Happy Meals

We've been exploring some more. We went snorkeling at Motobu, a beach without any concrete! It was beautiful, but we didn't find any amphipods. We did see this eel, check out the picture...he blends in pretty well.


After a long morning of snorkeling, we were both pretty hungry and anxious to get some lunch. We pulled into a nice looking restaurant at Motobu port and went in. Our confidence was hurt after looking at the menu with four pictures on it (and only about five additional items without pictures). The meals were fairly expensive and as we were deciding how rude it would be to leave the waitress brought us water. We were stuck. After about 15 minutes of deciding what to get, we pointed at the pictures we wanted and the waiter was desperately trying to communicate with us. However, we are the ignorant gaijin that couldn't understand and settled on our first choices.

Our meals arrived about 15 minutes later. The waitress placed a plastic crab-shaped plate with a "hamburga", weiner, fried shrimp, and a jello cup (picture a jello shot) in front of Kris, along with miso soup in a kiddy cup. She had ordered the children's meal. The waitress set it down in complete seriousness, complete with child-sized fork and spoon. Nate did not notice any of this. Once Kris told him, he couldn't stop laughing, which was made worse by the customer walking by our table and laughing out loud at Kris with a kiddy meal.

Nate shared his sashimi sarada (sushi salad) with Kris, but it didn't make up for the small meal she had ordered. In hindsight, we should have realized what was happening. The kiddy meal was much less expensive than the other meals (although the picture made it look huge!) and the waiter was trying to tell us that they had pork cutlet and soba noodles that were not on the menu. Sigh. The worst part is that the waiter must have felt so terrible that he could not communicate with me, even though I was clearly the ignorant one in the situation. Everyday is a learning experience. Nate nearly threw up from laughing so hard the next 30 minutes until we got to a gas station to get a snack to make up for the kiddy meal. If only we had taken a picture! (I must say that the kiddy weiner was the best one I've had on Okinawa yet!)

Alas, the long awaited picture of the "Morning Weiner." We also stopped into a pet store, which was just like a pet store in the states. One odd thing was the grooming section. All of the dogs (the biggest one fit onto half of a fold up card table) were standing completely still while being prodded, cut, combed, and washed. Not one of them looked unhappy. In fact, most seemed to be smiling, like this one.


And for the grand finally...we found a sushi bar with a conveyor belt! When you walk in about 10 people yell out "Sumimassen," "Konichiwa," or "Onegeishemas." Reminiscent of the Waffle House, but with much better food. The video below sums up the experience. You can order from the menu, or just pick things off of the conveyor belt, and you have a hot water spout right at the table for free tea refills. Different color plates designate prices, and when you are finished a waitress comes over and scans each plate that you've stacked up and gives you a piece of plastic that you bring to the register. The piece of plastic is placed on a pad at the register and tells the cashier how much money you owe. Shrimp, egg, eel, salmon, whitefish, fish eggs, seaweed, and sea urchin are some of the common things put on rice to eat as sushi. They even had weiners!