Travelog for: Lupus-Tigger

Nicole took me on vacation this past week. We had a lot of fun. Most of the time we laid out on the beach and just relaxed. She read lots of books.


This is me in the big lounge chair out on the deck.


This is where Nicole and I took many many naps. I was a little afraid if the hammock at first, but then I realized it was so comfortable!


On my way to the beach!


Look at the ocean, mom!


I wanted to go swimming, but Nicole told me I couldn't. She said that I would not be able to swim and I might get lost. So, I had to sit on the towel and watch everyone else play.

Unfortunately her camera battery got wet and died, so we couldn't take a lot of pictures. But, I had a great vacation and I loved getting tot visit the ocean! We stayed in a three level house with a hot tub and pool and all sorts of cool things. 

Nicole has had me for a long long time now and has finally been able to send me off to the next host. I had a lot of fun! Her camera hasn't been working very well since North Carolina, but we went to see movies and she took me out to dinner at this awesome Chinese restaurant called PF Changs a bunch of times. It's one of her favorite places to eat when her boyfriend takes her on dates.  I went with her to work...both of her jobs! And she took me to college and I learned about Mythologies of the world.

I can't wait to see what the next host has in store for me! 

Dear Mommy,
I'm sorry for the slow updates! Jayme's been very, very busy, but I promise we'll have some new ones soon. One day she decided to take off and take us and the kids up to the aquarium! Here you can see the fish we saw.


And at the very end we got to see a whale shark! They're very big. Unfortunately we couldn't get a better picture because it was feeding time so they were hanging out near the back of the tank.

More soon,
Tigger

We also go to go spend a few hours relaxing at the beach one day when it was nice out!

I helped the kids play in the sand.

And all of us toys relaxed on the beach towel for awhile.

More soon,

Did you see the news stories about the huge dust storm in Beijing? We didn't have nearly so bad a problem, but we did get some left over dust from the storms. Here's the view from Jayme's apartment. Do you see the fog? That's all dust. Yuck! When you go outside you can taste it a bit. Jayme said the news sources say the dust is safe, but we didn't want to risk it, so we stayed inside unless we had to go out.

We did look up the dust storms in China though. We're very glad it wasn't that bad here!

More soon,
Tigger

I am sorry I haven't updated more quickly! Jayme's been very busy getting her school work done so even though we've done some neat things we simply haven't had time to sit at the computer to write them out since Jayme's been using it to get her work done. We did take a break to celebrate Jayme's birthday! Can you believe how big a cake her husband got for just 4 people and a few tv's?

After that the weather was just too beautiful to stay inside so we took our lunch to go have a picnic at the beach. Isn't it pretty?

But Jayme forgot to charge the batteries (d'oh!) so we only got one picture! After that we got back in the car, where thankfully Jayme keeps a battery charger, and drove to a nearby cliffside for a walk. We took some nice pictures along the way.



More updates soon!
Tigger

We were able to celebrate Easter here in Japan! Though the Japanese don't celebrate it, Jayme's family is American so they do. Oddly, the Easter bunny brought Jayme's children Easter bookbags instead of Easter baskets. Jayme said he was probably just trying to make things easier for the move since the bookbags are just the right size for the children to carry their toys on the plane.

After the boys checked out their Easter bookbags we went off to find all the eggs the Easter bunny had hidden! We all helped look. Here's the ones I found.


Then it was time to open up all those eggs, look at that candy pile! Plenty to go around!

After that we took some time to color eggs. First we got out the kit that we were going to use

Then we had to set everything up. Eggs, dye, and lots of paper towels to catch the mess.

Here's the egg coloring

And more

And finally the finished product!

We were all pretty worn out Another update to come soon,
Tigger

Jayme decided to take the day before her final exam for us to go out and relax a bit. That's kind of backwards isn't it? But she said the weather was just too nice not to go out, so off we went to the Renassaince Resort. We started out by the indoor pool and watched the kids go down the water slides. They had lots of fun.

Us toys relaxed in the lounge chair.

From there we went outside to grab a bite to eat. Here you can see the hotel from where we were sitting

The kids had chicken nuggets and fries, not very creative but it kept them happy til it was time to go home.

There was also an outside pool, but it was a little chilly so no one was in it.

Finally we headed down to the beach at the Renassaince for a bit.


The children were having fun burying each other so we decided to try it out and bury Haggis.

Don't worry, no toys were harmed from this picture, Haggis dug himself out very quickly.

After that we headed home. Jayme has to take her final next, and hopefully after that we'll get to relax some and do some more fun updates!
Tigger

Today we got to go to a Memorial Park at the Southern tip of Okinawa. Its called Peace Memorial Park and is dedicated to all who lost their lives on Okinawa during WWII. We started our trip at the playground though because the kids were antsy

And here's the memorial area. You can see there is row after row of walls inscribed with all the names of those who died on Okinawa during WWII. They include not just the Okinawans, but also the Japanese, Americans, and even a few British.

The memorial area is situated right on the ocean.

We also stopped by the museum which was very neat, but we were unable to take pictures inside. Here's a photo of the entrance.

More soon,
Tigger

We were able to visit a very neat site here on Okinawa! We started off by walking up a path with lots and lots of flowers.

Finally at the top we found out where we are. Nakagusuku Castle, an UNESCO site here on Okinawa.

Here you can see me next to a model of the castle with the actual castle in the background.

Here's a better look at the castle.

We went up many stairs

Finally we were way up at the top! Isn't it a lovely view. Here's the inside of the castle

And you can see the Pacific Ocean here.

Hopefully we'll get out again soon!
Tigger

We got to go visit a fun place called Forest Adventure Park. Unfortunately us tvs only got to see it from the sidelines. Jayme said it was a bit too dangerous for us to go on the course since if we fell down we'd be lost for good and it'd be a little too easy to drop us. We did get to watch her and others while we waited though. Forest Adventure is a zipline and obstacle course. You can see the zipline course behind me. The lines may be a little too small to see clearly, but they go over the valley, which is very deep. Those aren't shrubs below, they're full grown mature, very tall trees. You can see while she didn't want to drop us on accident!

To show you what the course is like, here is the practice course. Before you're allowed to do the real course they have you go through the practice course so they're sure you know all the safety precautions. They don't want anyone falling!

Finally there's the obstacle course. There's a net that you jump into like tarzan hanging from a rope then you pull yourself up. And then lots of other various obstacles you can walk over.

Here's a picture of Jayme, you can see why it would be kind of hard for her to hold us for poses as well since she was holding one for dear life, which was at least pretty funny to watch

More soon,
Lupus-Tigger

I finally made it to my next host's home. I can't stand being in a narrow envelope with no space to move. I started jumping around the room until I discovered these two guys.


They are Topple from Russia, who ist travelling the European Trail, and Muumipeikko from Finland who is staying here as an "exchange TV" for a longer period. I was very happy to see other TVs again and gave them a big hug.

On Whitsunday the weather was great again and we went on a bike tour. We cycled  through fields and forests and arrived in a small village called Oeschebüttel.

This stone is a memorial for a man who has been killed here in 1840 by his friend. The board above the stone tells the whole story. We came here because somewhere behind the stone should be a hidden geocache, but we couldn't find it.


This memorial is for those men of the village who died in the two world wars.


And finally I met some Heath Sheep (Heidschnucken in German). These sheep live on heath land which you can find in northern Germany. The male Heath Sheep look really interesting becasue they have twisted horns.

Today an envelope from a pen pal from the US arrived. While Katrin enjoyed reading the letter, I prefer presenting you the amazing stamps!

One of my life missions is to take photos with my host country's currency. This is here in Germany not very exciting, because the currency is like in Austria the Euro. But today Katrin got this special German 2€ coin. It shows the Euro sign and a stickman in a circle. This coin remembers of the European Monetary Union in 1999, which had its 10th anniversary in 2009.