Plant Shopping...

On Friday of last week, I was SUPPOSED to go to the Botanical Gardens w/ my peeps! Instead, I was escorting Junior to the ER! I'll post more on that later, but lemme tell ya about the plant sale I discovered. Driving Jr home from the ER I cut thru Kadena AFB, hit 26 then 329. On the corner in this park/field/whatchamacallit was a bunch of tents... I quickly dropped Jr off at school (signed her in like a good girl) and then drove back to the "treasure chest of surprises!" It was too late to go to the gardens, but I lucked out. It was impromptu marketplace so to speak. Not sure how often they have these sales, never seen one before, but boy howdy! It was beautiful, and delightful and simply relaxing. The natives are so kind and generous and truly want to help us culturally inept Englishmen! This is just a side shot from my van of some of the plants/tents in the field, it was actually about 3 times the size of what you see here in the picture.

The picture above is of a Starfruit tree. Yes it's called Starfruit. Then you cross slice it, it looks exactly like a star. We've tried it several times at local eats. I have to say it's yummy, tastes kinda like a green apple but yummier! You can see the green fruit in the backdrop, the one up front, tangerine in color means it's ripe and ready to devour. I didn't pick it, but I sure wanted too!

I have no idea what this plant is called, but I was admiring it along w/ another local family (son and his elderly mother). So sweet, they tried so hard to talk to me... I was clueless. I really need to take a Japanese language class. Then the "farmer girl" came over, she was super cute w/ little overalls on (wish I got a pix of her). She spoke broken English. She broke off some of the red things, and offered them to us to eat. She explained that locals make their vinegar out of it. It was very tasty.

I have no clue what this is... but the fruit of the tree grows on the trunk. In all my years of lookin' at plants I've never seen this. Sadly, the lady who worked at this tent spoke NO English so I just took a picture to prove I wasn't crazy!

Flowers Flowers everywhere. I bought several different kinds, even got local dirt to grow them in. I love this flower, the color is magnificent and out of each pink flower grows this super tiny little white flower. They are so delicate. The ladies who ran this tent, loved that I took lots of photos but they wouldn't allow me to take a picture of them... something about being all dirty and messy and looking like a gardener. Even though they didn't speak English and I not a lick of Japanese, I knew what they were saying, it was so cute. It must have been a older mother and her daughter about my age. Laughing and giggling at the fact I wanted to take their picture as they attempted to brush the dirt and dust off their clothes, pulling their hair back trying to straighten it, bowing over and over again as they kept saying "Nashi Nashi" many times which means no no. I didn't take their picture but I was so tempted... out of respect I didn't and bowed as I thanked them for sharing their love for flowers with me.

I brought home several flowering plants. I will take pictures and post them soon (I think I may have already killed one!). I've just transplanted 2 of them into bigger prettier pots. The other two are hanging baskets, much smaller than the ones found in the states, so I will probably transplant them soon too. Gotta get more dirt! All in all, in spite of missing the Botanical Gardens, I had a peaceful afternoon exploring the local market.