From Tornados to Typhoons

 This week we experienced our first typhoon. It was comparable to the type of whether we had in Nebraska during a tornado watch. From our side of the island it was pretty uneventful, but I guess it did some damage on the other parts of the island. We live in military housing, which was not our first choice but I do see some positives in living on base. Because we live on base, during the more serious parts of the typhoon we were not aloud to leave our house. People prepare for these things like it's the end of the world. I just wanted salad to go with our pizza we were having for dinner, but there was not a single place to park at the commissary and it looked packed. I never tried to go in, but from what I hear shelves were picked bare. Before it got close we added some canned goods to our pantry so we were not really concerned. We did buy a first aid kit and a candle. We have an AWESOME 72 hour kit that my dad made us for Christmas one year .... but it's somewhere in a freighter crossing the ocean along with the rest of our TMO. I was feeling a little anxious that we did not have a rocking food storage and our 72 hour kit but Sean reassured me that it was not going to get bad. We filled every old container we had with water, put sandbags on our garbage cans so they did not blow away, and put sandbags in front of our entryway. We basically had to stay indoors for a day. It felt similar to a snow day, Sean did not have to go into work unless the weather got better, so we found ourselves hoping it would last the duration of his work day, which it did! It's been rainy since. This whole experience made me realize how important food storage is, I definitely want to get ours built up again in case something serious does happen.  

On a lighter note we purchased our second car. In the past two months I have had so many "never say never" moments. Well, I have said many many times that I would never drive a van. I sort of found myself wanting one when we got here. These vans are awesome. This is our Mini- Mini Van.

It's kind of fun to drive and it fits into so many small spaces that bigger cars do not. This week I've been trying to get accustomed to driving here. It's like learning to drive all over again. The driver's side is on the right hand side of the vehicle, and in Japan driving is done on the left side of the road  (opposite from what is done in the US). I keep thinking to myself "Hug the Left!" Turning left is so different! Left on red only exists on base but not off. I have moments of terror when I'm driving and think to myself that I must be doing something wrong. I actually prefer traffic over none, because then I can just follow the person in front of me. If I'm alone on the road I'm scarred that I might be doing something wrong. Overall, I'm getting use to it.  Sean had been driving here for about a month, and my second day here he accidentally pulled onto the wrong side of the road, luckily the cars that were coming were far away, it still really scared me though. We are an all yellow plate family!  In Japan, there are yellow license plates and white license plates.  They are determined based on your engine size.  Smaller engines get yellow plates, and bigger engines get white plates.  On base a majority of vehicles are white plates, the farther you get from base there are more yellow plates.  Yellow plate vehicles get cheaper road taxes, pay less at toll booths and get other discounts that white plates do not get.  We didn't do it that way on purpose, but it will be nice when it comes time to pay the road tax.  

After the Typhoon I had some cabin fever so we went out to eat at Ramen Kagetsu Arashi.   Going out to eat is always an adventure.  Sometimes it's a matter of pointing to items and hoping it comes out alright.  At this location ordering is done at a coin machine that has pictures of the dishes, similar to a vending machine. Basically the individual dining places yen in the machine and it drops tickets that you take to your table, the server asks minor details like what type of drink you want for example.  There are a few places like this and they are called ticket restaurants.  This place has a reputation for having delicious garlic rice.  I thought it was odd to just order fried rice, so we split some pot stickers along with our order.  This wasn't a simple side of fried rice.  It came in a skillet with a big fried egg at the bottom, the server drizzles some sauce over it and it starts to sizzle and it is suppose to be stirred immediately so the egg doesn't burn on the skillet.  It was so yummy!  It was good enough to be eaten all by itself and large enough that we didn't need the pot stickers even though I enjoyed having them.  It's fun and refreshing to try old things in a new way.  

After lunch we went to the American Village, which is a big tourist attraction for Japanese people from the mainland.  The idea behind it is there are American restaurants,  American attractions, and shopping.  It still seemed pretty foreign to me, although there was a Red Lobster and I occasionally saw a shirt in a store window that said Hollister on it.  In the American Village there are a few arcades comparable to the several arcades in Okinawa.  

 These arcades are pretty cool, the best way to describe them is they are arcades mixed with casinos.  Adults can gamble and children can play on the arcade games.   There were games I haven't ever seen before, and the ones familiar to me were like the arcades games I've seen before but on steroids.  Sean and I played one game, and had so much fun!  It was pirate themed and we basically shot at walking skeletons but we also sailed the pirate ship and did other fun stuff, we spent around ten dollars playing this game.  I feel so ridiculous admitting that,  the "other adults" were gambling and here we were with our 8 month old playing a pirate ship game. I hope to make a date night of going to the arcade one of these days.