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!