Japan update part 1

!!Konnichiwa Family and Friends!!

 

 

This is my first blog post ever and I'm so not computer savvy, so please bear with me...

We now reside on the 60 mile by 18 mile tropical island of Okinawa. We share with a population of about 1.4 million other people; a US population of about 80,000. We are surrounded by the aqua green and blue waters of both the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The north of the island is primarily dense tropical jungle and uninhabitable  so most of the population resides in the central and southern region. We have been here for almost 2 weeks and are just setting out to explore...so much has happened in this short period of time that this post may be rather lengthy. But here is the update of our stay so far...

 

 

 

When we arrived we met with Todd's sponsor (a random co-worker from his squadron that is to help us out with the transition). We were greeted by his flight chiefs, the squadron commander and other people he will work with. Then we were driven to our TLF (temporary lodging facility). Most people stay in TLF on base, but due to no vacancy we were set up off base. We have plenty of space with 3 small bedrooms, a bathroom, living room and a small kitchenette. He even set us up with a few items in our fridge. It was a warm welcome. We were now "homeless" and car less in a foreign country! Since we arrived late on a Friday night we had to wait until Monday to find out any info as to where we would live, how we would get around and what we had to do to "in process." We were relieved to have a sponsor to help guide us through our first weekend in Japan, but his sponsor seemed to be MIA or always "busy." This part was a little uncomfortable and made us feel like a burden. Our needy little family needed help getting rides to base, setting up phone service and looking for a car. Luckily, Todd's sponsor pawned us off with another co-worker and we were able to accomplish some things. While we were "stranded" at our hotel we took walks and explored as much as we could. We even have an ocean view off in the distance from our balcony.

 

 

Picture of Todd and Riloh on our first expedition on foot...we walked about 800 meters in the wrong direction in search of an ATM ;) haha! That is jungle behind them, we could hear birds and monkeys (more birds) chirping and squealing.

 

The weather here is absolutely delightful! Even when it is pouring rain. It is in the 60s-low 70s and quite comfortable. We are enjoying the change from the freezing cold and snowy winter of Spokane. The locals all think it is "cold" right now as this is their cold season. But apparently we will acclimate and eventually find it cold ourselves. Until then we're ready to hit the beach and frolic around Japan!!

 

We walked to a nearby cell phone store to set up service. The iPhone 5 was free with activation so we chose those and got to communicating. Today's technology is unbelievable! We found an app called "Voxer" that is like using a walkie talkie recording your messages as you talk back and forth, you can text message and send pictures and its all FREE. Riloh got to talk to her best friend, Levi, back at Fairchild AFB...it was the sweetest thing EVER. I didn't know if I should cry or keep grinning as I heard them say "You are my best friend...I love you...I miss you...What are you doing?" back and forth. They even sent each other pictures. Amazing. We have discovered another app called "Magic Jack" that will allow us to make free voice calls to the US and Canada. So any of you with smart phone devices, feel free to download these two apps!!

 

 

 

Our first work week

 

Once Monday hit, we had to get to business. Todd was picked up and taken to work to check in, brief, set up housing, more briefing, in-process, brief, rinse and repeat. His check list is huge. One fine thing about the military is they are a "family first" service. He has been instructed by his flight chief to "take care of his family first", find a house, get a car, set me up with my OB doctor, get settled and then report to work. The base housing options were not available when we arrived, so we opted to look for off base housing. Todd told the agency on base what we were looking for and his phone starting ringing off the hook about 20 minutes later! The Japanese are super nice and very accommodating. An agent would call, come to our hotel, pick us up and drive us around to show us the available housing units. Some are apartments, some houses, some Japanese style, some American and some a mix of both. It was a little discouraging at first, as we have a low budget allowance for housing. The allowance is based on rank and the housing agencies know how much each rank makes, so they can get away with charging the American residents much more. It was really fun to see how different each place was. Even the "dumps," we would walk away smirking and laugh to each other later on. One place was on the 5th floor, we walked down a flight of stairs to see if they were wide enough to move furniture up and stumbled upon hoarders central!! It was a marine too! He had racks piled with random things, uniforms, tool boxes, trash bags full of trash, shoes and a long fold up table all thrown about the area around his door and blocking the stairwell (it was a very small space too). We couldn't hold our laughter in here, even the agent was laughing! It was so wrong. Not to mention a super fire hazard. Wish we would have taken a photo of this to share...ah it was great. The week was ending and we still hadn't found our house, our car or the opportunity to get to the other base and set up my doctor.

 

Kadena is the Air Force base here. There are 8 other military bases on Okinawa. The place is HUGE, especially compared to our little base at Fairchild. There are over 20 restaurants and eateries on Kadena alone! And like 6 gates you can enter/exit. Todd's section chief took us around one day to look at some cars and he even took us to the Chilli's Restaurant for a meal- and paid for us! So nice of him. It was delicious. This base is so large, so you could live on Kadena and keep living an "American" experience. You would not have to learn a lick of Japanese, or deal with any Japanese life if you chose to. But where's the fun in that??  Because of Okinawa's geographical location the culture here has strong influences from the Japanese (mainland),  the Chinese and America. Todd knows two other families from Fairchild that are also stationed here and they took us around to experience some of the local flavor. We had sushi one night. Ramen soup for lunch. And the notorious "Taco Rice."

 

 

 Riloh enjoying some Ramen. We had to look at a pictures of the food and order through a vending machine like system. Then the server brought our food. It is NOT customary to tip for food at restaurants in Japan. And they do not like it if you do so!

 

 

This is Taco Rice... Inspired by American style taco salad, it is simply a taco salad on a bed of white sticky rice. Odd, but surprisingly delicious. Looks like something a pregnant lady would come up with!

 

The Japanese absolutely love Riloh! I don't know if its because she's a blond hair blue eyed beauty or if they just plain love children...But she's a HUGE deal here. Every time she walks by one of them they squeal at her and say "Kawaii" (cute) or reach down to touch her. She is learning a few words of Japanese so she can say "Hi" and "thank you" back to them. That makes them melt even more! Its like some teen girls walking past Justin Beiber, ha!

 

 

 

Over the weekend we stumbled across a park with a loop around running/walking trail. Riloh found a playground and enjoyed walking barefoot on the sand.

This is the sign for the ladies room. The men's sign looks identical, except the figure is blue. This is a park restroom, so keep in mind its rather dingy compared to most of the facilities we've come across.

I thought I had stumbled into the men's room instead when I was greeted with this beauty! Nope, this is indeed a women's restroom toilet. At a park. But it was my first encounter, so I felt the need to document it :)

 



 

 

Some of the English translations we come across really make us giggle! This being one. It was followed by a few more that said "Please clean away your dogs dung." Its not entirely hilarious, but we found some humor.

 

Buying a car in Japan

 

They are tiny little boxes, cubes, rounded squares, miniature and oh so cute or not...Most of the cars for sale are used and can be purchased off a lot, or internet yard sale pages. I actually haven't seen any "brand new" cars yet, but I'm sure they are somewhere. We had some people from the yard sale sites come show us their cars and we were able to browse through a few on the lot outside the base. They are old and in ridiculously good condition. I'm talking 1998-2003 model cars that look 3 years old! But you can tell the smoking cars from the non and lets just say, YUCK! They have two types of insurance and a road tax that all cars must have and pass to be driven on the roads. JCI is a 2 year insurance-like inspection deal, if your car has something wrong with it, it must be fixed and pass inspection or you can't drive it on the street. They are very strict about this. It can be something as small as low tread on your tires. And it can get very pricey. They pay a road tax once a year and then you must have insurance to drive your vehicle. These are all things we had to keep in mind when selecting our used car...a lemon can put you in the hole real fast! We finally selected a car by Friday, but it would not be available until to following Tuesday (Monday's holiday means businesses were closed and inspections couldn't go through). This is a very different process than the states. And get this- the lot we bought it from- you don't get to test drive the vehicle, you just browse and pick. Then they throw in a 1 year warranty if something is wrong with it. A game of chance...

 

So we settled on a white 2002 Honda Stream. Yep, we have just joined an elite group- 1. Statistically known to be the worst class of drivers (in the US) and 2. Soccer mom central. I call it our "mini mini van". And we are so proud! haha. Go ahead and make fun of us! Our choice was very practical. We are about to be a family of 4. Our sweet little mini van has a 3rd row that folds down into extra trunk space when not in use...so we now can tote our stroller and baby gear or load the car up with 7 passengers. Check it out:

 

Now all she needs is a surf board rack and two boards to facilitate the rack ;)

 



 

They drive on the left side of the road here, the steering wheel is on the right, the wipers and the blinkers are completely opposite and the mirrors look so strange adjusted to the right side of the car. You tell me whats harder, accepting the fact that you drive a white mini van or learning to drive with everything backwards?! Bah haha! Here's a fun fact-- you can tell which cars are Americans, because the license plate has a Y on it (Y for Yankee, so they say). Here's an even more fun fact-- You can spot a "new" driver when they are making a turn on a beautiful sunny day and their wiper blades turn on instead of the blinker (they call this the "Japanese wave"). Yep, we're both guilty....

 



 

For your enjoyment, here is a video of our first drive in our car (Todd driving)

 

 

My first drive. I was terrified. But I remembered some helpful advice from our briefing..."Keep your heiny on the liney and you'll do just finey"

 

 

Our Second Week

 

We finally made it to Camp Lester (the naval base and hospital location) to set up a doctor for me. Just have to wait 1 week to be seen, not too shabby considering how busy the place is. I'm 35 weeks along now, feeling quite large and rather uncomfortable. Riloh is sooo excited to have a baby brother! She talks to my belly and kisses him good night. She is going to be the best big sister around. We have always communicated very well with her about the baby so she completely understands what is going on and that she will get to meet him very soon. This makes it so much more special.

 

 

 

After looking at about 12 living establishments last week, we found one we really liked, or love. On Monday we set out to throw some serious Yen down to rent the place. Its just like the states, deposit is one month's rent, pay first months month, agency fee and we had to pay a pet fee for the cat (about $200 USD- not too bad, but it is non-refundable). We had to throw down almost 500,000 YEN, yikes! And this is all out of pocket. Good thing we sold the Honda back home and moved during tax refund time or we'd be like $9K in the hole right now!!! HA. Seriously though. Thank the sweet Lord above. The military will reimburse us for the agency fee and the first months rent because those are allotted in our housing allowance, but it will be some time before we see that money. But who cares?! We are no longer "homeless"!!!!!! We get to move in on Friday. Some of our household items were already here in storage so we set the movers up to deliver come Monday. Then we got a call that the bulk of our household goods has arrived...It wasn't supposed to arrive until sometime between March 11-18th, so this is really good news. They will deliver Wednesday. We should be in, settled, and unpacked by Friday next week!

 

(This is what 500,000 YEN looks like)

 

 

Now a little about the place...Leave it to Todd to find the one place in Okinawa, Japan that resembles Newport Beach!! I don't know how he did it, but he did. We're in Japan so duh, the houses are very close, tight and compact. But we found a location near the beach and it really does scream Newport to us. Which is special because that is where we met and began our lives together. He has missed being near the beach the past 4 years that we lived in Washington, so he's really happy to be reunited. And boy does he deserve it! We have ocean views from every window, even the kids rooms. There is a marina nearby for scuba lessons and fishing. Its the only place we have seen so far that looks remotely beach cruiser friendly-- a big plus since we shipped our bikes all the way out here. And we are very happy with the idea of bringing baby home and planting our roots here. I don't want to spoil it with premature photos quite yet...but once we set up shop I'll post some pics and a few more details.

 

 

 

Cricket

 

 

 

Our cat has been an entirely different animal along this journey. She is unusually calm, collected and appears to be enjoying life once again. This is a nice change. We think she is loving Japan.

 

 

Riloh enjoying a drive in our sweet soccer van! Saying "Cheese!" for Grandpa. We received our first mail at our APO today! Pretty exciting since it was all baby gear I've been in dire need of. Super uplifting considering everything I had already ordered and shipped to our sponsor's address was sent back as returned.  I can not wait to get his room set up and ready for his arrival. All this waiting and waiting has left me with ants in my pants.

 

As for our second week here, today is Wednesday... We have our house set up, our car and driver's licenses, my doctor's appointment and the movers scheduled...looks like mission accomplished! Tomorrow Todd will report to work for his first "actual" work day. Pretty exciting! We are taking maternity photos at the beach on Sunday.  Then we will spend next week unpacking and getting settled into our new home. We will keep everyone updated, but my next post won't be nearly so long! I will leave you with some more video footage for your amusement. We love and miss you all!!

 

 

An interview of Riloh and her Japanese skills. She was very distracted by the pizza so some of the words aren't very clear. We love her so!

 

 

Todd letting everyone know how he is. Pretty good eh?! :)