My Dyson

I bought my first vacuum cleaner when I was living by myself in La Crosse, WI. I think I spent less than $100 on it. We've been using that vacuum for the last 4 years and a few weeks ago (ok, really, 6 months ago) it started doing more blowing that sucking. I couldn't stand it. Especially with all the dog hair and dust around here (Japan is one crazy dusty place, I don't get it).

Glenn and I went to the home store on base which only has about 12 options. We spent about 30 minutes looking at every model. Honestly though I don't think anything will stand up to the Kirby demonstration we had at our house in Norfolk. Annoying cause they lady wouldn't leave after a 45 minute presentation (Glenn, you should have answered the door, I can't so no. :) ) and then told us the vacuum was $1200 (!!!) but I digress. Ok so at the home store, our options are limited. We can spend anywhere from $70 to $600 though.

We finally decided on the Dyson DC24 which at $350 was a lot, but thanks to the Navy Exchange system and no tax is way cheaper than anywhere else, including Dyson's website.

The vacuum is the tiniest thing every (the handle extends to make it the same height as a normal vacuum) but it is the greatest thing ever! It also comes in full size too ($600), but we have a small apartment and probably will in the future so this was perfect for us. We decided on this vacuum because it has no extra parts necessary. No bags, no filters, nothing. Everything is washable and bagless. I know I've seen the commercials about all the engineering and design work that goes in to a Dyson and I didn't believe it was worth hundreds of dollars, but OMG it is! I know I'm raving about a vacuum, but the engineer in me gets excited about this vacuum. The handle comes out and flips around to become the extension hose, you can take the canister off with one hand and another button dumps the dirt. Awesome. Ok, so maybe I've officially made the transition from working to housewife...but at least I enjoy vacuuming now.

Photo Booth

Here's another picture from the Ramen Museum. Photo Booths like this are HUGE in Japan. Almost every tourist destination as well as every arcade and random place has a photo booth. Many times you can add additional pictures, writing, icons, etc on to your print out. There are even some where the printed pictures have "enhanced" aka bigger eyes so you look more beautiful. According to my students, big eyes, big head and deer like legs are all desirable in Japan. I had to explain to them how an "hour-glass" figure is beautiful in Japan.

We tried to test out the photo booth at the arcade at a mall near by when my parents were here, but on a Friday night they were all full of teenage girls. Fun times!

Today's the Day!

Many of you know where I am right now, but I can finally talk about it because I'm here and he's here too! This is a scheduled post though so "knock, knock" that nothing has gone wrong and he has showed up.

Back to "normal" for a few days. At this point "normal" is just together whether we are in the US, Japan or now China.

I'm so excited to explore Hong Kong for a few days with my hubby! I've missed you baby!

I'm leavin' on a jet plane...

My bags are packed. Stella's at the kennel. I'm on my way to the airport. Short flight this time, thank goodness. It feels strange to leave Japan and not be on a plane for 12 hours!

I'll post soon where I'm at!

Kelly and Laura's Adventure Days - Ramen Museum

On Sunday, Laura and I had been planning to go to Chiba to check out the fall foliage, but another tropical storm came our way and it rained all weekend and in to Monday. Instead, we went with Plan B and checked out Yokohama's Ramen Museum and went shopping with Gizelle and Annie.

The Ramen museum claims to be the only food themed amusement park in the world, but I think calling it an "amusement park" is a slight exaggeration. I'd go with "themed restaurant with gift shop" instead.

The museum consisted of 8 or 9 Ramen shops, each from a different part of Japan. Some have seafood, some are soy based or miso based. Different veggies, noodles, etc. We went with an area of Japan southwest of here called Hakata and their raman is described as Fukuchan. This type of ramen has basic seasonings, soy sauce, seafoods, chicken, garlic, ginger and pork. They had garlic chips and fresh garlic and a garlic press so you can flavor your soup more if you'd like.

The shops were located in a scale model of Tokyo from 1958. I think our favorite part was the sound effect of airplanes flying overhead. When you walked down in to the museum they even made it look like you were walking down in to the subway.

You can see how many people they fit into this place. They even had signs for each of the shops telling you how long the wait would be. It reminded me is Disney. You could order a smaller sample size of a bowl of ramen in case you wanted to try multiple places. We decided one line was long enough and went for the regular size. The ramen was delicious and perfect for a cold and rainy day!

AWA/AOSA Izakaya Night!

AWA is the Atsugi Wives Association which is the Japanese counterpart to AOSA, the Atsugi Officer Spouses' Association. On Friday night, we had our annual joint Izakaya night. An izakaya is a eating/drinking establishment. We had the private room upstairs and it was a great time! We drew numbers for our seats and I sat next to Yuko who was crazy fun. Here we are when the drinks just started flowing. We paid approxiately $50 for dinner and two hours of drinks so you had to get your drink on fast before the two hours ran out.

We got to the izakaya and the Japanese wives started things off with a skit and Japanese drinking games. These two were our MCs for the night. One was a Japanese drunk business man and the other was a thief. Not sure where the hula skirt fits in. Here's a picture of one of the games we played. It was a bunch of rubber bands and a pretzel stick and they had to make their way around the table without using your hands. The losing teams had to drink. The other game involved popping balloons with our body parts. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that game (although my team did win :) ).

After our two hours at dinner were up, we headed to Wink, a karaoke bar close by. Once we got there we realized that the bar only served whiskey and shochu (a Japanese rice liquor, kind like vodka-ish) so we made it work. I had my first whiskey and water. Bleh. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the entire karaoke bar was about the size of a large bedroom. We crammed all 30 of us in to the bar and sang away. Yuko and I sang John Denver's "Country Roads" which was the only song she knew in English besides "Yesterday". Where do these ladies learn this stuff?

This picture is one of my favorites of the night. Yuko is wearing a samurai costume hat. You can see why I liked her. I hope I see her again at the luncheon in November. Such a fun night. I'm so glad I went!

New Do

Just as my hair was growing out and I thought I would be happy with having longer hair (a pony tail was finally possible!), I cut it all off. I don't know if it is because I turned 27 last week and it was feeling too mom-ish or because Glenn told me likes my hair short. Probably a little of both.

I was going to dye it darker for the winter, but as it is, everyone on base thinks I am my friend Gizelle when I wear my hair curly. Do you see the 8 inch height difference? I guess we are the only two with short curly hair. And I suppose we live next door to eachother. I'm glad I didn't dye it anyways though because I hate the maintenance. And the money.

Ok, so probably more than you ever wanted to know about my visit to the hair salon yesterday, but with Glenn gone, and no one but Stella for me to talk to, you get to hear about it. Stella has been sleeping all morning anyways. I guess dogs even know when it's the weekend. Better rest up now though because she's going to the kennel while I'm on vacation and she never gets any sleep there! Poor girl. It's killing me to put her in the kennel, but all my friends are going on vacation as well. If Glenn were here, he would say, "it's ok, she's a dog." But really, she's my family.

Speaking of dogs, my friend Laura out in San Diego just had to have her great dane's leg amputated because of cancer. Poor Suva. I'm sure she's doing well and will adapt amazingly, but I just keep thinking what I would do if I had to make that decision about Stella while Glenn was deployed. Wow. Stella and I are thinking about you Laura!

This has been a rambling kind of post so I'll stop now. :) Here's the new do-

Busy Week & Grapes

Sorry I have been lacking on my usual once-a-day posts. It's been a busy week between my classes and meetings and appointments and after last weekend, I've been taking it easy at night.

Here's a picture I took a few weeks ago that I forgot to share.

Apparently, I have gone 27 years in this world without knowing there were multiple types of grapes. Well, of course I knew there were green and purple, but honestly, I thought it stopped there. These are some kind of grape from Japan and even though it is grape season around here they still cost about $4.00 per bunch. So for a bag of grapes like you would buy in the states, you're looking at spending about $10-$12.00. These grapes are much bigger (1" diameter or so) and had small seeds in them and were much sweeter than the grapes I am used too. My student who gave them too me also doesn't eat the skin. She says it is tough and too bitter so she eats the inside and spits out the skin. She was much better at being polite while doing this. I was making a mess all over the place.

Anyways, who knew? Well, a lot of people probably did, but now all my readers know! I wasn't a huge fan of this variety. It was a little too sweet. It tasted like that fake grape juice stuff too me. Next grape season, I'll have to try another variety!

One more week...

For whatever reason, it seems like Glenn has been gone for much longer than 2 weeks. I feel like it has been closer to a month already! This week is busy, thank goodness, and then I'll be on a plane to see my hubby (knock knock). Knocking on wood is necessary because last year, the USS Kitty Hawk pulled in to the same port and they said, "No, thank you. You may not come ashore." That means all the wives and families waiting here and continued to wait and the sailors were not allowed in to the country! Of course, as any port call gets close, the rumor mill starts and everyone is panicking that the same thing may happen. Which it very well could, but I'm going either way. Let's just hope the hubby shows up too! I'll see you in just over a week!

Birthday Adventure Day 2

Birthday Adventure Day 1 at Disney was awesome, but Day 2 was pretty great too! Gizelle, Laura, Annie and myself headed to Tokyo on Friday afternoon for a night of fun.

We check in to the New Sanno (making sure we had a late checkout) and then got ready for dinner. Since all 4 of us were sharing one double hotel room, we were all getting ready together. This reminded me of college and getting ready for going out in campus town. Sometimes I miss college so much! What a wonderful time in my life! I can't complain though, Japan is pretty great too.We had dinner at Wellington's, the restaurant in the New Sanno. They have awesome food and awesome service too. Every one of the servers knows Gizelle (apparently they go there more often than they let on I think!) and asked how Chris was doing.

Side note: Our Italian friend bought Gizelle this drink- her first ever drink bought by a stranger! :)

After dinner we were all feeling a little full, but we were determined to make it out. We took a cab to a place called Feria which was recommended by a friend. Once we found our way to the actual bar (which proved rather difficult); this place was perfect for us because it had a dance club, a wine bar, a lounge and an outdoor terrace on each separate floor. We danced, we met some interesting Italians (one actually named Leonardo, one we named Raphael. If only there had been two more of them...), we drank, we did some shots (apparently "fruity, no tequila = tequila shots in Japan) and made it home to the hotel around 4 am. An awesome night with wonderful friends.What am I going to do when Laura and Annie leave in December? Cry, probably!

Disney Sea Birthday Day!

For my birthday yesterday, my friends, Annie and Laura, and myself went to Tokyo to Disney Sea. Tokyo also has a Disneyland which is right next to Disney Sea. Japan has the only Disney Sea though. I have only been to Disney once when I was in eighth grade so I had forgotten about the crazy long lines, but thankfully we only waited in one really long line the whole day (which was 100 minutes!).

Disney Sea obviously has a water theme so we visited the Italian/Mediterranean coast, Cape Cod, Port Discovery, King Tritan's castle, Agrabah (Alladin) and Mount Prometheus. My favorite rides were the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Journey to the Center of the Earth.The whole place was decked out for Halloween which is funny because the Japanese don't celebrate Halloween. I should have taken more pictures of the people at Disney because for us, that was a whole other attraction. High heels and skirts, every mickey ear you can imagine, mickey ski hats- everything. Apparently you don't come to Disney in Japan not dressed up and like a character. Who knew?
Here we are waiting in line for Storm Rider, a simulator type ride. Notice my sticker? I got a Happy Birthday sticker and all the park employees clapped and told me happy birthday when they saw me. So fun!
Jasmine and Alladin! Alladin was the most flaming man I have ever seen. Funny enough, none of the characters were Japanese like I would have expected. These two were speaking English, probably Americans! At the Alladin show we were given small hand-held devices that had English subtitles for us. It's hard to watch a 3D show and read subtitles at the same time, but at least we knew what was going on!Here we are in front of the Indian Jones ride. We went in the singles line of this ride and probably saved ourselves about 45 minutes of waiting. Best idea all day! The big snack at Disney in Tokyo is the popcorn. I should have taken a picture of this as well. Everyone carries around these souvenir buckets that you can get filled with popcorn, but that's not the crazy part. Never once did I see buttered popcorn. The flavors I saw yesterday were caramel, strawberry, chocolate, curry and black pepper! We tried the strawberry and it was pretty good!
We stayed through the light show at the end of the night, BraviSEAmo! Mickey came out on the Lagoon on a float and explained something but since it was in Japanese, we weren't quite sure what was going on. We think the water princess and fire dragon were battling eachother and then fell in love. But how could fire and water ever love eachother? Yeah, we missed that.

It was a great day with perfect weather and wonderful way to spend my birthday!

5 years ago today...

I know I've posted this picture before, but I'll post it again cause it's one of my favorites. This picture was taken on my 22nd birthday, the night I met the love of my life. I knew shortly after that day, I'd marry him. That was the best birthday present I've ever gotten!

Happy Birthday ME!

Today is my 27th birthday! I got a phone call from Glenn last night while I was folding laundry and watching Oprah. I'm pretty sure he was glad he was on the ship. Ha! I'm super excited for this weekends festivities. Disney Sea today and Tokyo for dinner and drinking tomorrow. I'm so glad I have such good friends to celebrate with. You guys are the best!

I did wake up yesterday with what I'm assuming was a spider attack to my face though. It grosses me out more thinking about it walking on my face while I was sleeping. This is the lovely birthday present it left me with though-Notice 1, 2, 3!!! spider bites. What a jerk. Did he not know my birthday was today? Why am I putting this picture on my blog? Forget that (please)- this will be me on my birthday! Beers and smiles! :)Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone!

Snow in Minnesota

My mom sent me this picture of their backyard from yesterday! I don't remember the last time it snowed before my birthday. I remember many Halloween snow storms, but never my birthday. The trees are still all green!
I am not ready for winter yet, I am just enjoying fall. Japan has beautiful weather right now for those that are thinking of visiting next year! It is "kego hunting" season around here as my Japanese teacher calls it. Kego are the changing leaves so they go search them out just to look at them. Very similar to hanami season in the spring- cherryblossom viewing.

Oktoberfest!

On a beautiful, sunny day in Japan we headed to a doitsu no party (a German party) in Yokohama. What a fun time! From base, I met Catherine and Laura-
and when we got on the train to meet the rest of the group, we saw this! These were their outfits from Badgirl Ball. Those crazy Diamondbacks, they got to wear the outfits again!It was fun to be with these girls, but I'm glad I was not dressed up too. There were many a times when the scene looked like this- a huge group of J photographers taking their pictures. Everyone thought they were actually German and not American, but meh, many of them can't speak either language.Some of the J's were dressed up too. We liked this guys hat...and also this guy's hat. Laura is in the house of Hufflepuff I decided. Does it not look like the sorting hat from Harry Potter?? That's what I thought too, but that was after 4 $10 beers.

Christiana even came out to meet us. She lives in Yokohama and works in Tokyo so we don't see her very often.Drinking during the day with good friends made me feel a little like I was back home tailgating during wonderful fall weather. Although MN got a bunch of snow yesterday so maybe it's better that I'm enjoying a Japan fall!

A video so you can hear the fun band!

Home Improvements

I was suppose to go to on a tour this weekend, but it was rescheduled for Monday because of the typhoon. I was a little bummed I didn't get to go to the Great Lion Festival, but decided to be productive and paint the spare bedroom/office like I have been planning to since we moved in.

Over the last month it has taken me 5 trips to the hardware store to get paint mixed. The first 3 the machine was broken, the 4th no one at the store knew how to use the machine and finally the 5th trip was successful! This is when I really wish I had options like a Home Depot or Walmart or Lowe's or one of a million places in the states where I could get paint mixed. The majority of homes in Japan are wallpapered so they thinking painting your house is kinda crazy- expecially since they only wallpaper about once every 10 years.

Here's the ugly off-white BEFORE:The new blue-grey color AFTER:I suppose it's kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but trust me, it's way better. It's strange how the color of a room can just make you feel different. Stella tried to help too, but she was not so good with a roller. I'm holding her like this because I was trying to get her to not sit on the couch with paint on her butt. And so I could take a picture. :)

Yokohama Baystars

The day before mom and dad left we headed to Yokohama to cheer on the Baystars against the Hanshin Tigers. The Tigers are some pretty die-hards fans, but we were excited that the Baystars won 7-2.

I've blogged about Japanese baseball before so I won't go in to too much detail. It was a beautiful day for a baseball game though. A beer and chu-his. We had a lot of beer and chu-his.I showed my students this picture of the fam and they were like, "Kerry, you're drunk." Yes. I kinda was. The Japanese interchange Rs and Ls. They have a hard time pronouncing our names. Kerry and Grenn. Meh. Close enough.Mom liked the car that drove the new pitcher from the bullpen to the mound. They even sat on the little platform and waved like they were in a parade or something. Gotta love Japan!

I guess I slept through it?

Currently, it is 75 degrees, sunny, blue skies and a light breeze. So much for the typhoon! We had strong winds this morning and lightning (I'm told) last night but now it's a beautiful day.

The news is making it sound much more dramatic, but then again all of Japan went to work and school today. The US Navy? We stayed home and closed everything. I really wish they would open the post office now though- I want my new boots that arrived this week!

All is well in Japan though, just wanted to update everyone!

Typhoon coming our way!

Typhoon Melor is headed towards Japan. Of course, Glenn left today. Save the planes, leave the women and children. I'm getting pretty used to the idea of what's important to the Navy. We've been getting a ton of emails and radio announcements about what to do and how to prepare. I haven't done anything. Am I suppose to? Perhaps I should buy Stella more dog food tomorrow since she has about 1 days worth left? and get some gas? Is it wrong that I feel pretty non-chalant about the whole storm. If it comes, it comes, what am I going to do differently?

This is the kind of info we've been getting in emails- just to give you a taste of what it's like to live on a military base:

*Tomorrow, Wednesday, all services, i.e. Exchange, Commissary, gas station, mini mart, will be open until 9 PM.

*All services will be closed on Thursday and only essential personnel will be sent into work.

*School at SL Elem. School is canceled for Thursday.

*When the winds reach a certain knot level, the gates of the base will close so anyone off base will remain off base.

* Wednesday, 07 OCT will be a normal work day and all base services will
be open. Forcasted to be rainy, but no winds. Some base services will
have extended hours to accommodate last minute preparations (Auto Port,
Commissary). Please take this time to ensure you have adequate supplies
on hand. Expect to go into TYCOR 1 at 2100 Wednesday night.

* Thursday, 08 OCT, as per NAF CO, all base services and DODDs schools
will be closed. Only "essential personnel" as designated by each
command will report to work. For the Air Wing, those "essential
personnel" are the watches assigned to the hangars that have CVW-5
aircraft inside. Buddy system will be utilized for the watches.
"Essential Personnel" need to be in place by 0700 Thursday morning.
Base gates will close during TYCOR 1 EMERGENCY which is when the winds
exceed 50 knots. As of now, the NAF Galley will try to remain open
through out the storm.

* Friday, 09 OCT will be a normal work day & clean up.

* Thursday's forecast has the onset of strong winds starting at
approximately 0900 in the morning. Expect 45-50 knots, with gusts to 65
knots most of the day. Heavy rain, 6-10 inches is expected. The heavy
rains and flooding on the base will be the most dangerous aspect of this
storm.

* NAF is NOT ordering off base residents to come onto the base (Home
Share Program) for the typhoon. But if folks that live off base are not
comfortable with their off base dwellings, both the CBQ & BOQ will have
rooms available if folks want to stay on base during the storm. Just
need to check into the front desk of barracks 482 (main BOQ) or barracks
1290 (main CBQ). They will still charge the normal transient room
rates.

* Pregnant spouses in late term stage should contact medical tomorrow
(Wednesday) for guidance (the low pressures experienced with typhoons have
been known to induce labor for some women in the last trimester).

Roppongi

I forgot about these pictures that a took a few weeks ago right after Glenn got home. We decided to join a bunch of people from our squadron and go out in Tokyo for the night. What a blast we had!Going out in Tokyo is fun (expensive!) but the problem comes with getting home. Trains in Japan stop running around midnight or shortly after, but of course like any big city, the bars get crowded and packed starting around midnight. You have three options usually- 1) Make it a short night and catch the last trains home or 2) stay out until 5 am when the trains start running again or 3) pay for a hotel in Tokyo. The hotel we stay at is extremely difficult to get a room at on Friday and Saturday nights so Glenn and I were prepared for option #2 or possibly crashing on our friends' hotel room floors. Luckily, when we checked with the front desk when we got the hotel to meet people, they had had a last minute cancellation- wahoo!We had an awesome dinner at the hotel restaurant and fun times at the hotel bar and then headed to Roppongi around midnight. Roppongi is an area of Tokyo known for it's night life. We went to a English-speaker-frequented bar called Geronimo's. Geronimo's is a shot bar which equals trouble. Also, when I said going out in Tokyo was expensive, I meant it. That little green shot in my hand? 1000 yen. With the awesome exchange currently, that's a little less than $11.Geronimo's also has the shot challenge. 15 shots of their choosing in some set time limit (an hour maybe?) and you get a tshirt and your name on a plaque on the wall! Steve, Logan and ? completed it that night.Glenn found a plaque that said "Glenn" but gratefully it wasn't his. After Geronimo's we found an awesome Raman shop thanks to Mai (a friend's Japanese girlfriend) for some much needed alcohol absorbtion. I proceeded to fall asleep at the restaurant so Glenn and I took at cab home. Why was I falling asleep? Because it was 4:45 in the morning! We could have made that first train after all!

It's that time again...

Deployment. Blech.

Glenn leaves any day now for fall "cruise". Deployment part II of 2009. Of course as usual we said our good byes this morning and then he called 10 minutes after I had left to say he's not leaving today. We get one more night together which is wonderful, but sometimes you mentally prepare yourself for something and then of course it changes. Yesterday they were leaving a day early, today something different.

It seems hard for me to believe that after this fall deployment, Glenn will have been gone for pretty much half of the year. And guess what? We have to do this next year and again the next year. Glenn's shore tour (our 3 year tour after Japan where he won't be deployed- ever (maybe)) is going to be amazing!

While being gone 6 months this year is pretty crazy, I was amazed at how fast the year went. I guess when you break the year in to a lot of "Glenn will be home in 5 weeks" and "Australia in 3 weeks" you have small goals to overcome which is easier to do than "Glenn is gone for 4 months!"

This cruise will go by very quickly I think because I'll be visiting Glenn at a port call in the middle. I'm really excited for this one which I can't post on here now, but I will once it gets closer.

Time to put my deployment pants back on. A month of Glenn home was just enough time to really get used to have him home. Back to just Stella girl and me.

Gee, thanks Keita

Another awesome email from my students- and this one is in my advanced conversation class!

Hello Kelly, are you fine? Mariko will come next class.
Tomorrow will be rainy day take care catch cold.
keita

A few key words missing, huh? He cracks me up though.

Eating in Japan

Some days while mom and dad were here we didn't even eat lunch, I just made them try every food stand and street food we could find. I found some interesting things for them to try but figured they couldn't just come to Japan and only try sushi!In Yokohama before the baseball game we tried steam buns (I don't know the Chinese name) in Chinatown. They are big puffy doughy things filled with meat and veggies. I also tried "bubble tea" which was mango juice with tapioca balls in the bottom. Both are really good!In Asakusa we tried custard and cholocate flavored taiyaki (fish shaped sandwich cakes). They are awesome! They have benches in front of the window so you can watch them make the taiyaki.
Similar, but not so awesome are the something-yaki cakes that are just like the fish ones, but smaller and filled with sweet red bean paste. The Japanese like to put azuki bean paste in a lot of their sweets and I just can't get on board. I've tried it a ton of times and it is just not so great, but most people love it!Next was takoyaki (grilled octopus balls). Not really balls for those of you whose minds went there, but round fritter like foods with octopus pieces inside. I like them!Lastly a little ice cream for dessert. Mom was adventurous and tried the purple sweet potato ice cream which I am a fan of. (Side note: tomato ice cream = frozen ketchup). I'm glad mom and dad were adventurous in all the foods that they tried. The only fail of the week was the dried ray fin. Not a surprise there!