which is a town just north of us. It is owned and operated by two Japanese women who make you feel right at home - this may be in part due to the building and decor as well, but I definitely felt as if I was going over to a friend's house to have breakfast. You feel like you are in their dining room, and they are in the kitchen, which is visible through a pass-through sort of counter. I had heard about this restaurant's amazing pancakes, which they serve all-day long by the way, and Matt and I ventured out once again to find this tiny restaurant with vague directions (all directions to anything in Okinawa are incredibly vague!). We drove north, turned onto Rte. 6, turned left at the 4th light past the Torii Station gate, turned right when we saw little brown and white signs low to the ground that said "pancakes" on them, and ended up at Jakkepoes. The "parking spaces" were so tiny, we barely fit our Pajero in one of them. Hahahaa... I'm not kidding:)
Our Pajero in front of the tiny restaurant
You don't have to tell us your spaces are small - we know!
I think it had some sort of underlying cat theme
Gum Syrup
Me and my DELICIOUS mango juice!
Matt and his boring orange juice
They have Tic-Tac-Toe games for you to play at the table
My Berry Pancakes - SO GOOD!
Matt's Banana Nut Pancakes - awesome as well, and I don't even really like bananas!
As you've probably guessed based on earlier comments, we followed up our pancakes with a bike ride through a new park (well, new to us) called Comprehensive Park. The name is strange, but we think it may be a literal Japanese translation - the park IS very "comprehensive" in that it includes many different things. Inside, you can find multiple parks, beautifully lanscaped ponds, bridges, boat rentals, a waterpark, biking trails that come out along the ocean, running tracks, baseball, soccer and other sports fields, a banked bicycle track, and we even got to watch a rugby game in progress!
A map of the park - it was huge
Me on my bike
Matt and his bike
The CRAZY aggressive fish in all the ponds
Check out this video clip of Matt feeding these fish:
A random Japanese girl blowing bubbles
"Please do not feed stray dogs and cats. If you feed them, their population will increase which will lead to dog and cat bites." - We didn't see one stray dog or cat the whole time! But I do love the illustration of the crazy cat lady:)
Matt feeding more fish
One of the playgrounds within Comprehensive Park is awesome (maybe it was meant for children, but there's no way they were keeping us off!) Beside the fact that I have a strange obsession with zip-lines and they just so happened to have one, they also had an enormous rope jungle-gym thing that you can climb up! I don't think its "safe" enough to be in an American park, but the Japanese seem to be slightly less safety-conscious when it comes to playgrounds. I know my description of this thing isn't the best, so continue on for some visuals...
Me getting ready to "zip-line"
Check out this video clip of Matt riding the "zip-line":
The crazy awesome jungle-gym thing!
Me at the top of it
Me looking down from the top
Matt on the jungle-gym - kids actually requested that he stop jumping!
So, we ended up braving the raininess (I know its not a real word!) to have a fun bike ride. I also may have slipped, fallen off my bike and scraped up my hands while surrounded by onlooking Japanese people pointing at me (okay, maybe I imagined that last part), but that's beside the point. Despite the rain here and there, the park was really fun to explore and ride through. Combined with some yummy pancakes, this was an awesome day!
Thank you to all of our friends and family for following! We love you and wish everyone a happy and meaningful Easter!
Once upon a time, I, Cortnie, worked at PetSmart in Bloomingdale, IL. I believe my love of animals came about from growing up with cats, hamsters, fish, horses, a rabbit or two, and I even had a chameleon for a while there. Some of my friends (including my husband) may even describe me as a "crazy cat lady", but I don't care. In fact, I embrace it as a compliment - I love kitties and I'm proud of it! Hehee:) Okay, so I might have gotten a little off the subject there... anyway, what I wanted to say is that because of my past pets, I naturally can't wait to have a pet of my own. However, we aren't quite able to have any right now, so one of our favorite things to do is find new pet stores and browse:) A couple of weeks ago, we located two new stores: Puppy Luv & PETBOX!
This is the puppy Matt and I wanted to take home from Puppy Luv - he was SO cuddly!
We literally had to pry his paws off of me!
PETBOX - "Always Together"??
"Favorite Dog! Favorite Cat! Etcetera Pet!" LOL - SO Japan!
An employee weighing a little puppy
This puppy was moving around so fast he was just a blur
Matt and the bulldog...
We never figured out what kind of fish this was - they had a few of them for sale at PETBOX, and all of them were around the same price: Y598,000.00 (about $6,000.00!) What is it?!?
Tiny, green moss-ball, anyone?
Some adorable bunnies! They were hopping back and forth over the little divider walls into each other's cages:)
The little gray one was my favorite, and Matt was trying hard to bond with the tan one, but it wasn't working
Dog and cat nail polish - testers and all! (I'm a fan of the Marine Blue)
And now it's time for...
Updates in the Life of Matt & Cortnie:
Update #1: Earthquakes
As many of you know, we had a very large (7.0 magnitude!) earthquake take place here in Okinawa, Japan earlier this month. Despite the size, there were no damages, injuries or deaths, because the buildings here were built to withstand them - if I had any doubt about this before, I am definitely convinced after waking up to one of the most violent earthquakes I've experienced! Following the quake, we weren't just under a tsunami watch (which never happened BTW), but we also experienced several smaller "aftershock" quakes for days. I was starting to become paranoid that I was feeling them all the time! I've actually done quite a bit of research on earthquakes since, and found out that Japan has the most recorded earthquakes of anywhere in the whole world! Hmmm... they forgot to tell us about that little piece of information prior to us moving here...
A video clip of the sirens we woke up to the morning after the earthquake (tsunami warnings):
Update #2: Jet-Ski's
Matt and I are still enjoying our Jet-ski's on most weekends that the sea conditions are favorable. Most recent updates: We've started the process of totally overhauling our trailer (new rails, welding, rust-busting and re-painting are in the works), we also got brand new matching covers for both the ski's, and the other weekend, we went out on the Pacific Ocean, island hopping with some sort of "jet-ski gang" (a group of other jet-skier's like ourselves:) which was different, but tons of fun!
Matt cleaning one of the jet-skis
Update #3: New Job
Yes, it is true - I have finally found a job here on-base that I am enjoying enough to give up my life of island unemployment:) I've been back in the work force again for almost 2 weeks now! Although it isn't anything close to my career back in the States, I believe that working as a 30-hour/week teller at an on-base, government bank is going to work out nicely for me while living in Okinawa for a few reasons: it is easy, it keeps me from getting bored during the day, the hours are nice, I get to meet some new people, and it's flexible enough for me to still take time off for trips. Basically, this is exactly the type of job that I was looking for while living here in Japan - nothing too serious, but a way to make some extra spending money for trips, going out, etc. and possibly making some friends here! Banking isn't my true passion, but I can honestly say that I'm enjoying it much more than I expected to!
Me - not at my new job - just wanted to add the pic:)
Update #4: Hong Kong!
Matt and I have been living in Japan for 6 months now (it was 6 months on March 11th to be exact), and I am READY to get off this island and do some traveling! With our 5-year Anniversary (March 24) as well as both of our birthdays (April 16 & 22) all taking place within the next few weeks, we decided to make our first trip out of the country to Hong Kong & Macau! We will be gone for 5 days and 4 nights (April 14-18), will be staying at a cool boutique hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and will even get to meet up with my ex-boss from Gettys in California as he will be there on business as well! The flights have been purchased, the hotel has been booked, and we are now just waiting - I can't wait to see another foreign country and share it with all of our friends and family here on the blog!
Thanks everyone so much for following - we love and miss you all so much and are so appreciative of the love and support you all give us over here on the other side of the world!
