Umbrellas and Crepes

Yesterday we headed into base to meet up with Hans for dinner.  When we woke up Friday morning it was pouring.  One of the nice things about Japan is it is sunny quite often, but when it decides to rain here it often pours.  At one point during the day I looked out our back window over the playing fields and the trees and rain were sideways and there was so much rain puddled up that it looked like a pond out there with huge ripples across it. 

 The wind here is also something else.  We live on top of a hill and the way our buildings are faced there are times when you can just hear the wind howling past the building.  Also when you first walk out of the building it can be pretty windy ( the buildings create a wind tunnel of sorts)  so it can be deceiving of how cold it is outside.  If the wind is blowing then it is definitely cold here, but sometimes we just get a short way away from the buildings and the wind is not so bad. 

 I was nervous about heading out in that kind of weather and we had yet to buy any rain gear or umbrellas.  But we headed out and fortunately the rain and wind settled down.  Our first stop was the NEX though to get umbrellas for me and Olivia.  I got a pretty pink one and for Olivia we got this very cute Hello Kitty umbrella.  She loves it, but thinks it is a toy.  I am afraid she is going to want to bring it on every trip we go on, rain or shine.  After some shopping we headed to Chili's for dinner (we were craving some American food) and then we headed off base to Blue Street where we got some Starbucks and Crepes.  

Right by the train station is a Starbucks and a wonderful little Crepe shop.  The pictures below are actually from last weekend, but the crepes were so good then that we had to stop again this weekend.  Last night we had a crepe with strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and ice cream, and a banana, whipped cream and ice cream one.  They were both super good.  We like the dessert like ones.  But they also have some very interesting fillings with veggies and meat and such.
Here is Olivia eating her crepe.
A funny thing around here is that pretty much every restaurant has plastic food displays.   I must say it is quite helpful to have an idea of what the food will look like and whether or not you want to eat there or not.  Here is the plastic food display at the crepe shop.

The frustrations of a TDY spouse

I have been wanting to write this post for some time now.  Not because I want to complain about how hard it is over here (we knew it would be going into it), but to let those of you who read this that are in the same boat as us know what the challenges are that you will face over here.  Anyway you set up a TDY trip is always hard especially on the family unit.  Whether your husband is away for the whole trip and you are missing him the whole time or if you have the opportunity and priviledge to come along then you miss home and all your friends back there. We will be having a bit of both as I am leaving earlier than Hans the end of March so we will have one long month of missing daddy. 

 One of the unexpected hardships I have found this time is how hard it is on Olivia to be TDY (temporary duty transfer).  When we took her to San Diego it wasn't near as hard.  She was right around the age of 2 and she didn't remember her friends and toys as well that time.  Plus we were able to bring a lot more with us and brought a lot of her toys and books and had a pretty nice set up there.  Plus the things we did there were a short distance by car away and more kid friendly.  She loved the beach and Sea World, our main outings.  Now that she is older she really misses home and her friends.  She actually has a really good memory now and lists off specific things she misses.  Not a day goes by hardly where she doesn't ask if we are going home today.  Of course there is not near as much fun stuff to do here either for kids.  We find it really neat and fascinating but she could care less.  Also it is harder to find playmates for her here since none of them speak our language.  It breaks my heart when she asks to go home since I know we have so much longer here.

The biggest struggle we have had over here though is probably the commissary.  We knew when we came that I would not be able to go even in the commissary so we knew that this would be a hard thing to deal with.  I am finding that is really hard for me to relinquish control of something I am so used to doing the menu planning and grocery shopping.  Although grocery shopping is a pain in the states as well I think I will appreciate it more when I get home.  It is sad to say but I actually miss grocery shopping.  I miss being able to get what I want, pick up things that aren't on my list because I remember that I need them, and have my car to drive however much stuff I want to get back home.  On the same token, Hans doesn't like the set up any better than I do.  He gets a grocery list from via email (often with second and third emails with the things I have forgotten) and then he has to get off work walk 20 minutes over to the commissary, do the shopping in about half an hour and then catch the last shuttle home.  I try not to send him too big of a list since he has to carry everything home.  I find it difficult to plan meals since I can't send him a list of 10 items all for one meal, and I can't send him to the commissary every day.  Also I never know what he will bring home and there aren't a lot of choices at the commissary and sometimes they are out of things, so he will come home with only half of the items I need for a meal.  I try to do some shopping at the Rosen, but I can't find very much American type food there, so I usually just stick to meat, vegetables, and fruit, and a few other things that I can tell what they are.  Our menu of about 5 items is getting quite boring and I am definitely starting to miss all my cookbooks and things that I like to cook back home.  I must say that I do appreciate so much Hans going shopping for me even though he is tired from working all day.  I know that this experience will make us more appreciative of each other and the set up that we have back home.

Another struggle is our mail.  We have a mail box on base, but for some strange reason it has horrible hours and is way off where it is not easy for Hans to get over to and check.  We finally got it all set up and then he went to check it over a week later and we found out that our forward had been inputed into the computer incorrectly so all the mail that we should have been getting for the last 3 weeks has been returned to sender or something.  Hans would like for me to get the mail, but the mail center closes at 4 pm  so the shuttle which is the easiest way for me to get to base with 2 kids doesn't even get me to base in time.  And I am not to fond of the idea of spending 2 hours with 2 kids  going to base just to check the mail.  We may get this all figured out by the time we have to head home.

The other thing I miss from home is American TV.  There are a few shows here in English, but they have never been anything I actually want to watch.  So we watch a lot of DVDs fortunately our apartments have an American DVD player so that all of our DVDs work here.  We have watched a few things in Japanese and even watched a few of Olivia's cartoons (Dora and Wonder Pets) in Japanese.  She was funny because she thought they were in Spanish again.  The other things that stinks is that you can find the full episodes of shows online but if you try to watch the episode it says that you can't because you are in a location that is not approved.  The websites can tell that we are in Japan and will not let you watch them.  So we can read about the episodes but that is about it.  Hans has been able to get a few football games streamlined here, but I haven't been able to get any shows that I would like to watch.  I guess you can watch American TV on base.  

The only plus of not having any TV here is that we don't spend as much time in the evening watching shows and we have now implemented family fun night.  Olivia loves to play hide and seek or jump around on the bed.  Claire even really enjoys the fun.  We will have to try to get a video of Claire and Olivia playing hide and seek because Claire's face just lights up when she finds someone.  It is pretty cute.  Olivia of course hides in the same spots over and over, but hey there aren't that many spots to hide in this small apartment.

Of course the transportation is a struggle, but we are dealing with it and getting used to the fact that it takes a long time to get everywhere and a long time to get home.  So we have a lot of complaints and things that are hard to deal with while we are on this adventure, but overall I am thankful for the fact that we get to be here with Hans and experience something that we never thought we would.  It truly is neat to see a new culture and be in a different country for awhile.  I feel blessed for the opportunity to be here, I know there are many other wives that are stuck at home with jobs and unable to come.  And I must say I really like our fish cooker here.  It is like having a small BBQ grill right in the house.  Super cool and I want Hans to get one for me back in the States.

The people, customs, and other random things

The people in Japan are probably the nicest people 

you will 

ever meet.  The people are so friendly to Claire and Olivia especially.  I love the school kids here.  They are usually dressed in uniform and they just look so cute.  I haven't taken any close up pictures of them because

 I don't want them to think I am strange.  The younger people dress very trendy, well at least what I think is trendy for Japan.  

The young women will often wear shorts or skirts (even though it is not that warm here) with tall boots.  The shoes and boots here are definitely very trendy and even though they walk a lot the women will be wearing high heels.  Amazing to me.  I haven 't seen a ton of young children around, but they have to be the cutest kids in the world and they are also dressed very nicely.  I thought that there would be more pe

ople here with carriers for their babies, but a lot of children are riding in strollers.  I have seen one wrap and one ring sling and all the other carriers are more like a baby bjorn style and these are usually only the people that have two kids.  One in the stroller and one being carried.  The elder people dress very nicely and I have hardly seen any of this age group wearing jeans.  They all wear dress pants and very nice clothing.  Hans also made the observation that you see very few ball caps.  Most people don't wea

r hats at all it seems except the kids in school.  

Here are some pictures.  Mostly from the balcony of our apartment.  We can see right out to the playing fields that the school uses.  There are often kids over there doing PE for school and on the weekends we see group after group of kids practicing baseball.

These are the school kids...you can kind of see their different colored hats.

A closer shot of the school kids.
Here is a baseball practice.
A close up of baseball practice.
Another thing I have noticed here are there are many gardens just randomly throughout the countryside.  I have noticed quite a few from the windows of the train.  This one we found on our walk to the train station the other day when we took a different route than usual.  I think it is great that the small amount of dirt that you do see in this area (there are very few grassy areas or even gardens in people yards the houses are too close together) is used for gardens so they save on their grocery bills.  I don't know if the garden belongs to one person or if they are shared by the people that live in the small community.
We were in the park the other day and these kids had just gotten out of school.  They weren't wearing uniforms, but you can see that some of them are wearing matching hats.

Here are some of the customs I wanted to mention.  First always remove your shoes at any ones house and even some restaurants.  Bowing is a sign of respect the lower you bow the more respect you show.  I often walk around nodding and smiling at all of the people.  Don't blow your nose in public or spit.    They don't like to hear those noises I guess.  It is also rude to talk on your phone on the trains.  There are even sections that are reserved for moms with young children, pregnant women, hurt people and elderly people and these sections ask that you turn off your cell phone in these sections.  This is why you see over half of the people sitting there and texting on their phones.  Cell phone bling is a must.  I would love to get a picture but it is amazing how many trinkets they will cram onto their cell phones.  Here is our cell phone bling.  We need to get more if we are going to keep up with the Japanese.

A few other odd things.  Just about every elevator we get on has the buttons down really low where Olivia can push them (she loves this), but the light switches don't go up down like ours and are up to high so she can't reach them (although she can reach our ones at home).  It is kind of annoying since she used to be able to do it herself and now I have to do it for her.  Another annoying thing is that the toilet is so long and narrow that she can not reach the toilet paper when she is sitting down so I have to always accompany her to the bathroom, where before at home she could go in, get on, and wipe all by herself.  The other really short thing is the peep whole out of our door.  I have to do a full squat to be able to see out of it.

Chinatown-Yokohoma

On Saturday we headed up to the Chinatown in Yokohoma.  So far we have found it pretty easy to get around here.  The train maps help a ton and Hans successfully navigated us up to Chinatown.  Here is a picture of Hans and Olivia on the train.

This is a picture from the train of some of the houses.  I was trying to capture some of the poorer areas.  I know that the apartment that we live in is very nice for Japan and that most places do not have an oven, just a couple burners and maybe a fish cooker.  The streets here still amaze me with how narrow and windy they can be.  They look like a walking path and then here comes a car down it.  The terrain here is very hilly as well.
When we arrived in Yokohama Olivia was thirsty so we decided to try out our first McDonald's over here we had a couple of milk shakes and Hans had a coffee which he so nicely shared with my pants.  So far when we have gone out to eat or ordered any food we have been with someone else so I had not ordered myself up to this point.  Luckily they had a menu in English and I just pointed at things and held up my fingers of how much I wanted of each.
There was a lot of people in Chinatown.  The Chinese New Year is today (Monday) so last night was there big celebration.
Here we are in Chinatown.
The entrances to Chinatown were beautiful.
Here is Olivia dressed up as a dragon.
A pretty display inside of the same building.
Hans with the festive pretty tree.
The entrance again.  At this point we found a Starbucks and went in to use the restrooms.  We needed a sit down, warm up break as well so we got a few drinks.  I again was able to order by pointing at the menu.  The funny thing about Starbucks in Japan is that it is just like the States.  Everything is in English and the Japanese is added to the menus.  It was a big Starbucks and it was really full, a popular place on a chilly day.
Next we walked down to this pretty park along the water.
Here is Hans with the city of Yokohoma in the background.  He was really cold as the weather was deceiving when we left and looked like it would be much warmer but the wind was super cold that day.
We knew our window of happy time was quickly fading so we headed back to Chinatown to have dinner.  We found a really nice restaurant that had someone who spoke fairly good English.  We ordered a family meal for two from the pictures and it was really good.  Here is Olivia showing how she eats with chopsticks.
Daddy and Claire.  Claire really liked the egg drop soup.
Olivia loved the shrimp and actually ate pretty well.
Here is Chinatown as we left in the dark.
I thought this restaurant was very pretty.
Hans and Claire.  You can see some of the stands that sold lots of little trinkets again and Panda stuff.  Claire always gets lots of attentions from the locals and whoever is carrying her on their back can hear people behind you just talking away to the baby.  We think her first word may be in Japanese, but we won't know since we don't speak it ;)

The Bakery

On Friday afternoon, we made a wonderful discovery.  Just up the road from the grocery store is this wonderful little bakery.  I think this will be our new favorite spot to visit.  We went twice on Friday.  Once with our good friend Kelli when we were out for a walk through the neighborhood and once with daddy.  Olivia got a frog both times.  It is so yummy.(She loved it so much that when she woke up Saturday morning and I asked her where she wanted to go that day, she said the bakery.)  It tastes kind of like a strawberry shortcake or a cream puff.  Here are a few pics from our return trip with daddy.  I have been missing doing baking since we don't have any baking supplies.  So this will be a fun little outing for us when Hans is working all those long hours or weekends.

Claire is still thinking about that yummy cream filling she just ate.

Kamakura

On Monday, it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and Hans had the day off) so we headed off in the afternoon to Kamakura a near by town that was Japan's capital in the 12th century.  We needed to get on a different train than we usually ride so we tested out the bus system.  There is a bus stop right up the road from the Rosen so it is super close.  We got on the bus and it took us down to a station that goes the same route that we usually ride the Keikyu but close by is the JR-Sobu line that we needed to get on so we walked a short distance over to that station.  It was nice to not have to do the big trek down the hill.  From there we were able to get to Kamakura and then on another smaller train line to the area we wanted to go.  I was so proud of us for not getting lost and we found quite a few people who helped us out in getting on the right trains.  One thing we learned though was not to venture too far without having enough yen in our wallet.  Atms are hard to find in this area and even harder to find an atm that would take our card.  Luckily we found one at a post office that took our card and had english otherwise we wouldn't have made it too far.  

From here we walked down to the the Kotokuin Temple where the Diabutsu or the Great Buddha is.  It is made of bronze and is the biggest Buddha in Kamakura standing at 11 meters tall.  Unfortunately there was not much in English there to tell us a whole lot about the history of the Buddha or the temples or rituals that we saw.  You have to pay a small amount to get in about 3 dollars per adult.  Then when you first enter there is a big water area where you are suppose to sip some water I believe.  We saw some people use it.  Then there is the Great Buddha with an offering in front of him and an incense area.  We walked around a little more and saw some other buildings and rocks with writing on them but didn't know what any of them said or were.

Me and Claire and Olivia.
You can see the offering right beside me there.  Claire was blinded by the sun.

Here we all are.  We found some people from Washington to take a picture of us.  Olivia zonked out on our walk here after throwing one of the biggest tantrums I have seen out in public.  I was so embarassed that we almost turned around and went back home before seeing anything.
Here is Hans in front of one of the buildings that we didn't know what it was.
A stone with some sort of writing on it.
This picture looks out into the courtyard that you come into and can see the Great Buddha.
This along the street of Kamakura.  We did a little shopping and a lot of window shopping.  I was amazed by how many trinkets and small little knickknacks you can buy.  The big thing around here is cell phone bling.  There are a ton of hello kitty cell phone bling you can buy.  Pretty much every Japanese cell phone I have seen has some sort of cell phone bling on it.  We have our own cell phone bling which I will have to post a picture of in another post.

After leaving the Daibutsu we found another temple called Hasedera Temple.  This temple was very beautiful.  It had beautiful gardens and flowers and from up by the temples you could see out to the ocean and the city below.  It was really neat.  We again had to pay to go in, but it was worth it.  There again wasn't much in English but we enjoyed seeing all the  different things that they worship.  The principal statue, an eleven headed Goddess of Mercy and Bodhisattva is made of wood, and is one of the biggest in Japan at 19.18 meters high.  We didn't get a picture of this statue as pictures or video were not allowed in the temples.
This is just outside the Hasedera Temple.
Also outside a little rickshaw.  I decided I need one of these for Hans to pull me around in.

This area had all these little statues set up.  You could also buy candles to light and incense to light and flowers to put in the pots.
This is looking out onto the town and ocean.  We had a gorgeous warm day to be out.

Here are some of the temples.
This smaller house or temple had scrolls and a bunch of paper stacked on shelves with markings on them.
Hans and Olivia being silly.
So I had to put this picture in.  Olivia was probably the biggest pill she has been since we have arrived here yesterday.  She threw a huge tantrum before she fell asleep about riding in the stroller and once she woke up at this temple she was not a happy camper wanting to be held the whole time we were up where the stroller couldn't go.  Oh well that is one of the difficulties of sight seeing with kids.  We are never just a short car ride from home.  They are in melt down and we still have an hour or two before we can reach home.
This was a little pond and you can see the beautiful garden area.

Here is the water tub that they had at this temple.  It was similar to the one that was at the Daibutsu.

I took a bunch of other pictures but don't want this post to be too long.  On the way back we were able to once again not get lost.  We had a little trouble finding the right bus stop to get on the bus we needed but after following a 20 bus around the block found the right spot and were able to get on.  We had a harder time trying to communicate to people about the bus stops and where bus 20 would be at.  It was much easier on the trains where you just say a train stop.  But now that we know where to go we will be able to ride the bus down to this other station and not have to take the trek up the hill as often at least.