Matt and I moved into our new home Saturday the 14th (the same day we brought Petrie home from the kennel!) and I have to say: we love it here (never thought those words would be coming out of my mouth). We immediately bought paint and paint supplies and got started painting our bedroom a fairytale blue and the kitchen cabinets a pretty sky blue. We still have more painting to do but those were the musts before the inspector came Monday, as well as TMO (the movers with all of our belongings).
The day we went to pick up Petrie from the kennel Matt and I spotted a litter of puppies up for adoption (so cute!). So cute, in fact, that the next week we went back and adopted one! Her name is Scuttle (from The Little Mermaid) and she is 9 weeks old, white, fluffy and has a big brown patch over her left eye. My two doggies are getting along much better than I had anticipated. They play play play for a good 20 minutes followed by a (blissful) two hour nap. Those naps are my window of opportunity to unpack boxes and get the house in order.
Let me backtrack a minute :
The very first week we were here in Oki Matt went to check in to his new unit (12th Marine HQ-- did I say that right?). At the end of the day he comes back to the hotel room and tells me they transfered him to another unit called the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit). Basically, the MEU goes on ship and is "on-call". Since Marines are the first to respond to trouble in other countries (I like to compare them to the SWAT team who breaks down the doors and charge in). The MEU has to be able to reach the other countries in 48 hour notice, which is why they sit out at sea. The MEU, I've learned, also deploys quite often. The very day Matt came home and told me of his unit transfer is the day he also told me he is deploying in August for 2 1/2 - 3 months. Seriously?? I know the deployment isn't as long as other deployments, but it's still a deployment (and my first to go through) and on top of that: we just got here! I don't even know how to drive yet. I guess I should make a list of projects to start (training a new puppy being one of them) and start making friends, pronto! (I hear there is also a chance he will deploy again within the year, but I haven't heard any details on that just yet).
So last week Matt and I decided to skip cooking dinner and venture out of the house to eat. I looked up local restaurants on OkinawaHai.com and came across a ramen "shop" a few miles from us. Talk about yummy! Thankfully the website came with a picture because the sign outside of it is all in Japanese and we would have passed it right up! It's hard for me to call this place a restaurant. It's tiny and as soon as you walk in you walk right up to a bar. You sit down and look at the menu (they had an English version). The cook and kitchen is in front of you on the other side of the bar. They greet you and you basically point at the picture you want (since their English is very limited..fine by me! The point is to exercise our Japanese! We are in their country, after all). We were served a huge bowl of curly noodles in a broth that has been cooking for 14 hours that day! It was topped with sliced pork, sprouts, and some shredded purple things I didn't recognize (cabbage? seaweed? anyone know?). Matt and I grabbed our chopsticks (since these restaurants don't carry forks) and slurped away! We were told that, here, it is perfectly normal and acceptable to slurp lol Oh, they also had whole garlic cloves and a garlic press for you to add freshly pressed garlic into your soup..now that just made my night. Mmm Mmm Mmm..
Well, the puppies are still napping so I'm going to take this time to order more curtains (for the kitchen) and start hanging pictures on the walls. Hope everyone is having a great day!
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