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!