Travelog for: Spooks

Hello, my name is Spooks. I am a gorilla, fascinated of starting into the world for a big journey. 

I hope you might help me on my trip to discover the world.

Finja told me what she had seen on her journey before she came to us. It's unbelievable, i wanna make a trip to australia too.

*update 7.11.09*
Spooks will start in Okinawa,Japan at JaymeC

Dear Mommy,
I have excellent timing! I arrived the day before Thanksgiving. Jayme lives in Japan, but she celebrates the American holidays since she's American. Its a good thing too, after that long ride in the envelope I was famished! We started in with the cooking the day before. First we had to go get some supplies. One of the places we went to was a place to get very fresh organic eggs. Its a weird sort of place. They had many animals for the children to look at, and then only a small store with the eggs and some pastries. Here are some pictures.


A monster almost got me!

After we got home it was time to start the cooking. Jayme said she was only going to make dessert early this year since it was just her family we had to cook for. We were making buckeyes. Yum! Here you can see the peanut butter balls.

Then they had to be dipped in chocolate.

Oh they were delicious. And I think we made a few too many for just her family, don't you think? Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I can't wait to tell you about it!
Love,
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
We woke up to the most delicious smells... and we headed towards the kitchen. Only to realize the baby gate was up and Jayme was threatening everyone who came near her kitchen with a spatula. Yesh, I didn't know Thanksgiving was so serious! We waited and waited and finally just in time for lunch the Thanksgiving meal was served. It was worth the wait!

After lunch we went for a walk along the beach to burn off all the calories! Here is where we started. See the sea wall in the distance?

Well we walked all the way over there. Its really quite pretty. Some of the graffiti on it is just great.

And since the tide was out it was a nice place to rest and take a break.

We walked on a little further and found a small beach called sunset beach. Its really too cold for swimming, and there are lots of jelly fish this time of year, but some people were walking at the waters edge.

Finally it was time to turn around. Back where we began was a playground shaped like a pirate ship. We stopped there to rest while Jayme's children played.

Overall we had a very relaxing Thanksgiving. I wonder what adventures we'll go on next?
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
I'm sorry I haven't updated more quickly! Jayme's been quite busy. Us toys have been trying to help, but there's lots to do. We have done a few little trips though. First we went to a place called Comprehensive Park and took a walk. There are many walking trails here. Today we simply walked along the beach then to a small fish pond so that the boys could see the fishes.




More soon,
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
We also got to go to a place called Murasaki Mura. Jayme was excited to go. Here we are at the entrance. The dog/lions next to us are called Shisas. Shisas are the traditional protectors on Okinawa, and culturally are taken from the Chinese. Okinawa was not owned by the Japanese until recently and it has a rather unique blended culture since it used to be a very common trade stop because of its location. Culturally they have picked up many things from the Chinese and Japanese, but because the Americans have been here since World War II there are also some odd American traditions interspersed with it all. But the Shisa are the protectors all over Okinawa. They are lion/dogs and are found in pairs, one to let the good spirits through and the other to catch the bad spirits. Almost all homes and businesses have them and you can make your own here at Murasaki Mura. Jayme says she assumes there are ones people made and either couldn't or wouldn't pay for so they added them to the many decorations.

We got to walk around Murasaki Mura, but unfortunately we did not get to do any of the crafts there as it began to rain! Boo. Here are the pictures before the rain.


Maybe we'll get to go again one day, it sure looked pretty and some of the crafts they did there looked very neat.
More soon,
Spooks

Mommy,
Today we went to a very special place on Okinawa. It is the Peace Memorial Park. The Peace Park here on Okinawa has taken many years to build. It is to memorialize all that were killed on Okinawa during World War II and also a reminder of the cost of war, and the value of peace. The Peace Park consists of different sections. There is a museum there that has maps and a history of the battle on Okinawa as well as exhibits to see and stories of those who survived are told. There is also a Memorial that you can walk through outside that lists the names of all those killed during the Battle of Okinawa on the edge of a cliff. Finally there is an area with many memorials you can walk through, most of which are stones with the information carved into them in Japanese, which unfortunately Jayme can not read. Today we only saw a small portion of the park, the last area where there are memorials and nice walking paths. Here we are at the beginning of the walk, below us you can see the black stone with engraved names and the museum.

Here you can see the water at the base of the cliffs, isn't it beautiful?

Next to some of the memorials are paper cranes like these. Many of them are donated by local school children who come to visit. Isn't this an amazing amount of cranes? And these are the ones displayed outside where they must be replaced often. There are many in various locations and inside the museum.

Here is an example of one of the memorials up here.

Finally here is the view of the stones again as we were walking back to the car to go home.

It is a very beautiful and sad place to visit. But it is time to celebrate peace as well, and Jayme says we have a few plans for Christmas upcoming, I hope I'll be able to tell you about them soon,
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
Today we went on a long ride up to a base called Courtney. They were having a small Christmas festival here. Here I am at the entrance

First we sat and watched some carolers.

Then we took the kids over to the kiddie land. They had an area for rides and for bounce houses.


Then we went to look at the hmmwv they had out. They also had a larger truck and police car, but there were too many people there to take a photo.

We wanted to see Santa, but it was far too busy so we couldn't this time Maybe another time. But we had lots of fun and I'm sure we'll do more soon!
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
We had lots to do! We made cookies and put them along with buckeyes in these little bags. The bags are for the Marines to take home with them along with other stocking stuffers from the Christmas party. You see, there are many single men out here who are very far from home and so Jayme's job is to try to help them (and the other families) to feel a little less lonely, especially during the holidays. So we cooked and cooked cookies!

Then we bagged them up.

Look at all these bags! 100 of them here, another woman was doing another 100. That's a lot of cookies!

Finally we also made a couple of Christmas tree cakes for the party itself. Doesn't it look yummy?

And then we were off to the party! It was at the bowling alley. They were supposed to have things outside as well, but it was raining This isn't a very good picture, but it was quite crowded and we didn't get to bowl at all! But here is the party itself.

But most importantly...someone very important came to the party. After he was done greeting all the children Jayme was able to ask him to take a photo with us as well. Did you know that Jayme knows Santa?! I'm very impressed. Here are all of us visiting right now with Santa!

Whew. Very tiring! I wonder what else we'll do for Christmas?
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
I have lots of fun Christmas stories to tell you, but first I wanted to show you the decorations here at Jayme's house. She actually has two nativity sets. You see, she bought one the first year, but then realized her kids always wanted to touch it so she found one online that's a childrens nativity set that they can play with. Unfortunately she says this means there's almost always a piece missing, but at least now they don't try to get her set anymore. And it is pretty cute.

Here's the adult nativity set. Its still pretty kid proof, but looks a bit nicer.

Then there were the Christmas cards Jayme received! A few from toyvoyagers, a few from postcard friends, and a few from family. Not too many cards, but she put them out anyway.

Finally there was of course the tree! I won't put up a big picture of the tree yet, you can see that on Christmas Day But I will show you some of the small ornaments on it. Jayme and her family each get one ornament every year for a Christmas present. It may be something from a movie or cartoon they like or something on a trip. Like the Minnie ornament Jayme got at Tokyo Disney. Or it may be something that reminded Jayme of her kids. Like the panda ornament because her oldest son used to carry a panda around non-stop as a lovey for awhile. And then of course, there's a few small ones the children made as well. Here are some pictures of them.



I hope you liked the pictures! I'll be sure to write all about Christmas very soon so you can see what fun we had!
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
I'm sorry I didn't get my update up sooner to tell you about Christmas! But here it is now.
On Christmas Eve our first priority was of course making Christmas cookies! The kids had lots of fun making them. We toys mostly stayed out of the way since we didn't want to get all floury or coated in icing.

Here are the ones we left out for Santa.

After getting every ready for Santa we went on out to the Christmas Eve light show! We got there quite early before nightfall. Here we are waiting and watching some shows near the stage. You can't really see the shows from here, but they just had people coming up doing short acts juggling or what not.

They also had a small festival area for the kids with games and rides, so we took the kids over to do some rides while we waited.

The best part of all for the kids though was that we got to see some real snow! Even though it was very warm that night (Jayme was in a tshirt!) they had a snow maker they kept running to build up snowmen, and igloos and other things. It was very, very packed in the snow area. Lots of children checking it out! Many of them will live on Okinawa all of their lives and not really have a chance to play in the snow. Here I am in a brief picture I managed to squeeze in while we were trying to carefully keep an eye on Jayme's children.

Finally the lights came on! Aren't they pretty? They have a few very elaborate light set ups.


Whew! After that we went home and put the children to bed and helped Jayme do some last minute wrapping.


Finally we all got to bed and when we woke in the morning Santa had visited and brought more presents! Here we all are under the tree with the gifts.

We spent Christmas Day at Jayme's house playing with the boys and their new toys. Maybe I can take some pictures of them later. For now, Merry Christmas Mommy! Hope you had a wonderful one!
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
Its been quite rainy here recently, but we've been trying to get out whenever the sun is out. The children are quite restless from staying indoors and they need to get some energy out! So we headed to one of the giant slide parks on Okinawa. Jayme's children really love this slide. Here it is from the bottom, you have to walk up quite a few stairs

And here's the view from the top looking down. Its a rollerslide so there are many rollers you slide down. The Japanese children go down standing up, but Jayme's children are a bit young for that so they go down sitting on a piece of cardboard.

They also had a small beach nearby so the children tried to build a sand castle.

More soon,
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
Like I said in the last update, its been very rainy! And Jayme's children are even driving us toys a bit up the wall with too much energy, so we also headed to an indoor playground. Its a place called Mona Kids. Here is the entrance, isn't it cute?

We had a snack inside

And here's the play area for the children. There's lots of tubes and ball pits for them to play in.

While the children were playing Jayme got to sit and rest and read a bit. I read some Lord of the Rings with her.

More soon,
Spooks

Dear Mommy,
I was quite excited when I woke up and it was actually sunny! Jayme said we were going to go out, but first we would make some lunches to take to eat in the car since it was going to be a bit of a drive. She said we were going to use these things called egg molds. First you boil and peel the eggs, then you put them in molds like this.

Here we are with all the egg molds.

Then you put them in the fridge until the cool, and when you take them out they've been molded and will hold their new shape. Neat huh?

We packed them along with other snacks into a bento box, which is a boxed lunch. Bentos are very popular in Japan. Jayme says she makes "American" bentos because her family doesn't like eating rice when it gets cold, which is a traditional bento food, so instead she makes her own type of boxed lunch. But it does look yummy... you can see the eggs are wrapped in saran wrap and placed in with the other food.

Then we headed off. It was a long carride up the coast until we arrived. Finally we arrived at the Busena resort! If you can see that pier far out in the distance, that's where we're headed.

We took a nice walk along the way, I thought this anchor was kind of neat.

And finally we made it to the pier.

We walked to the end and they had what's called an Underwater Observatory. You go down 2M under the water and you can look out the portholes! The area is really rather small, with only about 25 portholes, but its very neat. We stayed there for a long time watching the fish go by.




Finally it was time to head home, but we did stop at the playground on the way to let the children run a bit more. Can you tell Jayme spends a lot of time at playgrounds? Here's a view of the playground from one of the many things to climb on.

We toys took a rest on the rock wall.

Whew! I'm glad we finally got to go out and have some fun, I'll wait here to hear from you mommy. Hope I hear something soon.
Spooks

I've arrived at in Finland! I'm staying at the recently founded TV FosterCareHome  I'l be here untill my mentor/owner contacts the FosterCareHome. You can read more about  the FosterCareHome in the forum. The FosterMom seems nice and I have plenty of company here 

My Foster Mom took us Foster Toys on a field trip to the Old Town of Porvoo! The Old Porvoo is a small part of the city, the part that was built first. Those red shorehouses are the most wellknown sight of Porvoo. Porvoo got its town rights in 1346. Now it has a bit under 50 000 inhabitants and an area of 654 km2. It's situated only 50km (less than 1h drive) east from the capital, Helsinki.

It was a fun trip! Foster Mom promised we'll go see the newer parts of Porvoo too