Downtown Yokosuka

Saturday night, I made plans to get up the next morning before dawn to head to Kamakura to take some early morning pictures. It didn't turn out so well. I woke up on Sunday morning with a lump in my throat, likely from the same sickness that plagued Nicki and Josh the previous week. So instead, I got up and took care of Josh in the morning so that Nicki could sleep in and hopefully kick the nasty virus out of her system. It must have worked... she's been feeling much better this week. Just in time to take care of me now that I've got it.

Anyway, I was bummed out pretty much all of Sunday, because I didn't get to use the 85mm f/1.2 lens that Jeff let me borrow all last week while he was in Singapore. So after a long day with a viral lump in my throat and no-picture-taking anxiety in my brain, I told Nicki that I was heading downtown in Yokosuka to take some pictures. I haven't taken many pictures at night yet with the new camera, so I figured it would be a great way to learn having a really high-speed 85mm prime lens with me to help teach me.

Here's some of my faves from the photo excursion:

Looking down at "Blue Street" from Chuo Station Overpass

Young Couple Enjoying the Evening

Japenglish Sign (who can turn down cold beer and hot chicks?)

Shaggy Dog and Shirts

Lonely Man Statue on Bench

Woman with Cane

This Guy is Cooler than the Rest of Us
(by 1.6 degrees)

If you are familiar with photography, you may notice that I shot some of these with a wide-angle lens. As much as I enjoyed using the borrowed 85mm, I decided to switch up and use my 10-22mm as well, since downtowns tend to have big buildings and wide-angle lenses work best around big things. But I really loved shooting with the 85mm and Jeff may eventually receive a ransom note because I may have to add his lens to my collection!

The rest of my pics from the night are in the Gallery, dated 09/28/2006. Enjoy!

Strolling

As we quickly approach our one year anniversary here in Nippon, I can’t help but take a stroll down memory lane to the months leading up to this adventure that we are on. Mike and I were in San Diego. We loved it there. After all, who wouldn’t? There was a small snag in our joy though. I was a full-fledged stay at home mom and money was tight. Housing in San Diego was/is some of the most expensive in the nation. The median home price had jumped to 600K. We were pretty desperate to get the “heck out of dodge” or, in non-slang terms: migrate somewhere less expensive. It’s always been important to us to have a parent at home for Josh. Mike just happens to have the college degree and has more opportunities to hold a more secure and higher paying job than I do. Logic led us to fill the more traditional rolls: Me, taking care of the baby and Mike going to work to, “bring home the bacon”. It was becoming more and more obvious that we wouldn’t be able to do this and reach our lifelong goals (of home ownership and retirement savings amongst other wants) in San Diego. Our despair would sometimes turn to resentment as we watched some of our friends buy homes and us still living in our little apartment barely scraping by and unable to claw out of the last little bit of credit card debt. We were living in what some people might refer to as “paradise” but we didn’t have the money to really go out and enjoy it. Granted we had made the decision to live on one income but to us, that was something that we would only give up if we really weren’t able to put food on the table. It was then we decided that it was time to move.

After Mike finished his MBA program, he started to search for other government job opportunities throughout the US. After the months went by and nothing really sprouted up, he decided to broaden his search to opportunities in the government worldwide and the private sector. His resume was out all over the place. One day, he called me up and asked, “What do you think of Japan?”.

“Japan?!”, I said. “That’s random.” Mike had gone to a meeting where they talked about overseas jobs in Italy, so when we were talking about something overseas, I was thinking Europe. When I heard Japan, the thought had never really crossed my mind before that moment. That day I said, “Well, send your resume their way and see if they are interested. Then, if they are interested in you, we’ll talk about the possibility.”

Several weeks went by and Mike had received another Job offer in the private sector for Raleigh, NC. The company flew him out and he had an opportunity to see some of his best friends from college while he was there, though he flew in and out again in less than 24 total hours. We were really thinking about moving to the east coast so that we could be closer to all of his friends who we love and miss so much. Unfortunately, the company low-balled him and the money and benefits just weren’t enough to give up the security that he had with a government position. He was pretty disappointed over that interview but only until he received a call from Yokosuka the very next week at work. After the initial conversation with his soon to be (brief) boss, things started moving very quickly. Mike called me up that day and asked me again, “So, what do you think about Japan?” My heart kinda stopped for a moment. I hadn’t really thought about it. Now, that moment that I thought would never come was upon us. ‘ Could I really hack it in Japan?’

We literally just had days to decide. His co-workers, some of whom had served in the military, were really excited about Mike’s prospect. Even a gentleman in Mike’s Alumni Club, who was retired military, suggested doing an overseas stint at this time in our lives. Josh wasn’t in school yet and we weren’t really established. Our family as a unit didn’t really have roots yet. I was still very nervous. Well, we were still very nervous, but after having some deep talks, we were for it.

My mother had always told me that as long as I knew that there was a home to come back to, I was an adventurer. But this was different. Instead of me coming back “home”, this unknown place would become “home”.

So, here we are a year later and I can say that so far this has been the experience of a lifetime. There have been so many things that we’ve encountered and learned here that we would have never learned had we stayed at “home”. There’s been a mix of good and bad, but more importantly there are the things that I never would have expected. When we first arrived and I took my first step off base in real Japan, I literally had a panic attack. Thinking to myself, ‘What did we get ourselves into?’

I’ve (We’ve) come a long way… I think. We are still babies-well, toddlers now, toddling our way through the unknown but above all we are happy. In addition to all of the new experiences, we’ve also been able to pay down some debt and save up some spare change for some of our ultimate dreams of home ownership and settling down… well, some day.

Who Needs Garden Gnomes?

We've posted numerous times in the past about how everything seems smaller in Japan, except the bugs and arachnids. The fellow to your left, hanging out on his web, was a recent neighbor of ours... at least until a few hours ago when I finally got around to taking care of some yard work that Nicki has been nagging me politely asking me at regular intervals to complete. Actually, I was a bit worried that if Josh went out to play in our yard, we'd never find him in the tall weeds, so I finally made my way to the on-base "Self-Help" office to request a loaner weed-eater.

Our yard was literally covered in tall weeds, tall grass, and low hanging spider webs. So this evening, after work, I went after the webs with our cheap store-bought rake, which proceeded to break on me as I was swinging it violently towards one of the unsuspecting spiders in the yard. Fortunately, the rake broke at a point where I could still use the full length of handle to swat away the rest of Spiderland.

Doing my end-of-summer yardwork got me thinking a bit about the previous three months of summer and how much fun we have had. We've posted many of our summer pictures already, but we've taken so many that I thought I would share a few more in the Gallery.

Enjoy! In the meantime, I'll be thinking about the upcoming winter months, when I'd happily take in all the spiders in Japan for a few minutes of summertime heat! Okay, maybe not.

Nastiness

If that's even a word that's how I feel. Complete nastiness. That and it feels like knives in my throat whenever I swallow. Oh JOY.

I'm locked up in the house and am taking sick leave while Mike takes my job for the day. I'm already starting to get cabin fever. I know I need the rest. I just feel guilty about it. All you Moms know what I'm talking about right?! That selfish feeling mixed between guilt that we're not there for our kid(s) and that feeling that 'nobody can do it as well as Mommy'. As Mothers we tend to usually have that habit known in the "business world" as micro managing. I believe for me that it fell into my working life when I worked from home.

At any rate, my activities are limited to computer, TV and maybe some books. Mike has gone out with one of my Mommy friends to the park at the end of our neighborhood so that Josh can get some playtime in with his friends and so Mike can get some camera time in with the new lens that he borrowed from Jeff. Jeff already has stated he takes no responsibility for any large purchases Mike may or may not make after he borrows this lens... nice preemptive statement there Jeff.

As for TV, I usually don't watch too much during the day except for my brain trash soap opera. Yes, I have a soap that I watch and it's probably the worst one out there. In fact, while we were at a festival a few weeks ago, the subject came up about soap operas. One of my girlfriends started talking about my show and I believe the statement came out as, "I think they are just trying to question our intelligence! That show is baaaad!" I, of course nodded my head in agreement not admitting that I watch it everyday. I don't neccessaraly love it. It's just that I can't get the soap that I love here in Japan. The one I watch now is the show that came on right after mine in the States. I suppose that I watch it to think of what I'm missing back home. The great thing about soaps is that I can skip a day or two or three and still know what's going on. I can also wash dishes and clean the house while watching it and not miss any vital part of the show. Plus, what's life without a little brain trash? I do even things out. I'm reading 1001 Arabian Nights. Even though it's an amazing book of stories, it can be tedious with all the footnotes. Right now, I'm at the Sinbad stories, about half way through. Granted, I've been reading it for about 6 months now. It's definitely a classic. Probably the first one that I've read since I was in school. I bring it to Spasso when I'm all by myself so I don't have to notice all the Japanese women galking at my naked gaijin body.

Mike will have some more pictures coming soon to the gallery, so keep an eye out. Right now, he and Josh are getting some Daddy and son time in, which is good. Yesterday was the first day that he cried when Mike left for work. He is definitely a Daddy's boy.

Reliving 5/29/06... Mike's Parents' Final Day in Japan

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I've been trying to catch up on all of my photographs that have been collecting digital dust on our hard drive. I've finally finished up on the pics that I took while my parents were visiting Japan back in May. On their last day in town, we decided to cover the important items on their "must see" checklist that they didn't get to during the rest of their 3-week whirlwind adventure here. As it turns out, when we removed some of the items that were impossible for the day, like catching a baseball game or sumo tournament, we were able to narrow the list down pretty significantly and ended up with three things:

• Imperial Palace, Tokyo
• Shibuya Intersection, Tokyo
• Landmark Tower, Yokohama

I took pictures at each of those locations, but ended up only keeping those from Shibuya and Landmark Tower. I wasn't very impressed with the few pictures that I captured at the Imperial Palace, mostly because we only went places I had been (and shot photos of) before.

Regardless, the shots I took that day are posted in our Gallery, dated 09/12/2006 to match with the date of this post.
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In other news, you may have noticed that I posted some extra pictures onto Nicki's previous post about Yunessun Hot Springs Resort in Hakone. We finally got our disposable camera pictures developed from the trip. Warning: the camera had no flash, so most of our indoor pictures are very grainy, despite my desperate attempt to "save" them in Photoshop. We got some great outdoor shots though, especially in the red wine and green tea pools. You can see them all in the Gallery dated 09/07/2006.
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Random trivial tidbit of the day: I recently purchased some more RAM for the computer, which we've been running until recently at 256MB. Not too shabby, if it were still 1995. With us running Photoshop and some of our other programs pretty regularly, our computer has been moving at the pace of a snail on a molasses path. Anyway, I did some research and figured out that our Dell has two slots for RAM, one with the 256MB and another open one. After reading our friend, Claus' blog, I always get some level of confidence about working on my computer, so I decided that I could buy and install extra memory on my own. Our good friends at New Egg deserve a bit of free publicity, because they always ship electronics to FPO/APO addresses (unlike most other online stores); and they ship quickly, safely, and affordably. I got the new RAM (512MB) in the mail yesterday and installed it in the open slot within 30 minutes of getting home last night. I'm proud of myself and our Dell is zooming right along again, but now at around 768MB of RAM instead of just 256.

Check out Nicki's Kitchen . I just added a cabbage and bratwurst recipe that was a big hit at our house!

Birthday at Yunessun

I am officially in my mid to late 20's now. On September 1st, I turned 26. YES, 26. I can say that things have just been getting better though. Truly! I really think that this is the very last birthday that anything significant happens. I am now able to rent a car in the United States without a co-signer. My mother, who knows that I've been in 3 very bad car accidents (all of which were at least 50% my fault according to the insurance agency), is shaking in her boots!

This birthday was also good for another reason. I must have been a REALLY good girl this year because Mike decided to buy me an iPod Nano and take us all up to Yunessun Spa Resort in Hakone (near Mt. Fuji).

I'm very excited about the Nano. From my previouse posts, I've mentioned my newfound admiration of running. We already had the big 60GB iPod that I got Mike for Christmas. However, I've been hogging it on my jogs ever since. Josh has also learned to love it and he asks to listen to Laurie Berkner or TMBG in the car. So, instead of it being Mike's iPod, it is now the family iPod. That is until I received my Nano. It's freed up the biggy iPod for Mike to listen to on the train and during his gym days. Everyone's happy.

As for Yunessun, I didn't really know what to expect. I had seen the pictures and it looked more like an American style waterpark. Sort of the Japanese Disneyland of bath houses. It turned out to be a great resort for all of us. We ended up taking an ITT (aka: Navy base) bus tour up to the park. Upon arrival we are given a towel, a robe and a bracelet shaped like a swatch watch. It is very important to wear the bracelet at all times because it's used to pay for your food, drinks, and services. One side of the park is designated more for young children while the other is a more adult section. Children are allowed in all the areas; it's just that the adult-type area had hotter baths. Obviously we spent most of our time in the children's area.

Outdoors in the more juvenile "fun" area, they had a wading pool with a slide and lots of different fountains. They also had several water slides for older children (110 cm or taller) and a grotto type pool complete with waterfall and hidden pool. Indoors, they had a "blue" pool with blue scented water & a yellow colored curry spice pool along with several Mediterranean style pools complete with a Dead Sea Bath which was filled with salt imported from the Dead Sea. They also had a pool with little fish that ate off dead skin cells... weird. Unfortunately that was the only pool that I didn't try because of the long wait and limited time slots.

Next we went to the more adult area, where they all different types of pools, a red wine bath, a green tea bath, a coffee bath, and a sake bath. We tried all of them. However, we ended up back in the kiddy pool. We completed the whole ten hours without a single temper tantrum. Better than Disneyland in terms of Josh's meltdown mode. In typical Josh fashion, he would not fall asleep on the bus. He finally caved 5 minutes before we reached home. The bus ride was long (3 hours there and 3 hours back from Yokosuka) but I think as long as parents are armed with playthings it's manageable. We came home at around 8:30PM completely relaxed and tired. Josh couldn't stop talking about it the whole next day.

We brought a cheapy waterproof camera, so we had to play it the old fashioned way and wait to see our pictures. But we finally got them developed so check them out in the Gallery, dated 09/07/2006.

In creating this post, I totally trumped Mike's attempt below to get us more readers. Please read the below post. He's created a nifty little button to use us as a link your blog if you'd like. Thanks!

One Year Anniversary and How To Link Us to You

On September 2, 2006, we reached our first major milestone here at The Japan Years. That date marked the 1st anniversary of our blog's existence. Since then, we've made quite a few new friends in person and through this blog site.

It really brightens our day to get comments on our blog from people all over the world. In hopes of generating more traffic to our site, I posted our blog address on several blog directory sites, as you can tell from the colorful little boxes now located within our Resources section. I have become slightly fascinated by those little box links and decided to create one for our blog.

Here's what it looks like:



If you are interested in adding The Japan Years as a link to your website, please feel free. If you would like to use the neat little link box that I created, it's easy. Simply copy and paste the following into your website's html code where you would like the button to show up:

<a href="http://japanyears.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/93/235874603_533c4ac897_o.png" title="The Japan Years" border=0></a>