 Our Christmas tree this year in Okinawa Special Christmas edition blog! First time experiencing Christmas away from home and our families :( But trying to make the most of it. Will attempt my dad's famous Cioppino tonight with our neighbors and drink as much champagne and egg nog as we can - gotta keep those family traditions alive! #whitteychristmas For all of you who don't know, my dad's cioppino is famous - gonna be hard to live up to it #hopefullytheappledoesntfallfarfromthetree And attempted homemade egg nog for the first time - gonna be hard to live up to Steffani's famous drink but I'll try! We stayed busy in our month of December leading up to Christmas and tried to get into the Christmas spirit. Every year in San Diego, I would organize an ugly sweater wine tasting the Saturday after Thanksgiving with friends and family. Unfortunately, didn't get to do that this year so I attempted to round up some friends to start the tradition in Okinawa. Good turn out of new friends - but not as big as our annual Temecula tasting.... yet. Excited to see what next year brings and hoping we can make it even bigger! #anyexcusetowearmyuglysweater #santaleggings #hanginwithmygnomes Made it to about 3 bars #herdingcats Enjoyed craft beers and even got my friend Alex to try Habu Sake #success!  Twins! #sorority #hanginwithmygnomies #merrychristmasyafilthyanimal #santaleggings  The group shot - First annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Bar Crawl
Next Christmas party we went to was at the Yomitan Tap Room. This place has some great craft beer by the beach so I was able to pretend I was in San Diego for a few hours. (Even some Stone Beer #ruinationipa) #imissyousandiego #youstayclassy We were one of the first to arrive for their holiday party and met a Japanese Woman named Riko. She was excited I knew some Japanese (Suggoi! (awesome in Japanese)) and taught me some new words as well. We became fast friends with her and her friend Carl (dressed as Santa), who comes here 6 months a year from Michigan. Won a few prizes throughout the night due to our drinking skills and ability to drink to earn raffle tickets. #newhats #bubblegames #newshirts #skilled Had to start giving gifts away because we had too many #christmasspirit #itswhatsantawouldhavewanted And because we had so much fun with Riko, we ended up going golfing with her and her husband the next morning at Chibana Golf Course. Excited to have some new Japanese friends and can't wait to learn more from the locals :) During golf, I learned that the word 'stop' in Japanese is tomale (easy to remember, sounds like tamale!)
 Holiday Party at Yomitan Tap Room After our golf game with Riko, Nate wanted to work on some word working projects during the afternoon. I was antsy after just finishing my finals for the semester and Riko invited me to join her and Carl for Santarchy in Naha (Okinawa Capital). What is Santarchy you ask? It's Okinawa's very own Santacon, where everyone dresses like Santa, and marches around the streets of Kokusai Street in Naha, stopping at a few local watering holes. People also are encouraged to bring candy to hand out to children and people on the street to spread Christmas cheer! This was a great experience and hilarious to watch 50 some santas walking down the street handing out candy to unsuspecting Japanese. And met some great people as well! Excited to start hanging out with our new friends and for Nate to join next year. #needtobuysantaoutfits  This is only about 1/2 - 2/3 of the group. #santaseverywhere
 Santa takeover All in all great December but wishing we were with friends and family back home in California. Miss you all and Happy Holidays!  Merry Christmas from Ricky Bobby!
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Megan Bond - AUTHORJust a girl raised in California and loved exploring Southeast Asia with my husband! We're back in the States but still exploring the world as much as we can! Archives
February 2019
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