Treasure Hunting

It's kinda funny, I just realized that I have multiple posts referencing Pirates.  It must be all the water around me.

I know it's been a little while since my last post, so I'll backtrack a little before I tell you about our adventure today! 

Our first Christmas in Japan...
          Even though I put up my Christmas tree and hung our stockings there's just something not so Christmas"y" about loaner furniture and no extended family around.  It was very quiet.  We woke and Aiden opened his gifts as we Skyped with Gigi and Pap pap!  Then we joined our new friends J, G, and little J to the American Village.  Side-note... the American Village is an American style shopping "Extravaganza"  with restaurants, and American style movie theater, etc.  We then returned home so that I could bake our mini Honey Ham I found at the commissary, make mashed potatoes without a mixer, and green bean casserole and baked pineapple from memory.  It was successful!  I invited a guy from Little Rock whose family hasn't made it to Japan yet for dinner.  We miss everyone back home (Texas, Pennsylvania, & Arkansas) and CANNOT wait for visitors!!

The next few days I attempted to take Aiden to the beach only resulting in afternoon (after nap) rain showers making for an unhappy 2 year old. 

Update:  Christmas boxes, cards and letters are slowing starting to come in.  The Post Office has been extremely backed up.  Sending anything other then a letter GET insurance on it!  We sent ourselves 3 boxes before we left Texas and 2 showed up the first week we were here and the third just showed up 2 days ago! 

This post is getting long and I haven't even told you about Torii Beach!  I'll have to tell you about our cars in a separate post...I got a Japanese "minivan" and Daniel got a '92 Mazda RX-7...he'll be bringing his back to the states.

Anyways...Torii Beach!!!
         So, I'm in this group on Facebook where you can ask anything about Okinawa.  Question:  Where is the best beach to find seashells?

Torii Beach is an Army MWR (Moral, wellness, Relaxation) which means that it is a private beach for military personnel.  It's a warm 76 degrees today with lots of sun.  We got in the car with our map and started driving. 

The map says its about 16 traffic lights and turn left for another 6 traffic lights and you reach the main gate of Torii Station.  Haha that's funny because we lost could of the traffic lights and just drove until we saw 6 (the Highway?).  about 30 minutes later we see 6 so we follow this for which seems like forever.  Well it is forever...I look at the map again and it looks like we went around our elbow to get to our thumb.  Finally...There it is!  We get on base and find the beach and parking, lose our shoes and put our toes in the sand.

Well, we should have kept our shoes on... not a sandy beach.  It's full of coral!  The water feels glorious and the sun is hot, good thing we brought sunscreen!  Here are a few pictures, hope you enjoy!