No more Greenbacks

The Yen is the form of currency out here in the land of the rising sun. It is defiantly different than the dollar and the exchange rates change on it everyday and sometimes a few times a day. Typically though we get about 80yen per US dollar. One yen is the equivalent (more in use than in value) of our penny.

The 5 and 1 yen are rarely used and we usually just throw them in the money bucket on the counter and forget out them. The 10 is used pretty often.

 The 500 (equal to a little over $5.00) is pretty common. The 100 ($1.00) is the most common form of money that you probably will have on you. The fifty is the weird one with the hole in it.

 All money less than a 1000 yen is in coin form and the 1000 yen is the first bill in the series. The money is defiantly larger in size to dollars. When you put them in your American wallet the edges pop out.

 The 5000 yen ($50.00 or so) feels so nice when its in your hand. Definitely my favorite bill and not just because of how much it can buy :)

Another fun fact about money in Japan is that in a lot of stores they don't do sales tax. Usually whatever price you see is what you pay. Like America, Japan isn't a place that does bargaining. So if you come and visit don't expect to haggle that kimono down.

Tipping is a custom that is not used here unless you are on base. As it was explained to me, the Japanese people see tipping as an insult. Basically they take it as, "here take this extra money so that maybe you can do better next time." Also it is seen as showing off how much money you have. Hey, it works for me! Saves me money for sure. It does feel really weird the first few times you don't leave a tip but after a while you don't even have to think about it.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

My first experience with anything really Japanese was on my ten and a half hour flight over here on Singapore airlines. The plane was defiantly a less flashier 1992 version of the plane they show on their website but I have to say I was truly impressed and I got my first taste of the service that is given to others on this side of the world. Before we even got to our cruising altitude they handed out hot towels (something I thought they only did in first class, which I soooo wasn't). Then everyone got a nice blanket, pillow and socks! I was totally loving that. I got all decked out for my journey to the east and before I knew it we had our lunch served to us. Steak anyone? Heck yes! Every one of the crew was extremely polite and not just in this-is-my-job-so-I-have-to-smile-way either. All in all it is one of the better flights I have been on and I would totally recommend them to anyone coming to visit.

Trains are a fact of life out here. Anywhere that you need to go they can get you to, at least within a few blocks of it. They are pretty cheap and really quick. There is no waiting for half an hour til the train comes. For popular stops and hubs there is a train coming and going every couple of minutes. The longest I have waited was 10 minutes. If you catch the train at non rush hour time you will pretty much always find a seat. On rush hour time though this is what it looks like...

Brett said he has seen it like this and they will literally push people in to make everyone fit. I have not braved rush hour yet and I don't know if I want to. One other thing you will notice from the picture is that it is polite to face the person in the seat. Yes it is awkward since your crotch is in their face but they see turning your back to them as extremely disrespectful so its just how it is.

Cars out here are something else. They do have vans and buses but I have never seen a suburban or a tricked out Honda on the street....the only place you might see that is on base and even then it is rare. Most cars are the size of a Mini and are considered a four seater. On base you see a lot of sedans but there are MUCH smaller cars out side the gates. Most vans are the size of a large sedan back at home. Here in Japan they do drive on the left side of the street and have the wheel on the right. Its very weird at first but now that I am used to seeing it I think it will be just as weird to go home and see it the opposite.

Last but not least is the Navy bus that does loops around the base all day. The base here is fairly large and there is no way you would want to walk everywhere you need to get to there. They have a bus that is on a forty minute schedule and has many drop off locations. Funny, kinda, story. I actually fell getting out of the bus last Saturday. The bus is pretty high off the ground and I totally ate it. I will definatly be more careful next time.
If you want to see a video of how it is during rush hour

You wish you could eat this

Soooo now that we finally have a computer of our own again and Internet I can update this blog and put up some pictures.

What has been most requested is pictures of the food so here are the ones we have taken so far...and let me tell you, it all tastes even better than it looks.

Pepper Lunch: Awww mmmmmm. My first meal in Japan was this little beauty. Even though its called lunch you can eat it anytime of day. First of all you order your meal from a vending ticket machine and you give the ticket to the waitress. We ordered the namesake for our meals. You get the best piece of steak served raw on a fajita type caste iron plate that is sizzling its so hot. They also give you finely chopped garlic and corn. The sauces in the background are amazing. All together they add up to one of my favorite meals here. PS the green beans in the back are outstanding. They are just as good as the steak.

Cocos Curry House: Let me tell you, this was the best Indian food I have had so far. I loved it. The nan bread was incredible with the Japanese cheese on top and garlic all over. The brown curry is slightly spicy but fully of amazing flavor that anyone would love.

Speaking of cheese, notice how the cheese is being advertised on the piece of bread as a pizza. :)

This is from one of Brett's sushi trips. Its a sushi go around and as you eat you can take more plates off the conveyor belt. Each plate is color coded with a price.

This little bite has very tiny fish all one the top with a garnish of freshly cut ginger. Brett said its really good.

Forget Top Ramen, this is how the Japanese do Ramen. Yes, this is all Ramen

These are the desserts Brett and his friends got a maid cafe.

Real tempura

 Obviously it was good

 Ramen from a place around the corner from the base. According to Brett this place sucks but I really thought it was tasty.

 These are a popular Japanese snack. This rice ball was filled with smoked salmon.

 Hello Kitty is still very popular here and this delectable was filled with some creamy chocolate pudding.

 This donut looking item was filled with a Japanese style curry.

 Gydon (aka beef bowl) is one of my favorite places to eat. You can easily feed two people for under ten bucks and be full. Notice the egg shells in the corner: It is extremely common to put a raw egg in your meal. Brett was brave enough to try it and said it was really good and added a creaminess to the rice under the meat. Oh and miso soup (this is an amped up version) is served with almost everything.)

 The strangest find here so far. The pancake drink from waffle crisp heaven. Remember how the milk tasted after you ate all the cereal? Well that's what this tastes like without all the grainy cereal bits.

The Japanese know how to make their pastries. Many are based on french culinary staples and they defiantly do these cakes justice.

 We went to a Baskin Robbins out here to see if they had any cool new flavors, and heck ya they did. This one we decided to try out we were not sure what it was. Its name is Popping Showers. We thought the name alone qualified us to try it. Turned out to be pop rock ice cream. Way fun.

 Vending machine and Japan go together like fast food and America. You see the machines everywhere. Here are some of the ones in the laundromat.

Most of the flavors are tea. On the second self and in the blue can is a yogurt drink that taste like plain yogurt and to defiantly get the point across they add bits of yogurt. Not my favorite but to each their own. Oh another cool thing is that here vending machines offer both hot and cold drink out of the same machine. Blue means cold and red means hot.

 Some American favorites in there.

Look who is a coffee spokesman here...

 
 This machine has a lot of good ones. The can on the second row that looks like a ninja turtle is on it is bubble gum flavored soda. The peach colored can on the third row is a heavenly peach drink. It tastes exactly like biting into the best summer peach.

 The bottom row has so onion soup Brett loves.

 Our favorite meal here is Yakiniku. It is the closes thing we have gotten to a buffet. If you want to stuff your face this is the spot. You order from a menu and point to the meat items you would like and then you get to cook them to your preference on your own grill. Here we have squid and bacon.

 Our dinner party for my birthday.

 Now doesn't this sound yummy. Just gets your stomach going...Oh and someone at the commissary decided to have some fun with the price sticker lol.

 Here is an open air fish market that had the best looking fish and guess what, it actually smelled good in there.

 Picacho likes it so you should too.

Brett and I have tried our hand at making Japanese food. Here are some of our attempts. I think they all turned out pretty dang good.

Our New Place

We have housing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing!!!!!!!!!! It took us about two weeks to go through the process which was uncharacteristically quick for the military. Brett had already done part of the work back in May when he first arrived and I was able to go in and complete the rest. I took a tour of housing last week and was highly unimpressed with the Negeshi housing. It was about an hour train ride away, which was going to but costly to do everyday and also it would take away from the small amount of time we are already spending apart. Therefore we took Negeshi out of the running. Next was Ikego and I loved it. Places to live here are pretty different from back at home. As I have said before, its A LOT of function and very little emphasis on form. So anything built in the last 50-60 years ago is nothing great to look at but besides that, the housing here is a major upgrade for us. We have decided to move into a 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment that has roughly 1500 square feet of space. THAT IS HUGE...especially for us. We started out in a 600 ft space then went to 800 so we have almost doubled our last place and are thrilled about the opportunity for everything it offers.

Brett has already made plans for his man cave and has been anxious to start his space up again. I have decided to use the third bedroom for a computer/sewing/craft/guest room. The video on top is similar to what we will be living in. I hope that gives you a better idea of what we have to look forward to. If you have any questions about things you would like to know about, please let me know.

Base Life

Welcome to small town living...at least small town for a girl that came from a city of 100,000+. There are about 20,000 on the base daily and many of them leave every night. There are about 20 housing towers that look like this...

and they are all over the base. Among those are the little community centers and schools and gyms and the commisary and Navy Exchange. There are also places to eat, like McDonalds, Taco Bell, Subway and few other American food eateries. The base is surrounded by hills and those are covered in trees and are impossible to walk through. The picture here obviously doesnt show much but you can see the ship yards and on the top right of the picture is where are the stuff to do is.

When I first got here I thought the base was huge because square mileage it is but when you get down to the things you can actually do on base, it starts to feel really small. Soooooo....thats why you leave the base!

This is what we call Blue Street. There is a vast amount of things to see, eat and do here. There is a shopping center down the way called Mikasa and it has everything from a 100 yen store (like a 99cent store) to a grocery store to a beef bowl resturant. One thing that is different about Japan is that every floor is often different from what is on the ground level. On the first level they may have a cell phone store, on the next level a resturant and on the next could be an apartment, and they are all owned by different people.

One thing about the Japanese people is that they do not waste space. Much of the time you walk into a store front and it looks like it wont go back for more than a couple of feet but once you get inside you notice that the store is huge and that it twists and turns and makes use of every nook and craney.

I love it here. It is very different but thats what makes it wonderful.

Japan Tastes like MMMMMMMMMM

The food in Japan is Amazing, and yes that is with a capital A. I love it because everything tastes how it should. Unless you have had fresh food before that is prepared well, you have no idea what I am talking about. I have never loved a green bean like I do now.

Brett took me out on our second day together here to a place that is called Pepper Lunch (even though it is served all day and night). You order your meal from a vending machine that spits out tickets that have your orders placed on them. You then hand them to the worker that gives you food faster than McDonald's would and what you get is a little taste of heaven. You get a beautifully cut piece of beef that is placed on a extremely hot cast iron grill in front of you with a garnish of pepper corn and garlic. You then cook it to your desired doneness and voila! You have a meal better than anything steak you have had at home...all for about 1000 yen (10 dollars) per person. We also ordered garlic green beans and those so far are my favorite things that we have had. They are crisp and taste sweet while soaking up the garlic flavor. It was awesome. I could eat those all day.  I will post pictures once we get our own camera.

We have also enjoyed the delights of yakiniku, which is Japanese BBQ. Anyone that comes to visit, this is where I am taking you first. You order your choices from a point and pick menu that consists of an array of meats and vegetables but the best is there beef. You have a little charcoal grill sunken into the middle of your table that you cook your items on. The smell of the food cooking is intoxicating makes you look forward to the food that much more. You can eat all you want for 75 minutes but after about two rounds Brett and I were done.

Yesterday Brett took  me for my first taste of real Ramen...not the kind out of a package. No, this was so much more. Every piece of this dish was prepared with care and portioned to properly balance the meal. Everything from the broth to the noodle to the hard boiled egg was scrumptious.

Another little delight from the land of the rising sun is all the vending machine goodies you can find here. Most machines here on base consist of drinks (hardly any soda in there) and some have a few snacks. Off base though anything that you could ever want you can find in a machine. Want a new MP3 players, easy you can find that anywhere. In that same machine you can buy a shirt and a drink. The technology here is amazing. One drink that I came across so far that I am strangely in love with is a drink that comes in a can and has a pancake with syrup and butter pictured. When I first saw it I wanted to gag but when I tried it I drank the whole thing right then. If any of  my fellow children of the 80's remember this cereal, and who knows they may still have it, Waffle Crisp, that is exactly what it tastes like. Well it tastes like the milk that is left in the bowl after the cereal is gone. Heaven.

My food adventures will continue along with the rest of my journey. Until then, farewell from the other side of the world.

I am here!

I arrived in the beautiful country of Japan yesterday evening at 5:45pm Japan time, that would be 1:45am for all my friends back at home. My flight was wonderful and was a lot easier than I anticipated. It ended up only being 10 and a half hours instead of 11 1/2 which was a very happy surprise. I had the whole row to myself and the flight was comprised of about half Americans and half Japanese. We were served lunch and dinner and were each given a blanket, pillow and socks so that we would be more comfortable. Anyone who flies knows how cold planes normally are but this flight was at room temperature the whole time so the sweats that I had worn on the flight were definite over kill. I slept for about two hours and watched a couple of movies on my own private screen set up in the head rest. I got up and walked around every couple of hours and stretched out.

As we were approaching Japan I was able to see the beautiful landscape of this country. There were a lot of farms and beautiful forests that I was not expecting. Everything is very grouped together and not mixed at all. If it is housing, that is all there is. If it is a forest, there are only trees. I didn't get to see Tokyo for my view but what I did see I loved.

As I walked off of the plane I felt the heat and humidity immediately. Everything feels like someone left a hot shower on. I walked through the massive airport and headed to customs. Luckily many of the signs we also in English and I found my way pretty easily. One thing that is hugely different is how quiet things are. Never will you hear a child screaming or a loud group of people making a ruckus. All conversations are kept low so that you are not imposing on anyone else. Let me tell you, the politeness of this country has already won me over. Customs was quick and easy and I walked down the hallway to find my wonderful husband waiting for me. I almost cried when I saw him again. At four months, this has been our longest time apart and defiantly the hardest because we never knew when we would see each other again. We had an hour before the bus was to pick us up so was bought a drink (a lemon flavored soda) and headed outside to wait. If I thought it was hot in the airport, outside was far worse. Brett had told me it cooled down over the past week and I was expecting something more like a warm day in CA. No this was more like the hottest day in CA with the humidity of the east coast. He told me that I will get used to it and not notice it after a while.

We took the bus back to base and I was able to see some of the sights. It was dark so much of what there was to see would have to wait for another day. One great thing I did see though was Tokyo tower. It looks a lot like what the Eiffel tower looks like except red and white.

Back on base we went to our room and I turned on the air to full blast....ummmmm, I thought it was broken, but no, that was it. Hahaha the air here is not what is back at home but by morning I was able to appreciate it for what it is. It helps and takes the edge of the heat and humidity.

I signed up for my orientation that I will attend next week. Tonight we are going to get real Ramon...not the stuff that comes out of a plastic package. I am so excited. Brett also has a baseball game planned to take me to on Sunday. I cannot wait. I wish I could post pictures but until we get our computer back I probably wont be able to.

I hope all is well back at home and I already miss everyone. I am so happy to be here though and I am excited to make this my home. I send my love and happiness to all my friends and loved ones. Until next time, stay well and happy.