Food and Fish Markets

We had a pretty relaxed weekend due to the fact that Jake needed to spend time getting ready for an upcoming event. Sorry, I know that is vague, but as a military spouse I don't really have the luxury of sharing every detail of our life. 

I feel like our lives and adventures here center around food and I'm ok with that. Friday started with a pizza night in while Jake ran around the house making preparations. Saturday started off with pumpkin pancakes, one of our favorite breakfast items.

I have a hard time getting ready here. I still can't quite figure out the weather. It is getting cooler, but not cool enough to wear a typical fall outfit. The mornings and evenings are super cool, but it still gets pretty hot during the day. This is the solution I've come up with:

Shorts, sweater, and booties. 

We went to our favorite ramen place for lunch. I talk a lot about our ramen obsession, but I can't even describe what it's like and how fabulous it is. You might be thinking top o ramen noodles that cost 38 cents at Kroger, but this ramen doesn't even compare. The hole-in-the-wall place we go to cooks the broth for 14 hours. They include incredibly tender pieces of pork. Most ramen usually has green onions and bean sprouts as well. The noodles are soft and absorb the broth. It's basically perfection and we can't get enough.

We then went to the Px and the commissary for some shopping, which I really enjoy doing. I love grocery shopping and Jake loves coming with me so that he can pick out things he wants. I always come home with way more when Jake comes with me. 

We have been missing our Mexican food fixes, so we decided to have a little fiesta. I made my favorite green chile chicken enchiladas and they ended up being the best batch I've ever made! It was nice to have a bit of comfort food. 

Jake pretending to help with dinner

Sunday we decided to get out for a bit. We had been wanting to check out a fish market in the town over. On our way, we passed a mall and decided to stop and see what it was all about. It was such a cool and interesting place, like everything here. The first thing we walked into was a huge supermarket. There was tons of fresh produce, fish, and meats and also tons of ready to eat items. There were also little stands of people making food and a huge bakery. The rest of the mall looked similar to what we see in the U.S. Clothing stores, shoe stores, a food court, and center pagodas. Add in a couple of arcades and you have an Okinawa mall. It was super interesting to see and I can't wait to go back to actually shop. We also stopped by the furniture store that is very similar to Ikea and a store very similar to Dick's Sporting Goods. 

Next we headed to the fish market. It was smaller than I was expecting, but there was tons of fresh fish and seafood. The fish was pretty much as fresh as you can get, brought into the port that morning. The market also has a little cafe that uses the fresh fish. We had heard that it was amazing and so we tried the lobster plate. WOAH, it was different and wonderful. It was half of a lobster covered in some sort of gooey cheese. It also had the freshest sashimi I had ever tasted. My only disappointment is that we didn't get any fish to take home with us. 

Later that night Jake went on a run and came home very excited. He made me get in the car and go with him to look at something he found. He had discovered a private, beautiful beach RIGHT NEXT to our house. We don't know how we hadn't found it before. There were tons of shells and the water was super clear. I am also learning that we get beautiful sunsets even though we are not on the west side of the island. 

Yes, the water is this turquoise!

Have a wonderful week!