Otherwise, things seem to be progressing as smoothly as can be. The house is slowly emptying, although most of the big stuff isn't going to it's new homes until this weekend, and the last of the pet visits is on Friday before they fly out on Monday. Yikes!

Last week I managed to squeeze in a new haircut and dye, and I spur of the moment made the decision to get a fringe again. I'm still not sure i'm completely happy with the decision, but oh well! Melbourne weather is much more suited to fringes, so only one more week to try and wrangle it in this humidity.

Last saturday night I also managed to get in one last dinner with my favourite Okinawa ladies, Ashley and Katie at Yomitan Monogatari. That place, as always was delicious, and ended with an awamori tasting flight, fitting for Okinawa.

These ladies <3

Sea Grape and perilla somen noodles at Monogatari

Awamori tasting flight at Monogatari

Meanwhile, let me rant for a moment. The process to cancel your phone contract here is so ridiculous. When I first signed up for my phone, I paired it with our internet contract as well for a discount. Twice now I have gone in to the au shop to ask about cancellation. The first time they were too busy and told me to come back later, however for the internet cancellation I could only do it over the phone. However, for the phone contract, you must go to a store to cancel it.... sigh.

So I went back to the au store this past weekend. Someone finally had the time to help me, only for me to find out that if I go in to the store to cancel my contract, it takes effect IMMEDIATELY! There's no way to cancel in advance, and no other way to cancel than in store.... This wouldn't be such a hassle, except for the fact that I need my phone until the very last day in case of any issues with our pets flights etc. My only option is to try and cancel my contract while we are on a stop in Narita. Fingers crossed it's not too busy to get served.

Anyway, this blog has turned into a moving rant. I promise in the next 2 weeks it will be back to more informative posts. On that note, if you have any suggestions for a new blog title, please let me know. It seems weird to have a blog called Sea Change Okinawa when I'm not actually living in Okinawa.

American Village Chatan

The cat is starting to notice all her sleeping spots are slowly dissapearing

Dechibica is probably my favourite and first place I will usually take any vegans visiting us. Not only is the food delicious, but it's presented so beautifully, it's hard not to be impressed.

They offer a variety of vegan meals (as well as a couple of non-vegan options) and everything we've ever tried there has been great! Another bonus if you're with kids, is the fact that they have a bunch of kids toys there to entertain them if you forgot to bring anything from home.

Update - I've heard GubGubs is now closed but the owner can still be found selling burgers at the Koza Vegan Night market and the vegan food fest.

GubGub's is the ultimate vegan junk/comfort food experience. We have been here with vegan friends numerous times and they are always blown away by the food! Their Cheeseburger and BBQ burgers are my ultimate favourites. They also offer an option to pay a little more and support animal welfare, and you can bring your dogs and sit outside if the weather is nice.

Ukishima Garden is a lovely vegan restaurant in Naha, perfect for a fancy date night with organic wines. We have been here every time we have been to Naha and it's always lovely. Their tofu caprese salad tastes just like real mozzarella, and the creamy pasta was also amazing. Their lunch menu is more casual with burgers, soups and curry.

Bollywood Dreams is the most delicious Indian resaturant we have found in Okinawa (and we've tried lots!). They also have a select number of vegan curries, which are amazing! The dinner menu is more extensive and lunch is mostly just set meals. This place gets BUSY, so it's worth coming early for lunch or dinner.

Ok, so Sakae Ryoriten is the place we keep going back to, and pretty much take all guests to. It's "okinawan style" food, so a great way to get a taste of the local cuisine, but they will also adjust the menu for any allergies or dietary requirements where they can, which means making food vegan and vegetarian friendly. It's also very kid friendly.

The go-to dishes they will adjust for vegetarians is the Umibudo (sea grape) and tomato salad, the jimami dofu (peanut tofu), the seasonal stir fry vegetables and the eggplant and red pepper with miso stir fry. They might likely adjust other dishes, but these are our go to every time we're there.

Sakae is located in Ishikawa and they have ample parking space in a lot across the road. The entrance is quite unassuming (pictured above).

What would a post about vegan food be without mentioning the vegan menu at Coco Ichibanya? Coco's, over the past year or so have been rolling out a vegetarian menu at select stores. It says vegetarian but is actually vegan. In Okinawa only 2 stores that I know of have the vegetarian menu, Ishikawa and Haebaru. Please feel free to comment if there are any more additions to this. Cocos, although i'm sure is full of MSG, is super delicious!

We found out that shipping our stuff back to Australia is basically the same cost as it would be to just replace everything when we get back, so we're posting only our treasured possessions home and need to sell all the rest. Anything we can't sell we'll need to somehow figure out how to get rid of....

The biggest stress and most expensive part of the move has to be the pets. Australia is crazy strict with the requirements to get the pets back and compared to the cost of sending pets back to the US, which everyone else seems to do here, it's about 4 times more expensive to Australia. Anyway, we knew what we were getting into and luckily prepared accordingly. We'll be starting the vet visits to meet the requirements this week! Here's hoping it all goes smoothly.

We did, however get to do some fun things during Golden Week. The first day we had our friend and her son over and made fresh pasta which was so delicious! It always seems like so much effort (which it is) but the payoff is so worth it!

The one good weather day, we wanted to drive up to Sesoko Island, but halfway there and stuck in extremely heavy traffic, we decided to give up and settled for a beach near Nago that was actually lovely!

The other great thing that happened Golden Week, is we finally fixed G's bike, took off the training wheels and within 10 minutes he had basically mastered it! Now he's a little speed demon on that thing! It's awesome!

So I haven't really been sure how to write this on the blog. I've already told family and friends, as well as my work, but anyway, we'll be leaving Okinawa at the end of June.

We've been here for over 2 years now and for a number of reasons, we've decided to move back to Australia.

I'm super grateful for the experience, and although the adjustment to life in Okinawa was harder than I expected, i'm so glad that we had this experience. We've had the amazing opportunity to live overseas as a family and go on some unforgettable trips together. We've been able to live in a house on the beach and watch the sunset over the ocean everyday from our deck. These are the things I will remember.

Although there is a lot i'll miss about Okinawa (the beaches, the beaches and the beaches), i'm really excited to get back to Melbourne and set up our life there again. I want to be able to hang out with my friends, see live music, eat good food and hopefully find a cute apartment and a good job.

At the moment we are kind of living in limbo.... wrapping up our jobs here and trying to find replacements (anyone want to move to Okinawa, let me know, there are 2 jobs going!), starting to pack and sell some of our stuff, but in the kind of weird place where it's still too early to be applying for jobs in Australia, or places to live......

We've got just under 2 months left in Okinawa now, and my main goal is to get in as many beach days and snorkelling as possible before we have to leave and go back to a frosty Melbourne winter. We've just come back to work after 5 days off for Golden week, and although we spent a lot of time sorting through our stuff and packing boxes, we still managed some relaxation and beach time. Our biggest challenge will be navigating the move back for our pets! Australia has crazy-strict quarantine rules, so we've got a complicated process to navigate.

I hope you will all still be interested in reading along with my adventures back in Melbourne, although i'm really going to need to think about a new name for this blog! Suggestions welcome!

Thanks for following along with my adventures in Okinawa. There will still be plenty more in the next couple of months.

Thanks to a tip from a friend, we ventured to Miyagi Island (insert Karate Kid joke here...) to find a secluded beach they had camped on before. We packed up the car with anything we could possibly need and headed out! It took close to an hour to get there from our place, but we also stopped on the way for snacks and supplies at a couple of conbinis on the way.

Ready for the drive!

family selfie!

All set up :)

low tide

So in love with our tent!

That face <3

Does it get any prettier than this?

Rock climbing

Pin it for later: