Scuba Diving!!

Chris and I recently got scuba certified... meaning that we can rent gear and scuba dive on our own anywhere in the world. I'll be honest... I hated the training. The scuba diving is fine in itself, but they made you practice all these "skills"... I was okay in the pool, but when we moved to the bottom of the ocean to do them, some of them freaked me out! Anyways, I made it (alive!) and here's a pic of me and Chris with our 500lb. gear on (it seriously feels like it weighs that much... I have to carry mine like a hunch-back...)

Our neighbors here are HUGE scuba divers, so we decided to go out with them last Saturday morning... they took us to one of their favorite spots here - Toilet Bowl. We saw lots of cool stuff, starting with the blowfish that Chris found... when you grab its tail, it puffs up!

We also saw lots of beautiful fish ...

Unfortunately, the underwater camera isn't ours... but our neighbors took some really cool pics for us... Then all the excitement began! Our neighbor Scott, found an octopus and pulled it out of its cave... it started inking everywhere to try to get away. We took our gloves off to feel it... its skin is super velvety...

Here's a short video of us holding it...

Chris and I could only do the first dive with our neighbors... Chris's squadron has a rule about there being 24 hours between scuba diving and flying (because of the differences in pressure)... But, on their second dive, Scott found another octopus, but this one was much bigger. He actually got into a "fight" with it, and it tried to pull off his regulator and mask, so he had to let go! Watch how it changes colors! (And dont' worry mom... I will never try to do this!!)

So, last week, the Okinawans celebrated one of their yearly holidays, called Oban. The whole premise of the holiday is that they call back their ancestors spirits, then for a couple of days they visit their tombs and pray to them, and then send the spirits back. So, to call back the spirits, they have these huge Oban drum-beating/dance performances on the sides of the road. We've seen several the last few days... here's a picture of just a few of the dancers as we were driving by...

The cake business has been booming! I can hardly keep up with all the orders at times... but I really do enjoy the work! Anyways, I got a last-minute call for a wedding cake... a couple was renewing their vows on one of the beaches here and wanted a cherry-blossom cake. Anyways, here's a pic of the cake at their party...

Afterwards, Chris and I went to this cool seafood restaurant here... it's kind of unusual to see a seafood restaurant here. I mean, every restaurant serves fish in some form, but most of it's raw, like in sushi, not like what we think of seafood back in the U.S....


This place actually had pretty good serving sizes as well... (Chris typically leaves the Japanese restaurants still hungry...)

They had some pretty cool decorations as well... this picture is sideways, but there were all kinds of shells hanging from the ceiling, turtles on the wall, etc.
Then on Sunday, I went out with a bunch of my friends to celebrate Sara's birthday... we went to the Rose Garden (a restaurant) and got pedicures! Lots of fun!

Can't wait to see everyone soon!