inu ni mo chanto aisatsu shinakucha

i woke up several times in the night to use the bathroom. i kept feeling like i had slept enough but since it was in the middle of the night and no one else was up, i went back to bed. eventually i got up and showered. i greeted the 2 dogs my uncle's family has.

then we all went grocery shopping together at kanehide, located at navel kadena shopping center. while we were out, we caught a whiff of someone's cigarette smoke and my uncle k1 commented on how horrible the smell is. he smoked like a train for years but both he and his wife have quit. he wondered at how he used to make others feel with his stinky habit. what a revelation for him it must have been.

we went back home and ate. at the store i bought soy milk based bread along with soy milk. the soy milk was too plain for me, it was kind of sickening. i am so used to american soy milk that is sweetened with the flavor of vanilla. this is plain soy milk and it tastes like watered down tofu. my mom made sure to buy vegetables and lots of water. my uncle was eager to watch tv as okinawa had made it to the high school baseball championships. they hold this game twice a year and okinawa often has strong baseball teams but rarely wins. apparently okinawa never wins the summer championship. true to form, they lost the game.

for dinner, my uncle's wife yoshie was very kind to me for she made me vegetables without dashi no moto (fish seasoning), which is a huge deal because japanese put it in EVERYTHING. i realized that there wasn't much food on the table. for american standards, there was food for about 2 people. we were 5 at the dinner table!

after dinner, i wanted to walk to the beach so my cousin erika led the way for me and my mom. it was a very brief walk, perhaps 5 minutes. it was a gorgeous beach but the sun was setting so i really couldn't take any pictures. i was determined to come back and go swimming soon. there were some graves along the way and i wanted to take pictures of those too because okinawan graves are different from the rest of japan. i will have to do that later on.