A New Experience...and a very short post

Today I got up the courage to do something I haven't done while here in Okinawa. Mike hasn't been feeling to great since Tuesday night and I was feeling adventurous. I walked to the car threw my purse in then walked to the right side of the car...yes I finally got brave enough to volunteer to drive!

I only hit the wipers once while trying to turn on the turn signal so I was pretty proud of myself about that. Mike suggested we take the main roads since the shortcut has some narrow roads with gutters that can really damage the car if you run into them. It was probably a good suggestion because I was driving very far to the left. I was so afraid of getting to close to the cars on the other side of the road!

After a while I got comfortable and it didn't seem any different then driving in the states. We made it home safely and made plans for me to try driving again in the morning as long as we don't leave late. I figured I need to get this driving thing down soon because we need to start trying (yes trying) for our licenses soon. Apparently they don't let you pass the first time if you are American : /  Plus I'll be driving me and baby around for the little while that I am not working this fall.

Hope you enjoyed the post...sorry no pictures or exciting traveling news.

Making Mochi

Today we stayed after church because one of the Japanese women and her friends had offered to teach the church family how to make mochi! I had seen it done on tv but it is still quite amazing to see water and rice hot out of the rice cooker transformed into a huge white sticky blob! 


The process includes a huge wooden bowl and huge wooden mallet. You put the whole contents of the rice cooker into the bowl and add some water and start pounding! When the rice starts to stick to the mallet you add a little more water. It actually didn't take much time before it became a huge blob of mochi! 


They took the mochi to a table on a flour covered plate then the experts (okay and a few kids too) rolled them into balls using the flour to make them less sticky. While they were doing that someone brought out some miso soup (with meat, daikon, and a few other veggies) for lunch. It was good but with my pregnant senses I couldn't eat much of it.


After lunch was done we got down to the dessert! There were different things to put with the mochi including seaweed, soy sauce, soy bean flour, jam, peanut butter, and of course sweet red beans! We didn't actually put the different flavorings inside the mochi (Pastor said it wasn't quite the right consistency yet) but it was still tasty. I didn't try all the "toppings" because I wanted something sweet. I got a spoon of peanut butter, sweet red beans, strawberry jam, and blackberry jam. It was very good and made me wonder why I haven't had mochi in such a long time!


On the way back home we got to see a little bit of the Okinawa Marathon and a few silly costumes. Again, we have video but I don't have the patience to try and put it up here right now. It took us ridiculously long to get home (even after staying long at church to try and avoid it) but I was glad we didn't have to find a new route home!