OIWC, Good Company and Violins

I heard about a group on island that combined American and Japanese culture, but hadn't seen a lot about it. Then, I found an article on Okinawa Hai about the Okinawa International Women's Club.

The photos came from OIWC's Facebook page. The videos are my own.

I finally made it to a luncheon. I emailed and got a quick response... and that was that! I was on the list for lunch and could pay when I arrived. Nice! When I got there, they had a name tag printed out for me. It had my name in both English and Japanese... also nice! Each month they have lunch and entertainment for everyone. This month the food was Southern Comfort (bbq, mac & cheese, and baked beans) and the entertainment was The Rose Quartet.

At first, it was super awkward because I didn't know anyone there and everyone seemed to be in their own groups. I didn't understand what was going on, at all! The doors opened around 10:15 and I walked straight in. However, all the seats were taken when I got there. So, I ended up at a side table by myself. Uhhh, what?! I was just about to leave when I decided, whatever... I'm just going to approach someone.

I walked up to Janel, an American surrounded by a group of Japanese ladies. They all were SO nice and explained to me that within the big group of OIWC there are small culture groups. The culture groups get together outside of the big group and have an event, either Japanese or American. They were very welcoming and even pulled up a chair for me at their table! (Looking back, it appeared as if I was waiting on my culture group to get there and was "holding" the table. Nope! Just standing there feeling weird. Ha!)

I'm so glad I stayed! All the Japanese women were full of questions and so happy to have a conversation with me. They welcomed me with open arms and were super excited that I had come on my own. We talked about cookies, calligraphy, learning Japanese, and "making" babies. Ha! One of the women asked me if Mark and I were "making babies." What she MEANT was are we trying! We were both equally embarrassed while trying to iron that one out. Ha!

I've passed my info onto the Culture Group Coordinator and am excited to link up with them later this month. They tend to do really awesome Japanese themed events and then the American ones seem to fall flat, from what I understand. For example, last month the Japanese women hired a calligrapher and taught all of the ladies true, Japanese calligraphy. This month, they requested that we go to the Macaroni Grill. They are pumped! I'm all, "Eh, ok, whatevs."

This is a collection of centerpieces, I just got one "flower" ... It's going to look cute in our office that's currently in progress!

I'm very excited to get to know everyone and hopefully learn a lot of new stuff! Oh... and I won another centerpiece. Yes... ANOTHER... I tend to win a lot of them because it goes to the youngest or person that's been married the shortest amount of time. Next time it'll probably be the tallest or something. Haha... I'm not mad about it!

For more info about the club and how to sign up, you can visit their website!