10,000 Eisa Dancer Parade in Naha

I think she was the youngest drummer there.

Eisa is a traditional dance with a long history. It originates from a folk song that used to be sung several hundred years ago. The dance style was passed down by groups of young people who would pay respect to their ancestors each summer by marching through their neighborhoods while playing taiko drums.

The unique rhythms and movements of eisa are accompanied by the beating of drums and a beautiful, lively dance that involves the whole body. Recently some people have started using rock and pop music instead of just traditional music to create popular new styles of dance known as "creative eisa." Source  

At the Dental Corps Birthday Ball the Eisa performers danced to Who Let the Dogs Out.   It was fun to see them dance to a non-traditional song.

We attended the 10,000 Eisa Dancers Parade in Naha this year.  I love seeing all the colors and different ages of the dancers.  When all the drummers are drumming in sync and you can feel it as you stand there on the street.  It is amazing.  

Here are several groups walking to their places along the route.

Here are a few shots of a group performing.  They jump and twirl, it is very cool.

Of course our blond brood creates quite a stir wherever we go.  They were more than happy to pose with our kids.  The young men in stripes saw me taking pictures of the kids and just jumped in.  They are laying on Jayce's lap, he thought it was pretty funny.  The last pictures shows 5 photographers wanting pictures of our kids.

The Navy Dental Corps 100th Birthday Ball

This year the Dental Birthday Ball was formal due to it being the 100th Birthday.  It was the best Birthday Ball I have been to yet.

The food was delicious.  The H'orderves, so yummy - the best bruschetta I have had in awhile.  After mingling for awhile we sat down to enjoy our 5 course meal.  I had vichyssoise for the first time.  I like cold potato soup.  Jason didn't enjoy it, but enjoyed the fact that it would have been even more uncomfortable in his jacket with hot soup.

The committee did a fantastic job of decorating and providing entertainment.  The tooth ice sculpture was a nice touch.  The entertainment was Eisa Dancers (more to come on that).  If you remember the opening ceremony from the Beijing Olympics with all the drummers.  It is like that, but a smaller scale.  It is so cool to feel those drums and watch them dance.

Part of the formalities of a Military Ball include toasts after the meal.  There are nine toasts, Jason was asked to do the toast for Family Members.  This is the only toast that you provide the one to two sentences yourself, the others are scripted.  He was fantastic and looked smashing in his Dress Whites.

Here are some pictures of Jason and co-workers, and one with a friend and I.  

Trying to get a good picture at this was like pulling teeth, hehehee.

Losing His First Primary Tooth

Grahm has finally decided to join the rest of the children his age and lose a tooth.  His first tooth came out on July 30.  He is very proud of the hole in his mouth and looking forward to losing many more.  I am guessing that since he has been slow to loose any teeth and he will lose 7 more in the next few months.  Good thing we don't get much corn on the cob around here.

(I screwed his hair up, I cut it like I do Jayce's.  Trying to decide how to fix it, he doesn't want it shorter.)

The Artificial Reward

Since there was no pot of gold at the end of our hike up Mount Fuji we decided that the boys needed an artificial reward and the girls for being drug along for the ride.  So we ended up at Tokyo Disney.  I had always planned on our first trip to Disney of doing something really cool to surprise the kids and film their reaction.  Well, I lost that mommy moment.  But, we had fun...

By the way this was Jason's first experience and he has graduated from kid to grumpy old man.

I am starting to think part of his dental decorations should consist of office signs.  Could be cool.

As we entered the park we caught a glimpse of Winnie the Pooh and Tennyson became immediately obsessed.  I don't think she has even  seen the cartoon.  So, Jason (in one of his many - not grumpy old man moods) decided to take her in the Pooh store and she went nuts.  She sleeps with Pooh every nap time and night.  I think you can see that Daddy likes making his girls happy!

In the morning we hung out as a family (that included our friends), we rode some rides.  Charlotte was tall enough for some of the big rides.  So I took her on Thunder Mountain.  She did pretty good until one of the dark parts when you get jerked around a bit.  It was a tad bit too intense for her.  I was proud of her, she did great.  We just need to get Jason into rides.

When you are at Tokyo Disney with  American kids, be careful where you feed them.  1.  It is expensive (I think lunch was $60), and 2. Some Japanese food is better than others.  We checked out a few and then thought we had found a decent one, but hamburger was really hamburger steak slathered in sauce.  No one was thrilled. 

After lunch our friends took the boys to do some of the more adventurous rides and we took the girls to the girly stuff.  It was so much fun.  I am looking forward to taking them again when Tennyson is a little older and maybe even doing the whole princess thing.

One of my favorites that we met was Mary Poppins.  All of the characters were very nice and stayed true to their character.  It was fun to watch the princesses arm movements.  I love how Mary Poppins keeps her heels together when she is standing.  We saw Mary Poppins twice and she remembered Charlotte and her name.

The girls loved the Merry Go Round, but then again our family has a thing for horses.

Tennyson has seen the Dumbo movie and had fun on the Dumbo ride.  We almost missed it because you have to be awake to ride the ride.  Tennyson had fallen asleep on my shoulder in line and didn't want to wake up.

A few of the other characters we saw.

Grahm wanted to go on the Teacups (he likes to get dizzy like his momma).  So we ran off and Charlotte decided to join us.  Neither one of them got sick and I had it going pretty fast, their heads were rolling.

We all met up for a few more rides and dinner.  For dinner I hunted down American food (I know boring, but I wanted my money eaten and not trashed).  Tomorrowland has yummy burgers and fries.  The burger has a different kind of sauce on it, but it was still yummy.  The girls loved the Mickey Mouse shaped chicken nuggets.

The boys loved Space Mountain and had to drag Jason back for one more ride.  I missed being with them to see them experience it all, but they didn't have to hang out with any princesses.

We watched 2 parades.  One during the day and the other at night.  It was fun to see and there was so much more to do.  It was super nice to be in Japan and not have to panic if I lost sight of one of them for a sec and to leave your bags in your stroller while you go on rides and no one is going to steal anything.  In fact they are always rearranging the strollers outside of rides to keep the parking nice and tight (valet parking for strollers).  One time our drinks ended up spilled and they were offering to get us another one.  Super nice, we didn't have them replace them - we left them on the foot rest of the stroller.

We had to tell Tennyson that Pooh and Tinker Bell (her other new obsession) had to go nu-nite so she would leave with out a fight

Traveling on Honshu

While we were on Honshu we decided to see a few things and were able to use the public transportation there.  It is super easy and everyone is very helpful.

This is some of the country side we were able to see as we sped along.  It is beautiful, even when it is misty and foggy.

Here we are in the Subway with all our luggage.  We are almost to the hotel and so glad to be almost done.

At most of our stops we had to change lines, which would mean a few flights of stairs (sometimes there would be an elevator handy - but not big enough for all of us).  We were all beat by the time we made it to the hotel in Tokyo.

Traveling without luggage and without hiking sticks is much easier, especially during the morning rush.

On our walk to the hotel we saw this dentist and we couldn't resist a picture.  This would be fun to see in the office one day.

Here we are outside the hotel after dinner.  The kids loved the fountain and its ever changing colors.

We were super lucky and made it out on our first attempt, so lucky.  We had to get everyone up at 4am to make the 2 hour train ride to the military base and then no taxis are allowed on base so we had to walk with luggage and kids all the way to the terminal (I am guessing about a mile, Jason can correct me later).