Flea Market

Saturday, we got up at 5am and loaded both of our cars with our "junk" for the flea market. When we got to the base there were at least 100 Japanese cars lined up outside the gate for the flea market to open up. We knew then that this was no joke. Once we got into the base, there was another line of about 50 or so cars waiting to register to set up at the flea market. Once we pulled into our spot, swarms of people came over to our car as we are unloading out stuff! I think we sold about 10 items just within minutes of opening up our trunk. It was a little overwhelming at first. As you can see in this first picture, the Japanese man was running from spot to spot looking for good deals before the others get there. We got a good chuckle from this.
I had to say "good bye" to many of my old clothes, but it was fun and now I get to find new ones to replace them! We could not believe how fast the stuff was going. We had sold about 80% of our stuff in the first hour. We started at about 6:30am, and waited with the last of our stuff until about 9:30.
This picture was taken around 8am, and you can see most of our stuff is about gone and.......












.....this is an hour later, and we are pretty much just hot, tired and done at this point. But the flea market was definitely a success, and we had fun, we got rid of some stuff we no longer needed, and made some money doing it.


Finally, today was Gator's 5th Birthday, We almost forgot due to the Flea market (and we also had some of our good friends over for some Korean bar-b-q), so it was a busy day. But Gator did get a birthday present, and Ali even sang him happy birthday!

Gator and Ali

Not much has happened in the past week. We have made a "to-do" list of things that needs to be done before we leave the island, when we get to Seattle for check-out, and when we get to Denver. Our flight has been confirmed to leave Okinawa on August 3rd and will be arriving in Seattle on the same day. If everything goes as planned, we should be in Denver, CO by no later than 15th of August.
We are in a dire need of help in trying to potty train our little Ali. She seems to know that she isn't suppose to be doing her business inside the house, but accidents are happening more than once a day. Phil keeps telling her if she doesn't learn soon, that she will be sitting outside the house with a "for sale" sign around her neck. That doesn't seem to phase her though. :)
We are open to any suggestions. Please help our little Ali.
Doesn't it look like Gator is telling Ali a little secret in this picture? These kiddies of ours make us laugh so much.
This Saturday, we are going to set up a booth at a flea market to sell our unwanted stuff around the house. You never know how much junk you have in your house, until you drag them all out into the living room. I'm getting really excited about my first flea market experience. :)
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer weather! I'll tell you all about our flea market experience next week.
PS: Happy Birthday Aggie!!!!

Kalua Pork and Cabbage

We miss Hawaii so much that we decided to cook up a Hawaiian dish. This really was delicious and we wanted to share it with everyone. Of course, we had to eat it with rice.
We both love trying different dishes and try to re-create restaurant's delicious dishes at home.
There is a small little Hawaiian restaurant called Ono Kau Kau in Okinawa that we frequently visit and the Kalua Pork and Cabbage is our favorite dish there. I found several different recipes online and improvised a little bit. I hope some of you get to try this at home and enjoy it as much as we did.

Ingredients: 1-2 lbs pork butt (with or without bone), 2TBSP liquid smoke, 2TBSP salt, 2 cups of water, 1-2 cups of chopped cabbage, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1tsp minced garlic, 1 TBSP oil

Directions: Place pork, liquid smoke, salt and water into a slow cooker. Cook it on high for 7 hours. I turned the slow cooker on the night before and turned down to low in the morning and the pork was very very tender by 5pm. When the pork is ready, place 1TBSP of oil on a skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is heated, place garlic and onion and saute for about 3-5 minutes until onion is tender. Add Chopped cabbage into the skillet and saute until cabbage wilts. While cabbage is cooking, take the pork meat out of the slow cooker and shred using a fork. The meat should easily fall apart with just a fork. Add the meat and some of the liquid (depending on your liking) into the skillet and heat for another minute or so. Garnish with green onions if desired. Hope you like it.

Golf

After returning from our Honeymoon, we did one of our favorite things to do on our days off. Golf. This time, we tried one of the Okinawan country clubs and we fell in love with it.
As with everything in Japan, the service was more than wonderful. There is a cooler filled with Japanese tea already set in our cart and it gets refilled after 9 holes. We are also given ice cold towels at the beginning of the round and after 9 holes. There are couple of snack shops set up between holes where you can buy hand rolled sushi, yakitori, tempura, or drinks. It is getting a bit too hot and humid to play late into the afternoon, but it was so worth the experience. After 18 holes of golf, we get to experience the traditional Japanese bath and spa inside the club. After the refreshing shower, we are given a traditional Okinawan soba lunch set. It truly was a wonderful golf experience. Hopefully, we will get to try out one more Okinawan course before we leave the island.

Welcome!!

We hope this blog will help keep closer contact with our friends and family.
We have just returned from two weeks of vacation starting from our friends Leslie and Steve's wedding in Germany to our own beautiful wedding in Maui, Hawaii.
We were able to meet our old and new friends during our vacation and reunite with our family.
We have just a little over a month left in Okinawa, Japan and the Johnsons (Phil, Maria, Gator and Ali) will be heading for Denver, Colorado.
Gator and Ali stayed in the Karing Kennels inside the Air Force base during our vacation and they seemed to have had not too stressful time. Ali is still not 100% potty trained, but she is improving little by little everyday. It really helps to have such a great big brother to model after.
We would like to thank you all for your support and friendship and please stay tuned for more of the Johnsons adventures.