new adventures

Here are some recent photos from the Torii Beach Wine Festival.

Kimono girl

Jazz all day long

Jazz all night long

hanging out on the grass

serious fireworks

John is back, yay!  Before he came back I got a chance to go rock climbing with some friends.  It was at an indoor "gym" here, and really fun.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to even make the first couple of steps, but it's surprisingly easy when you use your legs instead of hands to force your weight up.  The wall that I was able to climb was about 30 feet high, and straight up.  Most of the walls actually slant backwards, so you are not only gripping on the tiny rocks to keep from falling down, but to keep from falling backwards.  I made it about 75% up one of those more advanced walls before I fell backwards, but you have a friend attached to a rope that keeps you from falling to your death.  It was so fun that I actually found myself the following day kind of itching to climb a wall. We're going again next week and I', sure John will love it. 

Then, saturday, Lauren and I went snorkeling off the Kadena steps.  It was the best snorkeling spot I've seen so far - the fish were really diverse.  I saw a black and white striped water snake, which was apparently poisonous, although the sly little sucker swore he wasn't harmful when he was cozying up near me.  Then I saw a fish that was square around it's girth.  It was black with neon tiny spots of pink and yellow all around it.  It looked like a tacky-Pier-1-Imports-table-art-tchochky version of a fish.  I can't imagine how these fish evolve to be neon pink, blue, yellow, and square???  

Lauren swam up to me, and said, "are you getting stung?" and I was like "no, what are you talking ab.....ah? ouch! ouch! ouch! what is that?????" And I was getting stung all over my legs.  I couldn't even see what was stinging me, there was nothing there, but I hi-tailed it out of the ocean lickety split.  I had puffy irritated spots all over me.  Microscopic jelly fish?  Toxic nuclear waste from the Chinese subs??  I'm hoping it's the former, as I'd like to snorkel again soon.  Ironically, I had been mocking our friend Dave for wearing a full body wetsuit.  Needless to say, he did not get stung.