Taking Yourself With You

In middle school one of my teachers said that you take yourself with you where ever you go.  I have an aunt who has always said  you have the potential to be happy anywhere, or miserable, it is your choice. Since I have been out on my own, I have started to understand these concepts.  I'm sure there are some places that I would rather live than others, and Japan is one of those rather live places, but at the end of the day, our life and family is the same here as it would be in any other part of the world.  I do not deny that we will have some amazing experiences and that we have already had some amazing experiences, but once we were settled and all was really said and done, we live here.  We are not on vacation. Even though we have the opportunity to find joy in the things we are able to do, we have most of our dinners as a family in our home, and spend most of our evenings in our home.  I am so grateful Sean took that week off of work so we could have a stay cation and do the tourist thing.  Financially we can't play every single day.  The weekends are pretty awesome, and every time we leave the house it is an interesting experience.  I guess my point in sharing this is, I have felt like we worked so hard to get out here, that I'm not allowed to have a few days where I miss my family, or feel uncomfortable or stressed.  There will be good and bad days just like any other place in the world.  I've had to remind myself that we moved, across the world, and it's alright to feel a little out of place.  In comparison, I am actually handling this so much better than when we first moved to Omaha in a number of ways.  I'm much more confident in the individual I am, and I am much more outgoing than I use to be.  I had so many troubles starting conversations and once they were started, continuing them.  I have a little bit of maturity on my side.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to grow, and to be out of my bubble, again.  

Waiting Game 

We were told our TMO ( our movers) would be here the 18th, it's now the 29th and we still have not heard from them yet.  We have loaner furniture that my baby and pets have lovingly used so I'm hoping the expenses are kind to us when we return them.  I have never wanted to vacuum before, it is not like its a need I feel ever, but now that it is gone I sort of wish I had my vacuum, especially with Ely crawling everywhere.  I miss my daughter's nursery, mostly her crib.  We never really felt comfortable with co sleeping,   I know some people swear by it and it works well for them but we totally were all about baby having her own sleeping space.  I have several " I was such a good mom before we moved" moments.  Ely was sleeping in her own bed like a champ before we moved and had several good habits that are now gone (she won't nap unless I'm laying next to her, plus, having her nap on a bed is SO nerve wracking)!  Life happens, and we are just going to have to rebuild those good habits.  We didn't want to repurchase everything, so we only have a few cooking items.  We have cut watermelon, potatoes, zucchini, onions, and a few other items with a pizza cutter.  Not having our stuff has been an adventure, but also a big eye opener as well.  We have so much STUFF that we realize we don't really need or miss at all.   With the few items we do miss there are so many other things we have coming that we noticed we are excessive with.  I don't really need 10 purses taking up closet space, or a ton of lotions, and makeup.  We have already downsized considerably, and will have to do some more once our shipment arrives.  

Culture shock and awe's

  I'm not sure what it is, I don't like making generalizations, but I've seen this specific trend whenever we go out-  Japanese women love my baby. They love to hold Ely and they are not shy about asking or taking, and I secretly kind of love it.  Take my child and speak Japanese to her all you want ladies!  Babies are fun ice breakers like that. I think one of my favorite moments since we have gotten here was speaking with a Japanese woman in the lobby of our church meeting house.  We both belonged to different wards, but we started talking and I loved the whole experience. I was lucky she spoke some English because my Japanese is lacking immensely.  First we started talking about Ely, and then she shared with me a little about her family.  I think she said she had  5 boys and one daughter and some grandchildren. She picked Ely up and some other women came over and were playing with her and pointed to her eyelashes and said something in Japanese regarding them.  I want to speak Japanese so badly!  Years and years of French and growing up with a Spanish speaking mother doesn't mean much out here.   Japanese is hard, romantic languages come so easily to me, and this is nothing close.  I'm so determined to be able to carry on conversations before we head back to the states. I hope to be able to speak it decently by then.  

I had an embarrassing cultural ignorance moment at one of the restaurants we were eating at. Our server was holding our baby (seriously someone always asks to hold her) and I was trying to get my shoes back on and dig through our diaper bag for Yen to pay.  At some locations you eat  sitting on floor on a raised surface, when you walk up onto it you take your shoes off on the lower level.  When we went to pay  I felt a little rushed so instead of handing her the money I placed it on the counter which I guess is a big no no. Sean said I basically threw it at her, which was not what I was trying to communicate at all, I was just frantically setting it down while I was putting my shoes on.  She took it but Sean indicated to me that you are suppose to give money by either placing it on this fancy little tray or hand it to them with two hands.  I did neither because she took it before I could do it correctly, but she was still really nice & I think she knew what our conversation was about and could tell I was embarrassed so I hope I didn't offend her. While we were there Sean told me I had to order the cold noodles, he had eaten there before when he was here by himself.  They were good, I guess you dip them in this cold soup/juice and then slurp them up.   Definitely different than anything I've ever eaten before, but still really yummy.  

Another fun place we were able to go to was Bollywood Dreams in the American Village.  It was pretty awesome, in high school I was obsessed with Bollywood and anything oriental dance related.  I'm quite fond of curry, and the curry there was SO good.  They also had huge naan bread that we didn't think we could eat together, but after trying a smaller piece we decided we had to get the gigantic naan bread next time because we devoured it pretty quickly between the two of us.  

It was a fun atmosphere, there were televisions that had continual Bollywood music videos playing and posters all over the restaurant of Bollywood movies.  We are adding it to the list of places we must take family and friends when they visit.  

 Visiting the sea wall never gets old, it is one of my favorite things to do here, it's free and beautiful.  

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.  

First Week in Japan

I just wanted to start off by saying that I am beyond grateful to be here.  I'm still waiting for it to sink in that we actually live here now!  Ely and I have been here a little over a week and so far we have had so many fun adventures with Sean. 

Ely and I ended our little vacation with family in Seattle.  We had to be at the airport at 3 am to check in our pets.  Even though we had to be there at 3 am, we had to stay with them until 5:30 am.  They started boarding for our flight at 7:30 am, and we left at 8.  It was the longest day of my life.  I was in labor with Ely less time than I was in the air that day.  Our flight was long- 18 hours total, and Ely did surprisingly well.  The actual 10 hour flight wasn't bad, it was the 2 layovers and those flights that were bad, they made me kind of sick with the ascensions and the descent.  I had several people ask if they could help us and I took them up on that offer if I could. In the middle of my flight my overhead light came on randomly, I later realized I must have bumped the button, but initially I thought the kids behind me turned it on.  I thought it was one of those push lights, so I went to push it really hard and gave myself a wonderful burn.  As if taking care of a wiggly baby isn't hard enough I now had a burnt hand.  During both of our layovers I was able to let Rocco out to go to the bathroom but had to leave Converse in his carrier.  I felt so bad for them, but knew it would be worth it in the end.   I told myself I wasn't going to let myself get excited until our last and final flight, but by then I was so tired, that I didn't even care.  I wasn't being negative, I could just barely function.

  When we landed the final time I loaded up my cart  with my 4 large bags and 2 carry on items. Someone offered to help me with Rocco and Converse because I had to get through customs before I could see Sean.  Got through and finally saw him, was so excited to be DONE, when we got to our new tiny car and Sean was loading my stuff he asked me where the car seat base was and stroller. I realized in all the chaos I forgot it so I wasn't really done.  Luckily they were nice and let me go back through customs to get them.  I also misplaced my military id so we had to look for that forever to get onto the other base where our house is.  I have never desired sleep so much in my life!  It took Ely a while to adjust to the sleeping schedule.  We are 15 hours ahead over here, so a whole day basically.  Our first few nights here she woke us up at 2 am, and wouldn't go back to sleep.  It felt similar to having a newborn again.  She is finally getting it now.  Rocco is scarred to go outside.  Our guess is that it is the sound of the bugs in the jungle, it definitely has it's own sound.   We are at the edge of the base next to some extremely thick jungle, I expect a T. Rex to come bounding over the barbed wire any second.  It reminds me of the foliage I saw in Jurassic World a few weeks ago on the big screen.   That means we get to deal with huge, nasty,bugs. 

 Now that our lawn has been mowed they are not as bad.  He is finally getting brave enough to venture out in our yard and isn't having accidents in his crate anymore Our new home is nice, smaller than our last place but I like it. We have a playground in our backyard so that will be nice when Ely is older.

   

 Everything is smaller here.  Cars, homes, food portions, roads, and clothes.   Sean's vehicle is smaller than it looks in pictures.  I've enjoyed the size of his car.  Some of the roads are so small along with the parking spots.  His old truck would take up at least two of the parking spots here.  Several Americans won't give up their American car size, on base we see several American type vehicles, the farther we get from base the cars get smaller.  I don't see how you could function here with a large car if you really got off base and explored.  We are in the process of buy a mini car for myself... stayed tuned for all of it's glory if it actually goes through.  

Our first day here Ely woke up at 5 am after a 2 hour "nap".  I was having a hard time adjusting so we woke up pretty early.   I was ready to go explore but nothing was open yet so we went to the sea wall and walked along the ocean.  I am amazed by the size of the island and Sean still teases me about it.  I envisioned it to be really small, and it actually has several cities on it and is about 4 hours to drive from top to bottom.  

The first place Sean took me to eat was called Hamazushi.  From what I can gather, it is a chain restaurant, and they have a drive through window.  At your table, sushi basically comes by on a conveyor belt.  When you are done you call for a server and they tally up the price by how many plates you have.  You can also order if they don't have what you want on the conveyor belt by computer screen.  

After Day one the days just sort of blend together.  Sean took some leave to get us adjusted, so we have had a stay-cation since we have arrived.  We have been to the beach a few times since we arrived.  We have one fairly close to where we live, but there are other beaches on the island that I like better that are farther away.   

Kadena Marina

We went to a hidden beach on the other side of the island.  It was farther away, but the drive was so beautiful I didn't realize how long it took us to get there.  

  We went to Shurijo Castle, which had a beautiful view of the island. They also had some of the nastiest spiders I have ever seen.  We were walking through some forest and Sean pointed up and I about died, there were several spiders in one web.   On our way up to look at the view of the island a beetle chased us. If there is one thing I don't like about this place is the bugs and spiders.  

 
NOPE

I said get a photograph for scale, I did not say put your hand right next to it!  Eeek!!

I really enjoyed Shurijo Castle.  Like my sister in law Jenna likes to say, it was one of those " This is Japan" moments.  We got ice cream from Blue Seal following our visit.  It melted right away and got all over us but was so worth it. I really love ice cream out here, maybe because it is so hot and maybe it's because it's a little different than what we have back home in the states.  So far we have been to a few restaurants, but my favorite was an American establishment called Chicken and Waffles where I got, well, chicken and waffles.  We have also had sushi,  curry, pizza, Ramen noodles (nothing like the cheap 99 cent ones that you make in the microwave), we ate at the mall, and have done some shopping at the base commissary and off base at some local grocery stores. American food here is pretty yummy, I've had a few friends and family say they were worried about visiting because they don't like food that originates from the Orient, there are just as many American options as there are Japanese, at least for a week or 2 stay.   KFC is a pretty big deal and there is a Chili's on base plus several American related restaurants in the American Village, so there is something for everyone if you want to come stay!  

We celebrated Ely's first 4th of July on the Island.  I thought I would be really homesick, but the base  here is really good about making sure that the families here had multiple ways to celebrate.  We had a pancake breakfast with our new ward at our new church and later that evening we went to watch fireworks up at Okuma beach on another military base.  It was pretty awesome.  We swam until the sun went down, had some funnel cakes, and watched the fireworks.  So far I really love it here.  I do have moments of culture shock, and moments where I am overwhelmed and wished I had studied up on my Japanese before I got here, but with time we will get more comfortable with our surroundings.  I'm grateful for my family and that we get to do this together.  

  

Oregon Visit

I absolutely love this picture of Ely and my Grandma.  I am so fortunate to have the Grandma I have.  I stayed with her for most of the duration of time after Sean was gone.  She helped me so much with Ely during the time I was at her house.  She  drove us around once the insurance on my car expired and once Sean's truck was sold.  She also went with us to Oregon, and allowed my bags and pets to take up most of the space in her car.  It was quite an adventure.  Two dogs, a cat, a baby, a mommy, and a grandma in a car together for 14 hours and one shady motel room on the way up there.   I'm so grateful my grandma was there, I couldn't have done it alone.  Here are some photographs from my time in Oregon.  I was able to watch my sister graduate with her Bachelors degree and spend Father's Day with my dad, the first Father's Day I've had with him in a long time. It was another one of those things I'm grateful I had more time for.

Multnomah Falls

Went to a little zoo in Roseburg

Ely during Brooke's graduation ceremony- It was a HOT and sunny day

Yay!  She did it!  

I'm loving Ely's scrunchy little smile 

So proud!  So grateful I was able to be there.

 `

My Aunt, Brother and Ely

As a post graduation celebration we went to the Oregon Coast. It was the first time since I left Nebraska that I felt relaxed... until Rocco ate part of the door of the beach house we were staying at.....stressful then, maybe funny in a few years.

The gorgeous view from the beach house we were staying at

Ely laughing at Poppa

Ely and her Poppa

 This milestone happened during our time there.

 For Father's Day weekend we went on a little hike with my Dad and Stepmother.

 Shortly after this weekend they drove Ely and I up to Seattle.  We slept for about 2 hours and woke up at 2:30 am to go to the airport.  They helped me with my 4 checked suit cases, 2 large animal crates, my stroller, my baby, and my 2 carry on bags.  They also stayed with me for several hours while we waited to turn in the animals.  It was a fun little fiasco and I'm grateful they helped us out with that part of our adventure.  There is no physical way I could have done it alone.  This was the end of our journey from Omaha, Nebraska to Seattle, Washington!  We were so close to being home!