Monday, August 16, 2010

The last weekend in Oki

I will start off with the good stuff.  This is to be called the Big Mountain.  Our Camp A staff at our site got this to eat after our delicious meal.














It's all mine!














DONE!  That literally took us 15 minutes to finish.  Was the best $5 that I ever spent :)














Yummy pineapple.  This was along Kokasai street when I was finalizing up some souvenirs.














Yea I was just as freaked out as you are.  I wouldn't be caught dead wearing one of those.














My disturbed face at the frog purse.







There are one of these vending machines to every 7 people on this island.  Isn't that ridiculous?!?!














On my way up the mountain on the island we went to on Sunday.  It was called IE island and it didn't have a lot on it. 











The mountain!








 The view from the top of the mountain.  How pretty :)







Another view from the top.







I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!















And now I am about to fall hahaha just kidding. 
















Well that was pretty much my final weekend in a couple pictures.  I will probably have only one more blog preceding this, I want to thank you for your subscription to Jakob's Blog and I look forward to any donations that you may way to give.  But in reality I have had an amazing experience here in Okinawa.  I hope that you were able to see what I learned and saw throughout my trip.  I miss you all and can't wait to be home in Iowa.

Love lots,
Jake

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Coming to an end...

Hey everyone,
Sorry its been so long since my last blog.  The weather hasn't been cooperating too well and I haven't gotten a whole lot of pictures the last weekend.  It was just a time for me to relax and catch up on some souvenirs.

A very large Shisha dog. 








The lighthouse...it was pretty neat and you could see everything around you.








This was by the lighthouse and I just thought it looked neat.















The best beach that I have been to ever since arriving in Okinawa.















One of our campers invited us over to her house and this is what the mom made along with many other things...YAY UNI colors!! Funny thing about that is that they are KU fans hahaha.





This was a festival that I went to that was a tug of war festival.  They ropes are huge as you can tell.  This was the red team and they carried it quite far.





Here comes the purple team with their side of the rope.  The loops are put inside one another and have a bar that connects them.  The winning team went on to Naha to go to the championship.





Me and a couple friends joined the purple team on their quest for victory.















Needless to say we won...Everyone on the winning team gets a piece of the rope.  I think this is my favorite souvenir thus far.






This week in camp is around the world week.  The kids tried to make different houses around the world out of cardboard such as igloos, TPs, straw hut, etc.  Our group tried to make a straw hut...it came out looking more like a hobo's house but that's okay because we had fun.




I hope I have a couple more pictures to show before I leave.  Only a week and a half left :)  I can't wait to be home and see you all.
Love lots,
Jake

Monday, August 2, 2010

Those forgotten...

I don't have a whole lot of pictures to show you because I have just been finalizing some souvenir stuff and laying out on the beach but here are some random pictures.
This is when we were at the Orion beer factory with all of our drinks.







Here is me painting my fish for the start of camp.  I never want to paint or draw big pictures ever again after this week.





We try pretty hard to impress the children...That is me in a toucan outfit that took me 2 and a half hours to make.  It was jungle week.



















I can't find any more pictures so I apologize.  I will try and take some more pictures throughout the rest of my weeks here.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Snorkeling Fun!!

Hey here are some pictures from my snorkeling trip but I didn't really get a lot considering I can't get any underwater.  Some friends were able to get some from their protected cameras.  I hope you enjoy the scenery, I know I loved how gorgeous it was.
The start of our tour and I was a little nervous I may get sick.















The island off in the distance where we would be snorkeling.







It was sooo beautiful.








Me after I got sick of riding on the top with the current.  I had to get some Dramamine from the tour guide and I took a nap...after that I was perfectly fine.






See, I told you I felt good :)








The water was so clear and pretty you could see to the bottom and all the colorful fish just swimming around.






There were some other boats around and this was just another part of the island we went to.







We weren't allowed to go on the beach but it looked really nice.







This was our group and the boat we took.  We had a lot of fun and got pretty burnt.








Hopefully I can get those pictures of stuff underwater but that was my snorkeling trip in a couple pictures. 

Miss you all and less than a month till I come home.  Love lots,
Jake

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A weekend in Okinawa

Here is from my tour called the Northern Highlights in which we went to a glass blowing place, the pineapple wine factory, fruit land, and the Orion beer factory.

This was all made from glass so I thought I should get a picture.















This game cost $3 and you throw ping pongs into the bin and try and get it into the cup.  You will the cup and save yourself about $15.





This is the area where they blew the glass and heated it all up.  It takes about 48 hours for the glass to cool down.






This is one of the pieces you could buy in the store.  It has flowers all over it and am sure it cost over a hundred dollars.














This was our lunch in which we got to cook it ourselves.






If you paid $2 dollars you could get this food and the birds would fly onto your arm and eat it.  Pretty bird, pretty bird.....I just thought he was really quiet.












Here is some good ol' pigs face.  I don't know what their fascination is with pigs but it's pretty sick.














Yes, there is a snake in that glass. It is called habu saki in which you take some pretty strong alcohol and mix it with snake venom.  People say if you take a shot of this your liver shuts down.  They say you take a drink from this and your good for the night.












The good stuff.







Yea I am just chilling with my beer in the Orion factory.  It's going to be weird coming home and not being legal in the states.














There were some stines in the factory so I thought papa might want to take a look at those.






On Friday we were separated into teams and we were the poisonous dart frogs.  We had to play dodgeball, have a relay, and pass a banana with our feet.













Sofia sent me some Toy Story gummies so I thought I would share my excitement for this gift.















The summer is coming close to an end but I am trying to enjoy the rest of my time here on the island.

Love lots,
Jake

Monday, July 19, 2010

More from Oki

I got to go to the Tedako Festival on Saturday night and watch some interesting shows.  They also had some good Japanese food and beer that you could get while watching the fireworks.


When we got there they were doing a traditional Japanese dance.





There were a ton of people at this festival.  We seem to stick out from everyone else though.






This was another dance they did...the funny part was the guys in the front wore little cloth and you could see their butts when the wind blew.





They held these for quite some time.  People would be holding onto these poles and would bob up and down and sometimes they would start to fall and they would try and catch them.




The dragon took the stage and was twirling all over the place, it was pretty neat the way they had it move.






HI-YA!  Karate...I was standing on the side doing some of my moves.







I miss the good ol' food from home so I had to get it on a stick.














At one point in the night they said this countdown and the kids let their balloons go.  They weren't normal balloons because they would hover in the air and float back down once all the air was gone.  It was funny though because if you caught another persons then it was yours.  Yummy kid germs!




It was a learning experience going to the festival and I thought it was very interesting.  I hope your having a good time at home with all those terrible storms I am hearing about.
Love you,
Jake