Hong Kong: Wednesday and Thursday

 The annual Asia Area Women't Conference happened, and you know I had to go!  I flew out on Wednesday all by myself.  I ended up spending the day with another lovely lady from our District, who is in a different branch.  We went to the temple together and then to dinner and then I got her off to her hotel while I headed off to my hotel.... and I never got her name!!

My friend Hope arrived late Wednesday night from Iwakuni and we bunked together.  On Thursday we went to the Temple and the Ladies Market before the Conference began. It was a good day!

Some lunch options.  It was a hard pass for me.

The amazing buildings.So many tall ones! 

Me and Hope, at the Temple. 

Me at the Temple.

And one last Temple selfie.  Just because I was glad to be there!

The city is amazing.  The buildings fascinating.  So  it is fun to wander around and just look at everything. 

 People watching is also super-fun!  Especially when you see gems like this on your way to the metro!

We went to the Ladies Market, which I always enjoy!  I felt like they didn't haggle down as much, but I also didn't need much.

I 

I did look for my perfect purse though!  This is the purse I have been thinking about- ever since I did not buy it last year.  So I bought it this year.  And I still love it.

Hope and I went to dinner here.  We did get duck, but not one of those ducks.  It was pretty tasty, but I wouldn't go back and get it.

 Where the Conference is held. We got there just in time to register and enjoy the Devotional on Thursday evening.

 My cousin's wife's sister is in my District and came to the Conference.  

Good Times

This dog!  He was too cute and needed a photo. 

It was wacky day at school and this was Rylee! 

Marian made a friend. 

She is also a goober. 

Levi is taking Sarah for a walk. 

Such a good boy!

Nakagusku Castle

After a wrong turn or two, we did find Nakagusku Castle.  And it was pretty cool.  The pictures are somewhat out of order, but whatever.  I'm just gonna roll with it because it has already taken me too long to blog and I'm not taking the time to fix it now.

We rode a golf cart to the top of the mountain to the castle.  The kids were thrilled.  It was pretty fun!

When I say "castle", I really mean, what's left of the castle built hundreds of years ago.  And it is mainly the walls. 

There was this awesome lookout point and you could see both sides of the island.  Very cool. 

 Hee hee hee.  Watch out for Hubs!  

Rylee and Callie.  I love them! 

Me at the lookout point! 

It did gave an amazing view.  And the castle ruins were pretty neat. 

These girls were just too cute. 

Nifty walls and entryway. 

My "I was there selfie". 

 Another one.  Because it was a cool place!

It was interesting to speculate what this large grassy area might have been. 

I thought this would be a cool picture.  But.... lighting!

Nakamura House

 The kids were out of school on Friday, and Dan had the day off.  So we went on an adventure.  Except Josh was in Korea.  And Delaney was at her friend's house.  So it was just Marian, Callie and Rylee.  We had a good time.  I wanted to go see Nakamura House.  It is the oldest standing house on Okinawa and was built in the 1400s, I think. It was very interesting.  And large.  And cool.

Silly shenanigans on the lawn.

 Cuties, enjoying the garden.

 Not entirely thrilled to have a photo taken.

The courtyard to the house. 

The married son's quarters, or guest quarters.  So interesting how different the houses were from what we have now.  

Super awesome roof decoration.

And then we wanted to go to Nakagusku Castle.  But the GPS was lame and took us elsewhere.  So we checked out this cool shrine.

Rylee is posing for me.  

And all the girls let me take a picture of them.  Isn't it pretty? 

And then there was this little shrine.

And this cool statue that you can't see with the shadows. 

Rylee met a stone frog and thought a kiss might be in order.  It did not turn into a prince, stone or otherwise.  

My Boy! And his Play.

I will start with the back-story..... Months ago, Josh had the opportunity to try out for Far East Drama.  Far East Drama is the team that puts on a play and then goes to the Far East competition with all the other DODEA schools in the Asia area.  Josh did not try out for it, and instantly regretted it once the parts were selected.  But it was everlastingly too late.  So he kicked himself for not doing it. He went and told the Drama teacher that he would be an alternate or understudy if they needed one.  they did not. So he moved on to other things.

Then one day I got a phone call.  It was a Tuesday. One of the girls had to drop out. Did Josh have a current passport?  Was he interested in stepping in?  And, oh, by the way, the play was to be performed in 10 days and the flight to Korea for the competition was in 12 days.  Josh was thrilled!

I had to scramble though.  He was scheduled for oral surgery on the following Thursday.  I cancelled the wisdom teeth removal portion of it, but he still had to go in and get brackets put on three teeth that had not yet descended down. (He needed "chains" put on them so they could be attached to his braces so they could pull the teeth down, since they refused to do it on their own.) And that absolutely had to be done.  So on Thursday he got to go in for that. On Friday he performed the play and did a fantastic job!  And on Sunday, he flew to Korea for a week, and performed the play for all the DODEA drama kids in the Asia area.  Because he is awesome!

The play was titled "8 Ways Pokemon Go is Ruining Your Life" and was a cute play with 8 different mini-acts to show different ways Pokemon Go might not be a good thing.  So he played multiple characters.

They had to perform a monolog.  Josh stepped into a 3 person... tri-alog?

His was interesting.  But odd.  For having to learn that many lines in 10 days, he did excellent. He did excellent for someone who had months to prepare, actually!

Here he is playing Jolteon, a Pokemon.

It was pretty funny.

Trying to catch pokemon on his phone.

And this spectacular shouting in his face.

The most hysterical scene was depicting how you should not play pokemon Go at a funeral.  Since Josh stepped in for a girl, they did not change up the funeral scene (or any scene) for him.  And he portrayed the grieving spouse, who's husband- Zac Effron- had died.

It was so funny! And he hammed it up beautifully.

The whole play was clever and fun.  And the kids all did a great job.

Josh rocked the play and all the parts he played in it.

I was impressed with all the kids.

And our whole family very much enjoyed the play.

This is the selfie I made Josh take with me before he left for Korea.  I love this boy!!