Hello. I don't think we have written more than once in the past year (guilty sigh). Instead of a full update, which would be exceeding dry, here is our most recent family adventure:
Last year at this time we were on the beach in Guam. That is what I have been thinking every time I looked outside and saw that it was still March, and still cold outside. I actually had a little bit of an itch for the beach. If you know me you would know that is very unusual. Those thoughts were the beginning of our second annual last-minute-March trip to the beach.
Apparently Adam was having the same kind of thoughts. Thursday he came home from work and asked if I wanted to go to Hawaii. Of course the right answer is yes. There was a cargo plane (C-17) scheduled to make a trip the next day with plenty of open seats for passengers. (The military allows us to fly for basically free on some of the planes when there is "space available". It is not a very reliable way to travel, but it is very affordable.) Adam said he would look into the details and get back with me. He went back to work, did the leg work to get us on the list for the plane and get a week of leave from work. When he came home that night we talked about going, got excited, polled the kids, and discussed how we would get home, if the military flight back did not pan out. (Military flights are only posted 3 days in advanced, and even then have very fluid schedules.) Flying home commercially would need to be plan B if the military hop didn't work. We ended up deciding not to go, that it was a crazy idea to think we could be that spontaneous and flexible with 5 kids, even if it did sound like fun.
Friday morning Adam called with a plan A for our return flight. Flights from Hawaii to Okinawa happen very regularly. Flights from Okinawa to Yokota (where we live) happen every Saturday and there is usually room. All we would need to do is catch the mid-week flight to Okinawa and then we could get home. Okinawa is even higher on my list of fun places to go than Hawaii, so the plan sounded great to me. We now had 6 hours to find summer clothes, pack, cancel all our plans for the next week and get to the terminal in hopes of getting on the plane.
All the details of our flight to Hawaii worked out great. The "overnight flight" on the C-17 was loud, cold, well lit, and spacious . . . just what we expected. There were jump seats around the edges of the interior of the plane, and the rest was open. We were able to lay sleeping bags and blankets on the cold metal floor and sleep. The 8 hour flight left around 7pm Friday night. All of us (except Adam) slept between 2-4 hours at some point during the flight. The kids were way too excited to sleep more than that. Crossing the dateline had us arrive in Hawaii at 7am Friday morning, 12 hours before we left.
On arriving we were ready for play. We grabbed our bags, crammed them and us into a rental van, and headed straight for the first interesting sign we saw, Pearl Harbor. After a little freshening up in the parking lot (summer clothes, clean teeth, combed hair), we took the tired-family, child-friendly tour of Pearl Harbor. Bombs, torpedoes, sinking ships held the kids' interests. It was neat to be able to talk with the kids about how the attack on Pearl Harbor and the rest of WWII relates to our living on a joint Japanese Self Defense Force/US Air Force base in Japan.
We spent the next five days in Oahu enjoying the beach, the warm sunshine, the beauty of the Island, and the American conveniences unavailable to us in Japan. There is never too much sand and ocean for our kids, except Eliza. She got enough. We tried our best not to burn and were mostly successful. Sunday we took a break from the water and sand, but we did picnic at Sunset Beach, at sunset. We also enjoyed the LDS temple visitors center and grounds, the most relaxing part of the trip for me. The world's largest maze at the Dole Pineapple Plantation was on the top of Howie's list. We also rode the Pineapple Express train, tried the pineapple ice cream, and learned how pineapple grows. We ate baked RUSSETT potatoes and hunted down a Mexican food restaurant, two things we can't find in Japan. We also shopped for random things we have a hard time finding in Japan like ballet tights and a huge thing of yeast and cinnamon from Costco. The island was amazing, but just being in the states was also a lot of fun.
The sheer fatigue of the overnight trip helped negate jet lag and turned out to be an asset. For our first three nights we stayed in the Kaneohe Bay Beach Cottages on the Marine Base. They were not fancy, but it was wonderful to have three separate sleeping areas, a kitchen, and a porch to ourselves. The cottages were right by a beautiful beach with great waves and wind. The boys loved the sand and the waves at this beach.
The next two nights were to be spent at the Hale Koa in Waikiki. This hotel met Samuel's expectations. He likes his hotel to feel like a resort. This was the tourist experience of the trip. The beach here was also good.
Very kid friendly close to the shore. Samuel and William were able to go out a couple of times and ride the bigger waves on their bodyboards with Adam. The most memorable bodyboarding experience was when Adam stepped on the sea urchin. (He is, unfortunately, still remembering it as the spines in his heel are still slowly dissolving.) Howie, Eliza, Eden, and I discovered that the kiddy pool at the hotel was just a little cooler than a hot tub, but a whole lot bigger.
Our second night at the Hale Koa was cut short when we learned the military plane leaving for Okinawa the next day had moved the roll call up 5 hours, and we suspected it may be earlier than that. Adam's friend Ben had warned us the planes like to sneak off without passengers in the middle of the night. After 4 hours of sleep for the kids and none for us, we packed up and left for the airport. We got there around 11:30pm, just a short while before the roll call. There were only 10 seats on the flight and we got 7 of them. Yeah! We checked our bags and got our boarding passes. Then we settled into the family lounge to watch movies and wait until our 4am departure time. At about 3am our flight was called and we were notified that is was cancelled. Our rental van keys were already turned in, because that is the policy when you get your boarding passes, so we put the kids to sleep in a dark corner of the family lounge at the airport and waited for the rental car people to show up at 8am. I guess we could have taken a taxi back to the hotel, but we were too tired to think of that.
The other two flights that had looked promising for later in the day were also cancelled, and there were no flights set for Okinawa until Friday (Saturday in Japan). Military flights pop up and disappear frequently, but after a night in the airport and nothing promising on the radar we decided we didn't want to spend the rest of the day in the airport hoping something might come our way. To go through with plan A we had to get to Okinawa before Saturday so we could catch the routine flight back. After weighing all our options, including buying tickets to Kauai where John & Carole were staying and extending our vacation several days, we decided our kids had had enough spontaneity and we better get them home before it wasn't fun anymore.
That is where plan B worked perfectly. We checked into an Embassy Suites Hotel (with a complimentary upgrade to a two-bedroom suite) for the night and took the kids swimming while Adam bought tickets on China Airlines. We then went to dinner and got a good night sleep before heading to the airport in the morning.
Howie summed up his experience one day on the beach. He said: "Mom, let's go back to Japan and get all our stuff and move here." Not likely to happen, but maybe next March we will find Howie another beach. Okinawa is looking pretty good from here.
The picture version of our travels can be found on our website: www.olson411.net. As wanderers we miss home and love to hear your stories. If you have the need to wander too, we would love to show any of you a little around our part of Japan. Family is always welcome. We will be in Japan until July 2013 if anyone wants take us up on the offer.
Love,
Adam, Kaylyn, Samuel, William, Howie, Eliza, & Eden Olson
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