Exploring the new Neighborhood

We have offically been here for ten days! It has been a very busy week catching up on sleep and acquainting ourselves with our new surroundings. So far, we absolutely LOVE our neighborhood.

We have had a few oppurtunities to wander off the base to walk around our town. These are some street shots. On the left is a smaller side street. You should see it when two cars are coming down it at the same time!

Ben at our local (cheapest) sushi joint. Sushi-Go-Round. These are the best kind of places to have some casual sushi. The plates go by on an ingenious conveyor belt that can be blocked off and re-routed to only go to occupied tables. The sushi in Japan is excellent, the rice is seasoned so well, you don't always need to drench the pieces in soy sauce like in the U.S. It's a fun and casual meal (not to mention cheap, at only 105 yen, or about $1.28, per plate). As a general rule, I try to avoid eating too much tuna, as I know it is in low supply. However, on our last trip here I indulged in one particularly beautiful piece of toro (fatty tuna) and man do I see what all the fuss is about! As the fresh meat hit my toungue, it literally melted in my mouth. An indulgant eating experience, that should nonetheless be kept as a special treat. Ben enjoys the meatball sushi, shrimp (ebi), and raw octopus. I Love that he's such an adventurous little eater. He is a big help grabbing the plates for us off the conveyor belt for mom and dad.

Having a "lady-sized" beer at the ramen house.

These types of flags tell you that a restaurant is open.

Fuji-san by day

Last Thursday, we "moved" into our apartment from the hotel. I say "moved" because we don't yet have our household goods, but instead very uncomfortable temporary furniture. Hopefully we will have our own furniture by the end of April and we can get our house put together before Marcus is deployed in May. Our apartment (military housing) is really nice, we like it a lot as it has a very open floorplan, and is more than enough space for our family. We have two patio's that get tons of sunlight, so I plan on doing a lot of patio gardening. As soon as I can, I'm going to load up on gardening supplies and get started! The best part of our place is the view of Mount Fuji...when it's cloudy you wouldn't know it was there, but on a clear day...well you can see for yourself! The ugly building in the way is pretty much what our building looks like. We're way up on the 8th floor, and we don't mind one bit. At least earthquakes will be felt more smoothly up here. For now, we are enjoying the simplicity of life and adjusting well to our new surroundings. The weather has been mostly in our favor, which is great since we are walking everywhere.

Fuji-san at Sunset

 Since we moved into housing, we have decided that we will need to buy a car. There are several factors, but mainly that housing is quite far from the main part of base, and even farther from the nearest grocery store in town (1.5 km). Ben gets tired of walking after about a mile, and I don't blame him, but once Marcus isn't around to carry him on his shoulders I will need better transportation. A bike trailer is out of the question off base, and rainy season is appraoching.  Also we have figured out that buying a car, with insurance and taxes won't cost more than 4k, so why not? Now I just have to get over my fear of driving on tother side of the road, and learn how to do it...

*I've been having difficult time with the format on my blog, I could not get this picture to go anywhere else without screwing everything else up...