Goodbye Kitty

Today's a historic day in Yokosuka, Japan, because we had to say goodbye to a trusted old friend. The USS Kitty Hawk, the US Navy's only permanent forward-deployed carrier, left Yokosuka this morning for the final time. We were hoping to make it out for the send off, but when Nicki did a drive-by this morning she found the pier empty. When she got home, she called me to let me know that the ship was still visible in Tokyo Bay. So I headed home, grabbed my camera (from Nicki, who was already taking pictures), and did some shooting. As luck would have it, Nicki's pictures turned out better than mine - and I'm not ashamed to admit it... though it does sting a little. First pic is her's... second is mine.




For those that are wondering, the Kitty Hawk is on her way back to the States, where she'll be decommissioned sometime in 2009. The USS George Washington (CVN-73) will be replacing her in Yokosuka soon. But I'm not at liberty to say when.

Surf Wax Japan

"The sea is foaming like a bottle of beer.
The wave is coming but I ain't got no fear.
I'm waxing down so that I'll go real fast.
I'm waxing down because it's really a blast.
I'm going surfing cuz I don't like your face.
I'm bailing out because I hate the race
Of rats that run, round and round, in a maze.
I'm going surfing, I'm going surfing."
- Surf Wax America by Weezer

Nothing like having your buddies come from 8,000 miles away to remind a guy to take a vacation every once in a while. I've posted pictures of basically the first half of Adam and Tom's trip to Japan. Everything you'll see in the Gallery, dated 05/27/2008, covers May 10 through 15. During that period, we visited Kamakura, Hakone, and Yokohama; and had a great time at each stop along the way. However, I decided to focus this post on my favorite day of their trip... the surfing trip to Chiba.

Adam's Group Portrait

I don't want to downplay any of those other places, but they are familiar spots for many of our regular blog readers. But the Chiba trip is brand new. And it was a perfect chance to test out the capabilities of our family's new (used) Honda Stepwagon, the perfect surf wagon. Chiba is the Prefecture directly east of Tokyo. It's gigantic. Closer to Tokyo, in the northwestern part of Chiba, are Narita Airport and Tokyo Disneyland. But Chiba extends south on a peninsula much like the State of Florida in the USA. And along the southeast shore of Chiba is rumored to be some good surf.

On the road from Yokosuka, the southeast shore of Chiba is a long journey. It'd likely take four hours or more to get there on the streets, because Tokyo Bay is in the way and you'd basically have to drive all the way around the bay and across the Chiba peninsula to get there. Fortunately, the wise people in Kurihama (on Miura peninsula, south of Yokosuka Base) set up a ferry port that can commute people and vehicles over to Chiba in about 45 minutes.

So at around 10:00am, Adam, Tom, and I packed up our gear, rented boards from the base Outdoor Rec water sports equipment rental place (I wish I knew a better name to call it), and hit the road to Kurihama. It was surprisingly easy to get a round trip ticket to Chiba and back. Between my bad Japanese language and the ticket agent's reasonably low level English skills, we sign languaged our information back and forth. Within 10 minutes, we were boarding the ferry to Chiba.

I used Google Maps ahead of time to give me an idea of what to do when we got to the Chiba side of the bay. Once off the ferry, we headed south, then east, across the central part of the peninsula. Man, that central area was awesome. It looked straight out of "The Last Samurai", with ancient looking Japanese style farm buildings and terraced rice fields. One of these days, I need to head that way on my own for a photo shooting expedition.

When we got to the east coast, we headed north to a spot known as "Malibu", because it's supposed to be pretty big and have a good break. The spot didn't disappoint. Actually, a tropical cyclone had passed the coast the day before, so quite a few of the breaks were shoulder high to overhead. One problem... none of us had paddled out in quite a while... and one of us was a virgin surfer. No way we were going to send Tom out in that for his first round of surfing, especially with only one working eyeball.

We also figured out at that point that we forgot to load up on surf wax. Wax gives the feet some surface grip on the board; without it we'd be hosed out there. So we asked a local about the whereabouts of the nearest surf shop. He said, "Three minutes north". So we went north. Twenty minutes later, we found exactly zero surf shops. But we did find ourselves in a knee to waist high surf spot with rolling, glassy conditions. Much better for our mostly unwaxed boards.

So we hit it...

Surfer at Our Gaijin Friendly Spot (not us)

And what can I say, other than it was the time of our lives. Great conditions, great weather, a view of a torii gate in the water several hundred yards out... the perfect surfing trip.

Another Surfer (once again not us)

We spent a few hours on the water, then called it a day. Wanted to make sure that we got some scenic pictures on the way out... and didn't want to risk missing the last ferry back to Kurihama.

Adam and Tom Relaxing with the Honda Stepwagon
(aka: The Redheaded Stepwagon)

As I mentioned at the top of the post, all of our pictures of the Chiba trip (and the preceding 4 days) are in the Gallery dated 05/27/2008.

Another Short One

Just a side note. In my pregnancy blog I mentioned the PBS 10 part series Carrier. Telling everyone to check it out. For folks in and out of the Navy it gives a great perspective of life on an aircraft carrier. The show has interviews from the new and fresh sailors to the officers to the pilots and everyone in between. Showing what life is like aboard the USS Nimitz and during a WestPac deployment bound for the middle east. The best part of this show is that it's a documentary (not a military promo or bash fest) and there are SO many different opinions and SO many fascinating stories.

The side note is that if your not able to find it on TV anymore, all of the episodes can be viewed for free on their web page.

190 Post

So, my husband and his buddies are up in Tokyo....what's a lonely pregnant mommy to do? (Yes, I said pregnant.) Why start a pregnancy blog of course! I decided to create a side blog about this because well, Japan years isn't centered around pregnancy and chick stuff. This way if you don't give a hoot about my latest pregnancy joy or woe, you don't have to read it.

However, if you are interested in the thoughts of pregnancy click here. http://preggonicki.blogspot.com/

I hope that it sparks some interests and opinions.

Well, I Love a Rainy Night

A couple of my old college buddies flew in on Saturday afternoon for a 10-day Japan tour. We're staying fairly local during their visit, but so far have seen Kamakura and Hakone. Tomorrow night, we're going to head up to Yokohama and try to catch the baseball game between the Bay Stars and the Yomiuri Giants, if it doesn't sell out before we can get tickets.

But the real big story of the trip so far belongs to my buddy, Tom. In an effort to fight off jet lag, on Saturday night I took the guys out on the town in downtown Yokosuka. A tropical storm was passing by just off the east coast of Japan, so we'd been experiencing some heavy rain. On our way home for the evening, poor Tom hit a wet spot on the marble sidewalk area in front of a local hotel, slips, and lands head first on the ground. Knocked himself out cold.

Here's a picture of us out on the town:



Here's a picture of Tom the morning after:



Today, he was actually able to open up that left eye of his a little bit.

Date Night at Mike's

Once a week, Nicki and I like to go out on a date night sans Josh. While we're out cruising the town for a couple of hours, Josh gets to party it up with his favorite babysitter. This week, we went out with some friends, Bridget and Bob, to eat at a new Mexican restaurant in "the Honch" area of Yokosuka - which is right across the street from main gate. If you haven't been to Mike's yet, we highly recommend it. Best Mexican we've had in mainland Japan.

Front Door Logo at Mike's Mexican Restaurant

Hilarious Sign on the Staircase Leading to Mike's
(and eerily similar to our SOFA with Japan)

Josh, before the Sitter Arrives

Josh, when the Sitter Goes Home

Kamiooka Shopping Extravaganza

Today, we decided to take a train ride up to Kamiooka Station to walk around the big shopping area there right around the station. We bought Joshua some sandals, but after walking around in them for a few minutes, he got a blister. So we took them back and got a refund.

We ate at a Pepper Lunch restaurant for the very first time... very popular beef restaurant chain here and I'm surprised it took us this long to go to one. Sure enough, the plates were as good as everyone had told us they would be.

We were fortunate enough to find a few cool things that we'd never seen before:



The little Mickey Mouse is a guitar pick. Joshua loves playing guitar with his daddy, so when we saw a huge selection of guitar picks at the music store in the shopping center, we let him choose the one he wanted.

We're also all a little addicted to Pringles, but had never seen the pickle flavor chips before. Sure enough, they taste like pickles. So much so, that I find myself eating them while thinking to myself, why on earth didn't I just buy pickles instead?

Little House on the Bay

Thanks to all the comments I got from readers with suggestions on things to write about. Base living:

I have to say, it has it's pros and cons. We were on the waiting list for about 2.5 years (since we got here). There are three reasons why this was the case:

• #1 We wanted a town home on base and not a tower. The towers are nice; don't get me wrong. However, we were already living in a house off base and we liked it. I really don't want to turn anyone off to the idea of tower living in Yokosuka though, or offend anyone currently living in a tower. The 3 bedroom tower homes are very spacious and have a much more open feel than the townhouses. We are just accustomed to having a back yard.
  

• #2 We wanted to be on Yokosuka main base. There are two other housing bases close to here to provide housing for people. Again, nothing against the other housing installations but our off-base house was just a 10-20 minute commute on local roads so we didn't necessarily want to take anything other than main base.
  

• #3 My husband is a civil servant and not military, so we are low priority for housing on this base.
  

However, other overseas civilians, don't be discouraged (if you are really wanting base housing). Yokosuka just happens to have A LOT of people utilizing it, causing a housing shortage of sorts. Many other readers might be interested in the other two housing bases close to Yokosuka, called Negishi and Ikego. Check out the Yokosuka Base web page for housing information.

All and all, we were more than ready to leave our crusty Japanese house and move into a place where we had many of the luxuries of "home". When we moved in, I didn't realize all the little things that I had missed. Remember, this is from a stay at home mom's perspective. I think my number one thrill was the dishwasher. Japan does have dishwashers and in some cases in the very new homes, they have a built in drawer dishwasher; but it's nothing like the monster of an American dishwasher we can get on base. The majority of Japanese dishwashers are still bought as though they were appliances, so they will take up half of the counter space and still need to be hooked up to the kitchen sink faucet when running. Another thing in the kitchen I have been enjoying is the garbage disposal in the sink. No more digging into the drain, pulling out the screen and dumping all the food mush in the garbage. I have to say that my second favorite was the clothes washer and dryer. Two loads of laundry out in town used to take me all day. Now it only takes 2-4 hours. On rainy days, it's so nice to have a dryer that actually works and doesn't short out my whole kitchen if I have the microwave and dryer on at the same time. The storage space is also a real plus. Mainly because we now have a covered shed where we can put our bikes, BBQs and anything else that might rust. Our home out in town didn't have a shed, but many do, so if you will be in the Yokosuka renter's market soon, and you like to ride a bike it might be something worth looking for in your future rental. I probably won't post a lot of pictures of the house and of base because in regards to OPSEC, I'm not quite sure what I can post and what I can't.

I have to say that the convenience can't be beat. Although we are on the far side of base, I can still get Joshua to school on the back of my bike in 5 minutes. Walking would take us about 15 minutes. We were a short drive before but the minutes really piled on. Now when I go to the gym I don't have to pack all of my shower equipment and change of clothes and lunch. I can just drive home. Before, many times I would have an hour lull in my time. I couldn't very well drive home and do chores (by the time I got home I would have about 10 minutes before having to drive back) so many times I would hang out in the store and buy things that I really don't need or waste time in general. Our spending has gone down dramatically.

As a mother, I don't miss the everyday challenges of living off base. I think if I didn't have any children, I wouldn't mind spending 20 minutes figuring out through pantomime why I'm not getting a discount even though my point card is filled up or googling a bunch of things to find out where certain organic foods / restaurants are up in Tokyo for a weekend trip. However, I got tired of trying to explain that my son doesn't want a booster seat and then they replace it anyway only for my son get pissy with me because he's a big boy now.

Because we spent so much time out in town, we really were ready for the move on base (or, I like to say, joining the Borg). We definitely enjoyed our experience off base and there a couple small things that I miss. I have to say that if we spent a little more shopping time for our rental and got something a little nicer we may have stayed off base. The one thing I really miss is being able to walk to the Seiyu and just pick up something for dinner. Now it takes me about 15 minutes to drive up to the front of base, park, walk out into town and get my Japanese groceries or, 45 minutes to walk out in town and get my groceries vs. the 5 minute walk I used to have. It's a little bit of a hassle but worth it for my yummy fruit, yogurt, and French bread. I'm also happy I had the experience of living out in town because it gave me the push I needed to be brave and learn how to get around in a foreign country. Had I been under the comfortable umbrella of "little America", I may have found myself in the same boat as a lot of other folks and not really gone out of the gates. When that happens, I find that the fear of going out escalates and just becomes bigger, which can be discouraging. I think the number one reason why I still go out in town is because I have a much higher selection of fruit (yes, even cheaper than on base sometimes), the yogurt is much fresher and creamier, cheeses, and the French bread and pastries cannot be beat.

Reiterating what many would say, I appreciated the experience of living off base. I highly encourage it to anyone who's on the fence as to whether or not to take a place out in town or settle for something on base. Especially if you've never been to Japan. It's much easier to take on many English students or make Japanese friends. Experiencing the neighborhood summer festivals is always fun, along with the many other cultural experiences (big and small) that a townie usually just stumbles upon on any given day.

Earlier I referred to our "crusty old house". I drove by it the other day, only to find that it had been completely renovated. I'd like to think partly due to some of the suggestions that we left when we moved out. The front gate and yard looks completely different. Now, the gate is outfitted with a double door entry and camera intercom doorbell. I know that they re-wallpapered the inside as the wallpaper was coming off. Hopefully they put in new tatami, as we could hear it cracking as we walked on it. Also, hoping that they redid the floors. However, after walking by it the other day I did get a twinge of, "man, why wasn't like that when we were there!" Oh, well......a little "grass is always greener" syndrome never hurt anyone.

Lately, I haven't done too many side trips that have been new or different. I really enjoy going to the Toys R Us shopping center in Yokohama. It's a quick train ride up and they have a Toys R Us, McDonald's, and Kid's Fun Island indoor amusement playground all lumped together. It's very close to the Anpanman museum. Also Kannonzaki Park is one of my favorite places (we had a video on our blog about it). The roller slide there is the biggest that I've seen here so far and the small hike up the hill is beautiful this time of year. I'm also looking forward to checking out Flower World soon, as the poppies should be out in full force and they have a very cool play area and a Godzilla roller slide.

Again, thanks for all the suggestions and questions. I hope this helps those who are planning on moving here and those who just miss Japan.

Flat Soda

The weather is finally starting to warm up so we've been spending most of our time outside. Joshua will spend an average of 2 hours a day playing at the playground and maybe more if he can. Tonight Mike gave him a great scrub down in the tub. After all his labor what was left were some scuffs, bruises, freckles, mosquito bites, and the reassuring feeling that under all that dirt, we had brought home the right kid from the playground.

Things in our life have been going well but, for some reason our blog has gone flat like a bottle of soda pop that been shaken up. In the beginning we were full of fizz just bubbling over about our experiences. However, lately our fizz has run out. Any ideas readers?