Breakfast on the Beach & Geocaching

We are very lucky to have beautiful weather at least 6 months out of the year!  By that I mean 60's or 70's for temps.  We have also been fortunate the last two weekends to have Tommy home with us and no work on the weekends for him!  We have really needed this because between deployments and his work schedule we had really been missing him. Trying to soak it up as he will be leaving again soon!

Two weekends ago, we had a sunny nice day and very little on the agenda.  We wanted to head down south to Naha, the capital of Okinawa, but it was too far away since Tommy was still on standby for assistance with the disaster on mainland Japan.  So instead we decided to have breakfast on the beach at this YUMMY new place we had been hearing about and then go geocaching.

The restaurant was called Seaside Cafe and it sits nestled on a quiet little street that backs to the East China Sea.  It is quiet, quaint, and specializes in Wyatt's favorite - french toast!  The owner is a French chef and he married a local Okinawan and they moved here and opened the restaurant.  It. is. AMAZING!  Soooooo yummy.  And they serve lattes.  And they didn't even bat an eye when I spilled mine all over myself.  They just came, cleaned it up, and brought me another one.  So sweet!

The kids loved it because they could play on the seawall while waiting for our food.  After we ate we strolled back down to the sea wall and I snapped these photos.

Then we decided to give geocaching a shot.  We had heard about it and wanted to try it but just hadn't gotten around to it.  Basically, you sign up (for free) on a web site and plug in where you are at and it gives you a map and grid coordinates to plug into your GPS and you go looking for TREASURE!  The fun part is, you have only small hints and clues as to what you are looking for.  It is usually some sort of small container with a small booklet inside for you to "log" that you found it and a small token like a kid's coin or something.  You bring your GPS and the closer you get to it, the GPS will tell you (using the coordinates) how close you are.  It will get you to within about 10-20 feet and the rest is up to you to find the treasure!

It sounds easy, but some of the treasures are hidden well and are challenging!  They have to be sort of well hidden because you don't want "muggles" (random people) to find it and just walk off with it, not realizing it is part of a game.  The website rates them on a difficulty scale of 1-5.  The first one we tried was supposed to be at Pirate Ship Park, which the kids love, so we went there and Tommy & I tried to find the treasure while the kids played.  Umm.... harder than it sounds; we couldn't find it!!  So we went to another site, also at a park for the kids to play, but it was hidden in a thick vegitative area and again we could not find it!  I think it would have been much easier if the kiddos weren't with us (and really fun for them if they were older!) but it wasn't meant to be for us.  We will try it again some day though!

You should know that this is not just an Okinawa thing.  There are places all over the entire world with these treasures hidden - you should try it - it is super fun!!  Just google it if you are interested!