Life Lately: Spring 2018

We all grew up well aware that with warmer Spring weather comes plenty of rain fall. “April showers bring May flowers” as they say, however when you live on a subtropical island “showers” are replaced by a seemingly never ending monsoon season. It’s been a nonstop mix of rain, clouds and thunderstorms for the past few weeks and even though I’ve lived through two other Okinawan Springs by now this one is driving me especially crazy.

Like most people who are entering the Springtime, I am SO READY for outdoor activities after being cooped up inside all winter. However, monsoon season is doing a good job at preventing that from happening. It’s far too dangerous to drive on super slick Oki roads and who the heck wants to get wet?! To add insult to injury, the weather will occasionally throw in a beautiful 75 and sunny day during the work week just to taunt us and then will immediately go back to soggy and miserable. The past two weekends alone we pretty much were house bound because other than the mall or bowling alley, there are legitimately no inside ways to entertain yourself on this little speck of an island when it’s monsooning out.

Oki life has been less appealing than ever and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we are officially leaving in less than a year (assuming the military doesn’t throw anything crazy our way.) I’m more anxious than ever to get back to the states, be close to my family, move into a nice home that doesn’t look like a 1960’s concrete dungeon, buy nice furniture, and even *gasp* start a family. But all of that is on hold until Ben and I officially vacate this island. We’ll have to see how my tune changes though once the clouds clear and Okinawa transforms back into its sunny beautiful paradise. I feel like this summer is going to be a lot of “dang, I’m going to miss this place” punctuated with a lot of “time better start flying.”

How we’ve been spending our inside time

The one upside to being house bound is that Ben and I continue to enjoy being married and spending quality one-on-one time together with no distractions. Even though we’ve been married and living on a small isolated island in the Pacific for 2.5 years now, we still can’t get enough of each other! We may just be super clingy, but Ben and I still get overly excited when we see each other during lunch or after work. We’ve just accepted that we’re permanently stuck in the lovey dovey “honeymoon phase” but hey, I’m not complaining.

The pictures below may make it seem like Okinawa’s been sunny and beautiful out... But don’t be fooled! I’ve taking these pictures for about two months now. I couldn’t help but share though what beauty can be found on this island when it isn’t completely saturated!

This is an adorable smoothie shop in the town of Nago

Araha beach, just a mile and a half from our home.

Spending some lazy, quality time on the Sunabe Seawall.

After posting all of these pictures I feel like I’m kind of eating my words a little bit about wanting time to fly, this place really is beautiful (and just saying my cats are adorable)... *Sigh*... Until next time!