Our vow for the day, was that it was going to be more relaxed. There was nothing that we HAD to do. We had found a famous shopping street nearby and they had a Pokémon store there, so that seemed like a good place to start the day.
After some yummy hotel breakfast of course. I personally woke up with a massive headache and a bit of a cough too. But on the bright side, L woke up saying that his mouth didn’t hurt any more. Small victories.
Ty dropped the kids and I off at the Pokémon store, while he went and parked the car at the other end of Kokusaidori Street, he’d walk back to meet us, then we’d walk it all together.
Well the actual store inside was quite small, but it had Pokémon cards, which is really all that mattered. We got some for L, and some for some friends. Then we hung out waiting for Ty to join us, and L was transfixed by this Pokémon video game they had outside the store. I couldn’t figure it out but this one mom was hooked on it. So different!
Once Ty joined us we went to walk the street and see if we could find a Christmas ornament or a local mask. Our traditional souvenirs.
We did eventually find a neat ornament but the masks were all super heavy clay and expensive. So we focused on our next task, trying to find lunch. We tried a taco place, it was the only shop without any workers. We tried a restaurant called Kids Burgers, we didn’t see any burgers on the menu, it was expensive, and they only took cash. So finally Ty suggested we go to McDonalds. Yep, I know you all probably just fell out of your seats. I’ll wait while you gather yourselves…
Anyone who spends time with Ty will notice he doesn’t drink alcohol, caffeine, or even anything carbonated. Additionally, we really try and eliminate any fast food in our diets. Certain exceptions apply when traveling, especially if there’s a Chik’fil’a around. But McDonald’s is like his hard fast rule, there’s no acceptable time for it. So when he was the one suggesting it I knew we had hit a rough patch on our trip.
Wonderfully in Okinawa the kids meals came with the options for corn and milk to drink. Ty ordered his first ever Big Mac, and seemed pleasantly surprised. I had some sort of spicy chicken sandwich, that was about as lame as I expect from McD’s. All in all, we survived, and the world didn’t end. 🙂
The weather was actually warm again, the sun was shining so we decided to hit up this nearby playground/beach area. The playground was pretty beat up. So the kids changed and headed straight for the beach. Which wasn’t too great of a beach either. It was super coral-y, and we couldn’t get to the waves. We ended up exploring the tide pools for a bit. We found lots of sea cucumbers, sea urchins, hermit crabs, and shells.
The nice thing with this fail, was that we were relatively close to Katrina’s place. We decided to swing by and say hi, one more time! Again, when traveling for a few weeks at a time, its really nice to have a place where your kids can be free to play and make noise. And for us to have someone guide us on where we should explore or eat next was really nice. She recommended this ramen place just down the street from her house, that closes at 5:30. Her friends recommended it, and they were spot on! We showed up at 5:15, and we all found something we enjoyed. R ate the ramen soup and noodles. L ate the chicken, my fried rice, and some of my soup. Ty and I gorged on the gyoza, and this ramen was amazing! All of it was so yummy. It was nice to have something really work out well for us. And my headache was finally easing up.
Then we went back to the fail train! We attempted to go to a lantern festival that was just five minutes away. R threw a fit and wanted to stay in the car. I told Ty I’d stay with her if he and L wanted to check out the festival. There was talk of amazing ice cream, and then R knew she wasn’t going to get any by staying in the car. Another meltdown occurs, turns out the lantern festival was a bit of a bust, AND the boys couldn’t find the ice cream shop. It was just a day of mostly downs, which is hard.
So we plugged the kids into their audiobook and began the hour long drive back to our hotel. The traffic sure is getting tiring.
But the bright side of the festival not working out was we actually got the kids in bed by 8pm for the first time in days.
Ty and I are looking forward to leaving Okinawa tomorrow. We go to Osaka, and are hoping that being back in a big city, and not in a car for hours at a time, will help us get our groove back.
