End of Summer

At the end of summer, we went to Okinawa for our last family trip before Maggie heads off to her new life in college. It is known as Japan's Hawaii and it is only a couple hours away on a direct flight. We rented a car, skirted the city and drove up the toll road to Ocean Expo Park (part of the International Ocean Exposition in 1975), and home to the Churaumi Aquarium, famous for their three whale sharks. These awesome creatures are up to 12 meters/40 feet long - you can imagine how big the tank must be!
 
We made it just in time to take photos of the sunset before checking into Hotel Mahaina Wellness Resort. We had a lovely view of the ocean from our Western/Japanese (two bed, two futon) room. Enjoyed the onsen and pool and a couple delicious meals in the resort - of local pork, beef, seafood, and mugs of the local brew Orion. The Expo park is quite large so we only walked around the northern part where the aquarium and beach were. We drove around the rest of the peninsula after and stopped in Nago for ramen and a little shopping at Aeon Max Value.
 

There's still a big U.S. military presence there and we saw a number of them on Friday evening out to dinner with their family and friends. During one of our many stops for local ice cream, Blue Seal, we noticed the logo looked like the Foremost brand logo - a favorite of Paul's from his early days in Taiwan. On another ice cream stop, we were enlightened when we found the history of the name posted.
 
After a couple nights up north, we drove back south along the coast to the airport city of Naha, stopping for local beef burgers near the big base, Kadena, returned our rental car and rode the monorail into the city for our last couple nights. We went for a stroll along the touristy shopping street, Kokusai-dori and ate more local meat and seafood upstairs in the market with takeout sashimi from below. The next day we set out for Shuri Castle and since it's on a hilltop had to wait out a thunderstorm before walking around the grounds. We returned to our hotel for a break before venturing out for a shabu-shabu dinner at a restaurant built to resemble a treehouse.

 

Besides Taiwan, Japan has been our one of our top vacation locations! We've been to Tokyo, Hokkaido, Kobe, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, and now Okinawa...

Summer Part 1

This was the first summer we stayed in Asia...

At the beginning of summer Maggie and a group of friends went to Taipei for 5 days for their own senior trip (all her photos are on FB but here's a couple of group shots I snagged).

Paul was in the States for work so as soon as Maggie returned (she was back in HK less than 12 hours) the kids and I went to Taipei to spend a few days with Susanna and Catie at the end of their time there. We had a lovely meal with some of the ladies that worked in the company's old office. We also got to spend time with cousins Henry, Chu Yin and daughter Hana.

Back to HK then it was time to work! Maggie worked for both sessions as a Program Support Assistant for the School Summer Camp and I taught 5-6 year old Stories and Drama for the first session. It was crazy at times, but fun, and some of the students have recognized me now that school has started again - so cute!

Alex went for a week-long surf camp out in Sai Kung Country Park. They did more than surf - kayaking, SUP, snorkeling, canyoning, cliff jumping, swimming (of course) and hanging out on the beach. The base is in a little village with eateries so they ate there a couple times, but the rest of the time had sandwiches, BBQ and cooked up their own pancakes, etc for breakfast. He mentioned there were bugs and stuff to deal with at night as well as the heat, but I think he had a good time. I want to go there someday myself!

Here is the link to his photos (might not work on a smart phone so click this link).