Nicki's 1st Blog, Part II (by Mike)

In her first blog, below, Nicki mentioned that I'd talk about the restaurant we went to in Kamakura City. So I will. I also have pictures, but they'll have to wait for now. One day, you'll come back and read this and there will be strange pictures everywhere, so you may have to re-read our posts to see where I've put the pics.

As Nicki mentioned, we went to Kamakura on our indoc field trip. By then, we had eaten some traditional Japanese food, but it was mostly in the Ramen family (aka- noodles). We were ready for some sushi. When we got off the train in Kamakura, we went down a long street that was loaded with sushi places. After visiting the Hachimangu Shrine and the grape/apple on a stick vendors, we were hungry for some raw fish. So we went back to the street with our group, then split off with just one other brave soul, Will, to get sushi. Will is someone else from the class, who's wife and kid haven't gotten to Japan yet, but he decided to hang with us when we mentioned our sushi craving. He didn't speak any Japanese either...

So we found a place that had "fake" plates of food on display outside of the restaurant. The fake food looked good, so we went inside the door and upstairs to the restaurant. We got up there and were greeted with "Japanese Speaku?" from the chef. We shook our heads and he looked a bit frazzled. But Nicki had the bright idea to use her hands to mimic taking a picture with a camera, and pointed downstairs. That was good enough for the guy to get us to follow him downstairs and point to what we wanted from the fake plates outside. I picked a sushi plate, Nicki picked some noodles with green flakes on top, and Will picked a tempura plate. We were served green tea and miso soup in the beginning, then our food was prepared in front of us. When it came, I had four different types of food in front of me, all raw, and only one of them was familiar... tuna. Nicki's noodles came out light green and cold and the flakes on top were some form of seaweed topping. I can't even begin to tell you what was included in Will's tempura plate, but we're guessing that some of it was shrimp. Oh, I almost forgot to mention Nicki's side dish, that include a small cracked open egg... Nicki mentioned what she thought it could be (possibly quail), but I forgot and don't want to embarrass myself by guessing. Long story short(er), we ate our food, but when we finished we had no clue how to tell the guy that we were done. So we pulled out our "quick Japanese" cheat sheet from class and decided that I would get the guy's attention and Will would ask "how much for the food?". So I said, "sumimasen", which is supposed to mean "pardon/excuse me", then the guy looked at me and I pointed to Will. Will missed his cue, and Nicki grabbed the paper and saved the day by following with a rough version of the correct question. Then the guy answered and we stared at him like idiots. When he realized that we didn't have a clue, he wrote down the total and we paid him. By this point, the entire restaurant was looking at us like we were from Mars, and we felt like we were too. Back downstairs, I took a picture of each of the dishes. Oh, and if you're curious... no, Nicki didn't eat the small egg. [That picture is of Nicki and Will at the restaurant].

The next day in class, I showed the instructor, Nao-san, a picture of my sushi plate and he told me that I ate tuna, octopus, yellowtail, and he couldn't identify the last one, but thought it might be squid. Regardless, it was all good.

Home Sweet Home?

Some good news to start the weekend. Nicki and I continued our search for houses off-base today. My coworkers recommend visiting lots of houses and lots of different realtors, much different than how it is in the States. I went house searching last week and was pretty put off by the realtor, who told me at one point that if I liked what I saw, I had to tell him immediately whether I wanted it or not because someone else would snatch it up right away if I didn't take it. I told him that I wouldn't make a decision without consulting Nicki first, which I think was frustrating for him. But I can't imagine doing it any other way, because Nicki and Josh will be at our future home much more often than me, so it's only fair.

Anyway, today, we met with another realtor who was very friendly and spoke very good English, which was helpful. We scheduled to look at three places and fell in love with the very first one that we saw. We told him that we wanted to look at all of them, though, so we did. But in the end, we just liked the first one too much to turn it down. So we told him we were interested and he set up all the paperwork for us to turn into the Housing Office here on base for approval... yes, we don't get the final say, Uncle Sam does. But the house is well within my housing allowance, it has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and it has a fairly large kitchen which is good for Nicki's cooking habit and great for my eating habit.

What we really thought was awesome is that two of the bedrooms are Japanese style, meaning that they have the paper-style window covers that slide to the left and right, and the floors are covered with tatami mats... if you haven't heard of them, you'd most definitely still recognize them if you saw them in a picture. Tatami mats are small, bamboo (I think) mats that you'd picture in a standard Japanese style house. We're planning to set up the downstairs Japanese room as our guest bedroom, so our visitors can get a good feeling of how it is to live the Japanese lifestyle while staying with us. Of course, we'll be upstairs in our Western style rooms... but we may decide later to stay in a tatami mat room instead... maybe.

Oh, did I mention that from our second floor, there's an incredible view of Tokyo Bay??!?!? Yup, there is. So keep your fingers crossed for us, because this place will be awesome if the Housing Office gives us thumbs up. We'll keep you posted with progress and show pictures when we can, if it all goes through as planned.

The lucky thing for us - the house was supposed to be rented last week to a sailor, but he went out to sea before he signed the necessary paperwork. The sailor wanted it and started the process, but the landlord told him it had to be finalized or he couldn't guarantee anything. The sailor didn't follow through, so the house went up on the market again literally yesterday. Very good fortune for us, if it all works out...

Our first Train ride (Nicki's 1st Blog)

OK everyone, this is my very first blog. Also a brief....well, not so brief summary of our first train ride. As this is my first entry, you might notice some differences. Please note the number one difference, the grammar. You'll have to push through my bad grammar.

At any rate, this week Mike and I have been taking the "Indoc" class or if you are fluent in Navy Talk this means our "Indoctrination Class" The class is about a week long and it gives a very brief introduction into our new lives in Japan. In this class, they teach us how to get around the base, Japanese culture, religion, manners, and transportation.

Today was our fourth day in class and our big field trip. We were able to choose 1 of 4 destinations in the Yokosuka and Tokyo area. Mike and I choose to go to Kamakura. It is a Shrine honoring the beginning of the Shogun Era. [Editor's Note: Kamakura is actually a city, once the capital of Japan for about 150 years. The city is one of Japan's most densely populated areas of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. The shrine that we visited is the Hachimangu Shrine, and Nicki describes it below.] The Shogun Era was established in the 12th century. During that time, it was the end of the emperor rule and the beginning of a military government. Kamakura was the center of the nation and attracted leading religious figures and scholars as well. This shrine was dedicated to the G-d of War and luckily, it was only a 20 minute train ride (without any transfers) from Base.

At this point one might inquire, 'why not go somewhere in Tokyo?' well my friends, the train stations are extremely complicated [as you can see from the picture of the simple train sign]. The main station in Tokyo has 26 platforms. Nothing is in English. In fact, the Japanese get lost or turned around sometimes with the trains and they know the language! Not only would we have to take many transfers to get there but we would need to know which way to exit out of the station to get to our destination. To add to the confusion, all of the trains in Japan are privately owned by companies not by the government. So, there are different names of trains or "brands". Needless to say, once you can get the basics down on Japanese public transportation, you will have smooth sailing. The buses & trains are almost always on time you can literally set your watch to them.

After a 2 hour class on base about where the closest train station was, what Yokosuka in Kanji (Japanese) looks like, a map of the train stops from Yokosuka to Tokyo in English, and a couple of very helpful handouts. The Map of the Subway network was color coated. There were 13 colors on the map!

OK, enough. We made it to the Train Station with a group of our classmates. We figured there was safety in numbers. We bought the ticket pretty easily. Thankfully, there is a button you can push for English. The total ticket cost for Mike and I to go together was 420 Yen or about $4.20. We found the platform fairly easily and were able to get to the shrine without a snag. Once we were off the train we had to walk through a street filled with shops handing out free food and drink samples. Once we were in view on the Shrine, we could smell the candied Apple and, believe it or not, candied grape vendors. For 300 yen per apple, ($3.00) and 100 yen ($1.00) per grape, how could we go wrong?! The candied apples were very much like American candied apples. We could get a small one (about 1 inch in diameter) for the above price. The grapes were fantastic! The grapes themselves were almost as big as the apples. They weren't coated with the same red candy but rather a grape flavored candy much like a grape jolly rancher. I probably could have had ten of those things they were so good.

Kamakura, the shrine was beautiful. [The entrance to Hachimangu Shrine begins with the Torii Gate and the bridge, the other picture is of Nicki and me within the shrine's grounds]. On a weekday with no holidays it wasn't to crowded. There were a lot of school children and we got a lot of looks. Some of the children would shout "Amareecun"and giggle, probably thinking how lost we looked. Sometimes we were greeted by them as we entered the Temple "Ohayo Gozaimasu" (Good Morning). Japanese adults are a lot slyer with their looks. As it is very bad manners to look someone in the eye, you will very rarely catch them looking. You usually can "feel" it more than anything else. At the end of our tour of the shrine, our group split up because Mike and I were dead set on getting some authentic Japanese food. (I'll let Mike elaborate on that experience) after our very nervous encounter at a very Japanese restaurant, we started our return to the Kamakura station for our ride back to base. Now, something we were warned about on our way back. Sometimes at the first stop on the way home, Zushi Station, the train would take a break or would go to the garage to get cleaned. We would then have to get off this train and transfer to another train. Well, guess what, we got turned around. Not too bad though. In fact, as soon as we got onto the new train we realized we were going the wrong way. After a 5-10 minute detour, we caught a train back the other way a found our way to the right transfer the second time around.

After today, Mike was not feeling that well, so Josh and I had a night out on the the town or on base, that is, while Mike stayed in the room and rested. We went to McDonalds for Dinner and picked up a couple things at the NEX. The very cool thing about McDonalds happy meals is that we receive Sanrio toys. For those of you in Nor-Cal you'll probably know Sanrio. However, most people more commonly know it as "Hello Kitty". Only, there is much more than just Hello Kitty, there are many more characters for girls as well as boys. I think that I will keep mine. Its a fake Hello Kitty Lipstick. When you turn it, some stickers come out as well as a pen tip to write with. Undeniably cute! OK, I think that I've written enough tonight and I'm sure my readers have struggled enough through my bad grammer. So, Sayounara (Good Bye) or KonBanwa (Good Night) .

Bumblebees and Football

Learning about the differences between Japan and the United States happens almost immediately. Some of the differences, though, surface in their own time and in their own ways. One thing I figured out immediately was that American football, both college and NFL, are shown in Japan on the AFN (armed forces network) if you are lucky enough to have access to the AFN. However, because of the time difference, most of the games happen sometime during my regular sleeping hours so I have missed a lot of the games since I've been here. But something magical happened to me today on my way to my Tuesday lunch - I passed by a television and saw that Monday Night Football was still on in the USA. Then it hit me that during my lunchtime on Mondays, Sunday's evening game is on, too. And on Fridays, I can watch Thursday night college ball during lunch. So I've decided to strategically work my lunch breaks in the future around the 4th quarter of my Monday, Tuesday, and Friday games. Can't you tell I'm adapting well to Japan life?!!!

On a totally different wavelength, I think that Nicki and I saw Mothra today. You may remember Mothra from the wonderful Godzilla movie days. If not, do a google image search and you'll know what I'm talking about. Actually, it turns out that what we saw was a bumblebee, and Nicki summed it up well by saying that the thing was as big as her thumb. And that was just its body - it's wingspan was about my entire hand. We've also heard that other insects and spiders grow pretty huge here, too. Not looking forward to seeing any large spiders or cockroaches, but we'll keep you posted if we do. I tried to get a picture of the bee, but the thing came after me every time I got close and it's stinger could have left a hole the size of a bullethole in me, so I stayed back.

Nicki and I are enrolled in our Inter-Cultural Relations class this week, starting today (Tuesday) and going through Friday. Today, we learned about what happens on base, how, and why - and also got an idea of the activities that can keep us entertained, energized, and active while we're here. Tomorrow, we'll learn about the Japanese language, culture, and whatnot. Thursday is called "field trip day", when we'll head down to the train station as a group and then we're set free to take our first train ride anywhere we want. Friday, we're set to take our driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road test, using our steering-wheel-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car vehicle. Fortunately, we'll take the test on base, where the roads are normal sized. One day, I'll have to upload a picture of a normal two-way residential street here in Yokosuka. A Volkswagon would have trouble maneuvering one of those streets.

Nicki's been feeling under the weather this past week, too. I started to feel sick yesterday, but I seem to have gotten the abbreviated version. She's been a trooper, though, still attending class dispite a miserable cough and nose-clogging congestion. Wish her well soon!

Yokosuka City Tour

Today, we decided to step out of our little bubble of Americanized Japan that we've been living in for the first few days here, and actually take a walk around Yokosuka City. We started out after breakfast and found ourselves quickly outside of our element. Yokosuka City isn't all that big, but to untrained non-Japanese eyes, all of the buildings, signs, and other landmarks look pretty similar. We tried to take it easy, going up the first large street that we could find - for simplicity's sake - in case we needed to backtrack later on. We got about a quarter mile or so down the road and found Chuo Station - the first train station that we've been able to find in Japan (not that we've tried before). The intersection around the Chuo Station is a bit complicated and I think we must have made a wrong turn. As we started to backtrack, I got the funny feeling that we weren't on the same path that we started out on. As we continued, our legs started getting tired, our bellies started getting hungry, and our words to each other were getting less than friendly. But after what turned out to be another mile or so of a wrong turn, we found ourselves at the Mikasa Park, where there's an old Japanese warship memorial. We took a look at the area and found that we were right next to Yokosuka Naval Base, the perfect landmark to help us get our bearings straight again. The park was nicely landscaped, and being away from the busy streets for a few minutes helped us calm down a bit. From there, we decided to head back to base and grab lunch at the famous Japanese restaurant, Long John Silvers. Yes, we chickened out of getting food in the city, but we did make a giant step forward. We went out into the city, got lost, but survived. Maybe tomorrow we'll actually find the nerve to interact with the locals.

Picture update...

There's good news and bad news here. The good news is that I was finally able to upload my pictures from my digital camera to my external hard drive. Now, our camera is clear to take more pictures... I did get a few today in Yokosuka City. The bad news is that the computer here at the lodge is loaded with administrative restrictions, which have prevented me from being able to upload any of the pictures from my camera or the external hard drive to the internet for viewing by family and friends looking at the Japan Years Blog. Sorry... I'll keep them stored though and once I get access to a computer that lets me, I'll upload a bunch for your viewing pleasure.

Hello From Japan

Thought I would give a quick update of things since my last post, but that's impossible, so I'll give a very detailed update instead.

Our last week in Sacramento, USA was very eventful. We went to Apple Hill with Nicki's mom, which is on the outskirts of Sacramento, where (not surprisingly) apples are grown, harvested, and made into fun things like cider, juice, pies, and various other treats. Josh was able to ride his first horse... actually it was more of a pony. We also all ate more apple products than I care to mention.

In Sacramento, we also spent as much time as we could with Nicki's family, but still found a way not to see as many people as we would have liked. Nicki was able to go to a baby shower for her friend Melissa (aka Jade), who is due next month.

I also got good news from my buddy, Danny, in Raleigh, NC. He and his wife, Yvonne, are the proud parents of a baby girl, Riley. Apparently, she's beautiful and has a full head of hair. I can't wait to see the pictures when I'm on a computer that will allow me to see them.

Now.... we're in Japan. Here's the details:

The Flight to the Land of the Rising Sun

If I could give one piece of advise about flying from the USA to Japan, it would be to have a layover in Hawaii, for about 2 or 3 days, just to get used to the time change and to minimize jetlag.

We were surprising lucky, especially since we were traveling with a toddler. As if I needed more reason to brag about Josh being the greatest kid ever, he was about 1,000 times better tempered on the plane than I could ever imagine he'd be...

We flew from Sacramento to LAX on an "express" sized small plane and hit every bit of turbulence (sp?) we could find along the way. Josh's reaction: "Whoa". No cries, no screams, just a "Whoa" or two. The flight attendant was very excited about our Japan trip and tried to calm our anxieties a little, but needless to say, Nicki and I weren't looking forward to the following flight.

During our two hour layover in Los Angeles, we let Josh run around as much as possible to wear him out. It worked pretty well. Within an hour of boarding our flight to Japan, Josh was out like a light. He slept a good two hours and woke up happy and hungry, but still didn't fuss. In fact, he became an instant hit with some of the Asian ladies aboard our flight. We had been advised that Josh might attract some attention in Japan, because American babies are such a rarity and considered a thing of beauty, but I never expected what I saw on the plane. We had random women walking over to ask us all about him, his name, age, etc. Some wanted to hold him, some wanted to talk to him or hold his hand. But every 5 or 10 minutes, someone new would come up and give him attention. One lady leaned over to me and said that he was like a celebrity, because he had about 5 or 6 fans trying to talk to him at one point. Very amusing. Through it all, Josh was a trooper and never complained, fussed, or even talked loud.

We landed in Tokyo's Narita Airport around 4:00pm local time on October 17th. It's a very strange thing, by the way, to wake up early on Oct 16th for a flight, then land in the evening a day later. I'm still trying to figure out what day and time it is now.... anyway, back to the story. After moving quickly through immigrations, we went to the baggage area, only to find all of our luggage sitting on the ground together next to the baggage carousel - what luck, no waiting! Then we went through customs and out into the main terminal to find our ground transportation (bus) to Yokosuka. The only negative was that we noticed it was raining outside, no big deal - we thought (keep reading).

The Infamous Bus Ride To Yokosuka

We got on the 5:30pm bus and I started making small-talk with some of the guys onboard. They mentioned that the ride would take about 1.5 hours, great news considering we had heard it would be 2-3 hours. About an hour into the ride, I figured something was wrong when those guys started making calls on cell phones saying that we were nowhere near base. Turns out that a vehicle had caught fire on the road an hour or so ahead of us, and rush hour got backed up along the main route. Luck finally started getting bad for us. A little over 3.5 hours after getting onto the bus, we finally arrived in Yokosuka and we were met by my office sponsor, who had been waiting for us for about 2 hours. He followed us to the hotel and helped us unload our baggage and helped me check in, good considering I didn't get a wink of sleep on the plane and was now up for about my 23rd hour. But I was very grateful considering he had spent 2 hours in the rain waiting and then was as nice as could be about helping out with the luggage and all.

Jetlag's No Fun

After putting Josh down to bed and calling our immediate family to let them know we got in safely, Nicki and I both hit the hay. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow, around 10pm local time. Unfortunately, Josh woke up around 2:30am with a dirty diaper and consequently woke me up as well. He was able to fall back to sleep after I changed him, but I wasn't as lucky. I ended up staying up the rest of the early morning. After breakfast with Nicki and Josh, I called my sponsor for a lift and went over to my new office to meet all of my coworkers and to get some paperwork rolling. I got done with work around 4pm yesterday, had dinner by 6pm, and was starting to fall asleep standing up around 8pm. Nicki had to laugh because I usually have trouble falling asleep at all hours, but she witnessed me falling asleep at the dinner table. I've been told that it could take a week or two to adjust to the jetlag and I'm starting to believe it.

Welcome to Japan From Mother Nature

Turns out that the rainstorm that we saw in Tokyo followed us down to Yokosuka. Also, it was no small storm. It was the front end of a typhoon. What a welcome to Japan... our first typhoon in less than 24 hours! Typhoon Kirogi, as she was so affectionately named, didn't actually hit us - thank goodness - but she got within about 100 km or so away, which was close enough for me to watch some major wind and rain hitting our hotel last night and early this morning when I woke up again at 2:30am... this time I was able to get back to sleep. But poor Nicki and Josh were up by 4am, so we're all screwed up right now.

The Job

I haven't actually spent much time at all in my new office yet, but I've been told it'll be two weeks or more before I actually can because of all the paperwork and intercultural relations classes I need to take in the meantime. However, I did learn that the man who recruited and hired me, Tom, took a new position recently back in the USA. One of my coworkers is filling his position for now, but I think it's pretty amusing that I may never meet the guy who selected me for the job.

Greetings from Sacramento

Our last few days in San Diego have passed and were quite eventful. On Oct 3rd, the shippers came over to our apartment to pack up and move all of the things that we are planning to take over to Japan with us. Also, I dropped off my pickup truck with the vehicle shipping company that is transporting it to my dad in Virginia. It was a long day. The movers arrived at about 9am and didn't leave until they were finished, at around 7pm. It seemed like they did a good job with the packing and moving, though, so Nicki and I were pretty comfortable with the job that they did. We left Josh with our neighbor, Robin, on the 3rd to let him have fun while we stayed with the movers. On the night of Oct 3rd, we checked into the Hyatt in Mission Beach for the first of three nights.

On Oct 4th, the second round of movers came over to pack our stuff that went into storage while we're in Japan. That day was a bit less stressful, because we only had a relatively small pile of things to store, but we were a bit more concerned because we are storing quite a few of the sentimental and valuable things, like old photos, our bikes, and my surfboards. Yes, I'm storing my surfboards even though I fully intend to go surfing in Japan. I just figured that I can rent one over there our maybe find a good deal on a used one if I plan to paddle out a lot. We got done with the second round of movers early in the afternoon and went back to the hotel to get some rest and unwind.

On Oct 5th, I had to report back for my final day of work in San Diego for the next few years. Around lunch time, my office threw an excellent going away party for Nicki, Josh, and me. Thanks again to Rick, Allison, Chuck P, Alan and whoever else helped make it all happen. The menu included shrimp kabobs and carne asada, along with side dishes and a cake for dessert. It was very cool of everyone to show up and as I mentioned in my farewell speech, I have had a wonderful time working with and getting to know everyone on the team there these past 5 years. I hope to work with them again when I get back from Japan.

After lunch, my boss mentioned that I had to go through the check-out process before the end of the day. But first, I took Nicki and Josh back to the hotel so he could get a nap. On the way, Nicki asked about the whereabouts of Josh's medical files and our CD/DVD storage folder. Neither of us had seen them for the past couple of days, so we decided to go into full search (and panic) mode to find those, especially since we had no luck finding them in the hotel or the car... but first I had to get back to work. I took my external hard drive to work with me, saved as many important files and emails as I could, then went downtown to our main office to start checking out. Turns out that it's a bigger deal than I anticipated, especially since my brain was still focused on Josh's missing medical info. What I thought would be a 15 minute check-out turned into an all-afternoon affair. In the meantime, I kept racking my brain about where we could have left Josh's medical records and the CDs/DVDs. After getting done at work, I stopped by our neighbor's apartment in hopes that we may have left it there while she was babysitting Josh, but she wasn't home so we were out of luck. On the way back to the hotel, it dawned on me to check with the front desk to see if someone had found the missing items and left them for lost-and-found. Turns out that they were there, but they were labeled as "children's books and wedding album", so I got a little bit of resistance from the front desk personnel. Fortunately, Josh's name was all over the medical binder, so I was able to identify that the stuff was ours pretty easily and the stuff was finally back in our possession, much to Nicki's and my relief. After that afternoon ordeal, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner down in Seaport Village, where we ate and watched the sunset over the Pacific for our last time before the big trip.

On Oct 6th, we said goodbye to San Diego and started up to visit Nicki's family in Sacramento. The drive through Los Angeles was terrible... traffic backed up for hours, a screaming toddler in the backseat, and children's songs blasting from our radio to help calm Josh's nerves. But we finally made it through and got up to Sacramento by sunset.

Since then, we've been to a family wedding, driven a few hundred miles from West Sac to East Sac, through outskirts of town, etc. But we're having fun seeing all of the family and hope to enjoy the next few days before taking off for Japan. As I've mentioned before, we're flying out on the morning of the 16th, so today marks our one-week point before the trip.