Tuesday Afternoon

Here's a quick recap of the rest of our second day in Misawa (ME-SAW-WAH). We left the Weasel's Den shortly after noon. Stacia was crashing and I hoped the walk home would work for the 10 minutes in the sun to reset her clock. It worked. HOWEVER, when we got back to the TLF's I decided to stay outside and play....and I really started dozing off....so I'm not sure about it. ::snort:: Seriously, it's nearly 9 p.m. here and everyone is still awake. That's a first since we left WA.

I met a new family as we entered the Weasel's Den. Turns out that we have a common friend who is now stationed in Guam. That was fun. I helped her start a blog. ::snort::

I met another lady at the Weasel's Den who homeschools and has five children. We talked a bit and introduced kids....we'd communicated via email when I was still in TX.

At the playground a mom showed up with 2 cute little girls. I went over to talk with her and it turns out that SHE is another homeschooler whom I had communicated with....she's the head of the homeschool support group here.

It was fun running into folks....and I hope that some of our run ins will become friends.

We walked around base and took photos of funny car names.

I cooked dinner. Jared and I walked to the commissary. Mike picked us up. I will get in shape with all this walking and up and down flights of stairs. ::snort::

Tomorrow I'll attend a spouse breifing and then a class to hopefully get a license to drive. I'm still freaked out RIDING on the left side of the road, but I need to drive so that we can go explore off base. LOL

More photos will have to wait...this computer is not as slick as my laptop and I don't have time to go back and forth to PB if I don't have tabbed browsing. LOL

To jog my memory here are things I need to blog about:
Sticker Shock
Car names
Toilet Adventures
Weasel's Den

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

More to come

I'll try to get on later tonight and share our toilet adventure, our snak adventure and more about the Weasel's Den...but at this point the kids are ready to leave the den...and it's just after noon.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Guess the Meaning....

If you've lived in an Asian country and KNOW - don't guess. It wouldn't be fair. I'll tell you what it means next time I update...

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Tokyo to Misawa

The I family brought gifts for all of us....the Japanese way. Arielle got origami paper, Stacia some Clifford books, Nolan a toy (I'll have to take a photo), Zander some paper balloons, Jared got a book on reading kana, and ME - the goodies I wrote about before.

We had dinner, slept, ate breakfast and all too soon it was time to say goodbye. We headed back to Narita. Then across Tokyo to Haneda, to catch a domestic flight.

Look carefully...you take the luggage carts down the escalators....I did this too...then took the elevator on the next set. LOL Notice Zander watching Ryu.

Disney Tokyo

Ryu and Jun left us at Narita as we boarded the shuttle for Haneda. We had lunch. I saw Octopus pizza for the first time. ::snort:: Kim occupied the kids during our wait by showing them how to make origami fish.

Again, no tipping....and we are a big group by Japanese standards. We boarded the plane. I KNEW we were getting into Japan "for real" when the signs were no longer in Japanese and English.....but we smiled a lot, nodded a lot and looked pathetic enough to make it where we needed to be. ::snort::

Then we watched this sign - which switched between English and Kanji. It was really cool to watch on the flight over. We passed RIGHT by Anchorage, then Russia, North Korea....

One last thought....Tokyo and Haneda airports were both PACKED...and yet everyone was smiling, moving along quickly AND the place was QUIET...quite a contrast to SEA TAC.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Flight to Tokyo

Here are a "few" photos of our blessedly uneventful flight to Japan.

At this point Zander was telling everyone what happened the LAST time we were going to fly, and the rest of us were commenting that we'd made it further than we had in the past. LOL


Zander played very nicely and quietly....but this gentlemen was NOT happy to be sitting next to Stacia, Zander and I.....


This is Zander's new "Pathetic, pitiful, innoncent" look.



Jared wore the hat the boys gave him all the way to Misawa...and he was a sight. There was no other way to safely get the hat to Japan. ::snort::

You can't see all the sign but it says, "Yokoso Japan" - Welcome to Japan.

Customs took a long time for several reasons. The flight attendants had told me I didn't have to fill out a sheet of paper. I needed to have one for each of us. Then I didn't fill out the back. Then Stacia had to go to the rest room - because she'd refused all day long because of the "strange" toilets. We finally made it through Customs.

Again, I cannot express what a blessing Kim, Jun and Ryu were to us. It was SUCH a relief to see a face waiting on the other side of customs.

Tired travelers on the way from Narita to our hotel.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Japanese Snack Reviews

Kim, being a true friend, met me at Narita airport with a selection of Japanese treats. She knew I liked chocoate.....

The Pretz are yummy. The kids rated them a 10 and asked me to find them again. I'm not sure what's IN them, so I won't buy them often, but they are a great treat.

The Pocky are also yummy.....chocolate covered Pretz. A bit like pretzels...but a really good flavor.

My favorite are the ones on the right - and I can't read the name. ::snort:: I know this sounds strange, and I'm the only one who ate them, but they taste like chocolate covered corn nuts.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Samaurai Barbers

We walked over to the food court at the BX....we went the wrong way and Ch. B saw us. He gave us a ride and directions on how to get home. It was very fortunate he found us when he did....I'm not sure why I allowed Jared to be our guide. He spent an hour this a.m. looking for the gym and it's two blocks away. ::snort::

I am trying to load photos as I type. It's slow going, we'll see. The Food Court is GREAT compared to Goodfellow. It has Pizza Hut, A&W, Charleys, Taco Bell, Baskin Robbins and Subway.....of course ordering was a bit of a challenge as all the employees are Japanese...but we had fun.

We ate. The littles are playing on a big slide.

Jared just got nearly scalped by a Japanese barber. He couldn't remember the word for "stop" before the man was nearly done....OK, it wasn't that bad. He told the man he wanted "3 inches" off the top. The man grabbed his hair, and the clippers and said, "This is good? Yes?" and Jared was saying, "No, no, no..." Communication wasn't exactly clear. ::snort:: Then he went to get up and they pushed him back down and gave him a massage! Jared says, "Whoa". I think we'll work on some barber words before he goes again...but then he won't need to go for quite a while. ::snort:: It would have been better to learn how to say, "No, I don't want to look like a GI," than to learn how to say, "Nice weather isn't it?"....since it's raining. ::snort::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...