So, at some point we all have to go out of our comfort zone and eat/do things we wouldn't normally do/eat....The other day we went to a great curry house that everyone is raving about. Gotta say, some of the best stuff I've ever eaten in my life!!!! I had the omelet curry with cheese on top....next time I should get a half order, they brought me a huge plate covered in rice, egg, and curry! Last night we went to this Odun noodle house. I thought, why not see if I can get something with a little egg in it again, so I'm not eating straight starch.....not again....this place had only like 10 options, and I learned how to eat with chopsticks--in public. They had just opened in the last week, and our sponsor's wife had been wanting to try it, so the 4 of us went. I should've done what the others did and get the plain #1....it was just noodles.....Live and learn I guess. I chose the #7 because it looked good in the picture and had egg in it....Ok, so for future reference, "spring egg" roughly translates to almost half-raw egg broken into your soup....My order had just the noodles, with this egg broken into it, some orangish cream stuff, and dark green grated something or other that had a strong smell. The noodles were great...I tried to avoid the pseudo raw egg and the the orange cream, since I had picked off most of the dark green flakes....but since it was all swirled around, I got about half of the bowl down before I couldn't stand it anymore. The egg didn't really lend much to texture either way, which was good, but the orange and green stuff definitely gave it a bite at the end, and no amount of water (the only beverage available) and chicken tempura was going to wash that down. I had a few bites of JJ's #1, and the experience was completely different--note to self, get the #1....
I caught the hotel shuttle down to the kennel on the other end of the base to visit the dogs yesterday, and after about only 10 minutes, Sweet Pea decided she didn't want to spend time with me anymore, despite Ceaser's incessant rolling over for a belly scratch....I'm glad they like where they are, since they will have to be there at least another few days. Still no word on a house, and I'm tired of living out of a suitcase (its been a month!!). Tomorrow is our all-day "Welcome to the Base" briefing...this should be fun! We will have our Japanese drivers' license by the end of the briefing, then on to buying a car....I don't know how much driving I'm going to be doing off-base while we're here....just being a passenger has been getting my road rage fired up....There is an unspoken, unwritten rule out in town that 3 cars go through a light after it is red, and bicycles jump the light, so there are people coming and going in front of you although you have the right-of-way....but they are curteous as far as being accepting of foreign drivers.
The base is its own city....the only thing it doesn't have is a freeway. Other than that, I could just stay on the base (except for church) for the next 3 years and not want for anything. However, there is so much to see and do off base!!! I'm going to a an open air produce market today with the Branch President's wife, and then on Saturday, we are getting with the sisters from the Japanese Branch in town to do a cultural exchange kinda thing and go to one of the local castles!! I can't wait!!! We have seen a couple beaches, and walked through a couple parks, one of which gave me my first experience with a traditional Japanese toilet (if the handicap stall had not been occupied, I could have used a Western toilet)--on the plus side, there was a door on the stall, which is not always the case, and it had a foot lever to flush as oppose to a chain you pull....All in all, things here are great!
When you walk into a restaurant or a store off-base, everyone greets you, and then everyone thanks you as you leave as well.....that kinda shook me a bit when it first happened to me, but I'm use to it now, and can't wait to see what other cool places I can go and things I can do. We haven't exactly gone to a beach--the first one we went to with a friend of JJ's from LRAFB was so packed that there was no place to park--and here, if you park in a parking lot designated for a business and go somewhere other than that business you get fined, so we looked at it as we drove around the parking lot, then headed to another park, where the tide was so far out we almost couldn't see the water.....
And don't even get me started on dialing the phones around here.....there are so many codes to dial on or off base, from a cell phone, to a cell phone, etc, its like dialing 2 or 3 complete phone numbers back in the states! We got a prepaid, pay-as-you-go cell phone yesterday with just 30 minutes on it so we could call for the hotel shuttle, but will be getting a plan later. There are only 2 plans you can get with the company we went with, and they are like 980 yen a month, which right now translates to like $12....they allow for unlimited calling between customers on the same network and then what equates to about $0.06 for every 30 seconds to anyone else, but the unlimited calling between customers is only 1am to 9 pm, then they charge the same amount to talk between customers....makes my head spin!
And now I have to try to get in touch with the insurance adjuster for the other insurance company from our car accident the week before we left, because apparently my voice mail stating that I was out of country for a few years and the notes with my insurance company didn't convince her that I would be very hard to get in touch with....oh, well....she's going to get an email from me, or a message on her voicemail after hours giving a brief statement and directing her to talk to my insurance company if she has any further questions.....
As you can see, life here is interesting all around, and I'm pretty much enjoying it!!!
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