Our Cho

I'm finally getting around to putting up pictures of our cho! Now that I'm counting down the days until Alex's return home I realized just how much I have to do in the house to make it a home! It's been livable for me, but I'm still living out of my suitcase and with dishes stacked on the counter instead of in cabinets. Not exactly the way I want to introduce him to our new cho. So I'm getting these pictures out before I get too busy the next few weeks! ...

 I know I promised pictures of the cho once I moved into, but I won't have internet until NOV 4, and there are way to many pictures of the cho to try to post with my phone. After NOV 4th, I promise they will be up.

Last weekend, I did get to exerience the Yosakoi Festival in downtown Sasebo. It's a cool festival! In a courtyard off of the Ginza (the mile long covered shopping street) they set up a stage and mark off a big circle for the dancers. Then groups from all over Nagasaki-Prefecture come to compete in the dance competition! The groups range from large groups of little kids all the way to a 3 man group of senior citizens.... 

The Japan Mobile and Other Events

Hi Everyone!

A lot has happened in the past few days. I left off a few posts ago with a little bit of my "To-do" list, and I completed #1 on Wednesday! 

I finally bought a car! Here in Sasebo there's a pretty good selection of cars. It's a requirement to sell your car before you check out of your command, so with people always in and out there are plenty of people to buy from on base. There are also a few used car dealerships around that will pick you up at the back gate and take you to their lots. Well, I looked at a few cars on base, and I also went to a dealership. Since space in Japan is hard to come by, a lot of used car dealerships just kind of set up shop where they can find space. So last Tuesday I got into the dealer's car at the back gate, and we started our trek to the dealership. 25 minutes later we were pulling into an alley that led to a huge dirty fish market. I was too afraid to take a picture, but imagine entering a compound lined with looming warehouses through a barbed wire fence. I wasn't so sure that I was really going to look at cars. Fortunately at the back side of this fishery we ended up in a lot with a bunch of cars. The neat thing about buying cars in Japan is you don't have to be afraid that someone's going to try to sell you something that shouldn't be sold. Japan has strict laws and each car has to go through a rigorous inspection and the dealer has to fix everything wrong with it before selling. I looked and looked. A lot of them were too expensive- I wasn't prepared to pay 700,500 Yen for a car that I was only going to drive for 18 months, but then again I didn't want something that I was going to be worried about driving. I finally found a car that I thought was a good medium, but when the mechanic came out to talk to me about it, he advised me not to drive out of the Nagasaki prefecture or take long trips. I thanked them for their time and headed home frustrated. I'm not used to having to make big family decisions by myself, but I'm definitely getting baptized by fire with this one! With this move there weren't many stepping stones. In any case, I definitely didn't want to make a bad decision with the car. But since Alex isn't around I knew I was just going to have to do my best. Since I tend to let my emotions get ahead of my reason (like buying a cute junky car over an ugly reliable car) I went into every situation thinking "What would Alex think about this?" "What questions would he ask?". It helped and on Thursday I finished the paperwork on a car that I bought from a friend on  base. It's pretty new, in great shape, has low miles, and at a significantly lower price than the dealerships! Meet our new car:

2005 Toyota Passo. Aren't the wheels tiny? I told you they look like little toy cars!

The next highlight of my week was the Navy Ball! I hadn't planned on going since Alex was away, but a few of my friends from the GERMANTOWN were going without their husbands. I found a ticket someone was giving away on Friday afternoon (4 hours before the Ball started), but I had one more dilemma- All of my dress clothes were in a shipment not to arrive until November 25! I ran around Sasebo with my friend in the blue dress below until I finally found a dress and shoes. We had a lot of fun and I'm so glad I went!

 

All the GERMANTOWN Ladies!

Since we work so closely with the Japanese Maritime and Ground Self Defense forces here, there were many Japanese sailors and soldiers (including three Admirals) at the ball. The man in the picture below randomly came up to me at our table and asked to get his picture taken with me!

Now in about an hour I'll be checking off one more thing from my list- signing the lease on our cho! If everything goes as planned this morning I will be moving into the cho tomorrow! Pictures to come!

Not really an update...

This isn't really an "update" exactly, but just a couple cultural things about Japan and Sasebo that I thought were cool.


The first thing that I noticed when we were driving around Japan were the shrines- they're everywhere! On the side of the road, in parks, big, small, you name it! Before Alex left, we had a chance to go to a shrine here in Sasebo. Here are a few pictures:

This is the entrance to the shrine.

The little hut to the left of the girl is a place where you wash your hands and your mouth before entering the shrine. You're just supposed to gargle and spit it out- quite a scene!

 I don't think you can see from this last picture but under the entrance to the shrine there's a big box where you toss go yen (a 5 yen coin). Then there's a long rope attached to a bell that you ring loudly in order to wake up the spirits so they know you're about to make a wish or say a prayer. In this particular shrine there are 5 spirits that live. Three in the main shrine, and two that have mini-shrines outside to guard. Once you say a prayer you take a deep bow of appreciation to thank the spirits, then clap your hands twice before leaving. It's an interesting process to watch!
Here are some pictures of another shrine I went to yesterday (These aren't great since they were taken with my iPhone):

Konnichiwa!

Konnichiwa!

As promised I will be updating and posting pictures of our adventures here in Japan!
Since Alex went out to sea for a few months yesterday it seems that I have a little bit more time on my hands to sort stories and pictures. Since most of you who are reading this are probably getting the emails I've been sending out I'll spare the details of the stories from our first week here and just do a recap.

Day 1(Travel) - Traveling was rough. Since all of our household belongings won't arrive until December we had to pack everything we would need before then! For me it was a little bit easier, but Alex had to pack all of the uniforms and books he needed for work in addition to regular clothes! For those of you familiar with the military you know that between NWU's, coveralls, khakis, whites, and dress blues (not to mention the shoes/boots, covers, belts, ribbons and pins that go with each of those), uniforms take up tons of space! Two sea bags, a large suitcase, and one carry-on duffel bags worth of space to be exact. Needless to say we had a lot of luggage which is NOT normal traveling procedure in the Rawls' family. For our honeymoon in Germany we each took one backpack for 2 weeks! Here's a few pictures from traveling:

Day 2 (technically): Somehow after 22 hours of travel we made it to the Navy Lodge, slept for about 4 hours and managed to make it through the next day. We had a lot of admin to take care of between visiting the housing office, signing up for the required Area Orientation and Intercultural Relations Brief, and more. At the end of the day we even made it off of the base to explore and have a Japanese meal at LaLaLa Ramen before we got to the point of falling asleep walking.

Mt. Agasaki in the background from the Navy Lodge balcony

An alleyway in downtown Sasebo

 

My dinner at LaLaLa Ramen. Definitely not your typical "cup-o-noodles"

 Day X, Y, and Z: The rest of the days just blend together from that first one in Sasebo. It seems we've had something to do everyday! The biggest thing was:

House Hunting: The Japanese word for house and neighborhood is "Cho". So for us Navy people if you live on base in the western style houses or apartments you live in a "house". If you live out in town on the economy, then you live in a "cho" (the Japanese people think we're crazy- everything's a cho to them).  Alex and I decided early on that we didn't want to turn this experience into a "mini-America". If we were going to live in Japan, we were going to live out in town like the Japanese do. Even though that means hanging up our clothes to dry, changing our cooking habits to adapt to the oven-less kitchen, and wearing sweats and socks in the house in the winter since only 2 rooms have heaters in them. Sure we lose some "creature comforts", but this is the normal way of life for the Japanese, so we can do it too.
The way you find houses on base actually a cool system. In the Housing Office there is a wall with brochures of different houses all over it. It lists the basic amenitites of the house (how many a/c and heat units, bathrooms, etc), how far it is in relation to the base, and price. You can only look at two houses at a time, so once you decide on two houses, you take the brochure to the front desk where a Japanese lady calls the realtor and sets up appointments for you. After that, you are given the color and license plate of the realtor's car, and they pick you up at the back gate! Here are some pictures from a few of the houses we looked at:

This house had a great fenced in yard! It was pretty far from base, but perfect for little people so they could play outside not near the road. Since we don't have any little people, and don't plan on any in the near future, this house wasn't worth the commute.

A pretty standard feature in traditional chos are Shoji doors. They have a wooden frame with stretched paper covering the back. The floor is tatami mats- about 3 inches thick with woven straw and foam insulation in the middle.

Every cho has some variation of this entryway. The cabinet on the left is to hold shoes and slippers. When you come into the cho you put away your shoes and put on your slippers.

There were great things about every house we looked at which made it really hard to decide. But we did decide on the first one we looked at. The rest just didn't compare! We only have just a few pictures of it right now, so once I move in I'll post a whole section on our new little cho!

The next biggest thing was to get our Japanese driver's license!: Since the Japanese drive on the opposite side of the road and the opposite side of the car it's required to pass a written and driving test before becoming licensed. The day of the test ran a little something like this: We went in at 0800 and took a 50 question written test. If you passed that portion you came back in the afternoon to take a behind-the-wheel test where you drive a basic course, and upon returning to the building, back into a parking space (which is a required method of parking almost everywhere in Japan). A little over a quarter of the class failed...

But today I am proud to announce that Alex and I are officially licensed to drive in Japan! It was actually pretty easy if you had been exposed to international road signs previously. I got a 100 on the 50 question written portion (and since it was a competition, I'll just include Alex's score of 96 ;) ), but the behind the wheel test was nerve wracking. I did great on almost everything but backing into a parking space. I made it, but it took me two tries. also, since everything's opposite in the cars, I hit the windshield wipers twice thinking it was my blinker! Of course the driving part was a piece of cake for Alex- some of the other students watching his return to the building (backing into the parking spot) compared it to Nascar. I guess that's just how it is when you drive 9000 ton warships for a living- cars don't seem like much! So he definitely won in that regard ;)

Those are the biggest updates that we have so far. The next things on my “To-do” list are to buy a car and move into our cho! I'll continue updating when I can!