Catch up...

Last week, Alison's friend Kevin arrived on the island for a visit. It has been so nice to have a familiar face in Japan. On Saturday, we decided to head down south to the Ryukyu Glass Factory to blow our very own glass! After they gave us our short introduction, all of which needed to be translated for us, we followed each step to make our own glass cup. Let me tell ya, it's a bit harder than it looks to get a perfectly round cup....I wasn't so lucky! :) It's alright though, mine is special and unique!
To begin we put on our sleeve guards and heavy duty gloves.
Next, they brought over the glass and we had to blow into the little hole in order to fill the mold to make the glass.

Here is the furnace where our glass is getting ready to be shaped.

Then, they led us to this chair where we were instructed to hold the tweezer looking things in one hand, to form the opening, and get the other hand ready to roll the rod.

It was much harder than it looked!

The day was a lot of fun and with another experience to add to the Japan list!

We had to travel back down south this week to pick up our finished glass products so we figured we'd take advantage of the closeness and head down to the southern tip of the island. Let's just say it isn't like the northern tip, in that it's in the middle of nowhere and we literally had to walk down this little farm road and step into a small garden to get to the edge. However, our trip could not have been more perfectly timed for a beautiful Okinawan sunset. We are happy to say that we have officially been from tip to tip of the island!

Here is what goes on behind me while I walk....ahead of everyone as always! :)

Alison and I as we try to contain her hair
We had a brilliant idea to set our timer to get a group shot only it was kind of awkward as we were directly on the edge of the small cliff. We got a "normal" one but this one was too fun to pass up!

Love this scenery!