The plan was for Nate to grow his beard for 10 months, longer than Alex's longest turkey beard, and to send it to Alex to mount on a hen. He made it 5 1/2 months before he had to get a haircut and a real job. Nate is now gainfully employed as a waiter at the Macaroni Grill on base.
Who knew one could get permission to work part time while here on a dependent visa? Not us. It was remarkably easy, considering Japanese paperwork, to get this permission.
In other news, we went to the Okinawa zoo this weekend. As always, we enjoyed the signs, particularly this one, that warns people that the tiger may pee on your head. The tiger is in a cage approximately 3 meters away, yet this apparently is still a problem.
There were lots of Raven-sized Okinawan fruit bats, which although we see them flying around at night, were really fun to watch while they were active. There are two videos at the end of the blog showing the bats climbing and one flipping itself over to pee! Very cool stuff.
We saw lots of other really neat animals, including a South American anteater with 30 cm long tongue! There were some very old tortoises, who were getting a bit frisky, and we even got to feed giraffes some leaves!
The weather is getting cool, but it's not as cold as last year. Hopefully it will stay this way. Merry Christmas!
