Time is a train, makes the future the past. Leaves you in the station, your face pressed up against the glass. - U2, Zoo Station

Since I got here in January my life has been pretty busy. The pace here with everything going on at work is a lot faster than Jacksonville, to say the least. SO, it seemed every day I had off for a while happened to fall on a monsoon rain day and I was getting very frustrated at no chances of exploring.

I FINALLY had a gorgeous day out and I was free from work! SO, Cameron and I went on a trek to Japan to find Domo Kun toys and decorations for my birthday party. Domo is a character for one of the tv stations here, NHK. They had a store in the Tokyo train station, so we thought we'd go.

We first were going to try a different toy store that reportedly had Domo items as well.

Our walk to the train station is about 20 minutes if you are walking casually. I have made it in 15, but then the Japanese looked at me like they might have to call an ambulance, so usually I walk slower. :D

I wanted to document our trip to the train with photos, so you can see what our walk is like. Every now and then I take the train to work and leave about 5:30am. The sun comes up here a little before 5, so it's actually a nice walk in the morning. 

From the end of our street. We live in Ikedacho. That's our neighborhood. it's a pretty new development area and the homes are actually really nice. A lot of schools around, so the homes are typically families.

We walk a block from our street and head down these stairs

Then, turn to walk down this path. I think it's also a small road, but I haven't seen any cars going up or down it much, but there are some that park there at times, so I guess they do.

We could hear the little kids singing while they were out playing on the playground. They are so cute. most of the time, little kids are scared of me for some reason...

This hill may look innocent, but walking up it is awful. It's actually really steep. Some of these little, old Japanese women can book it up so fast and not look winded at all!

A few kiddos trying to escape! haha. They were so cute. More gathered as we walked by and I wanted to take more pics, but we had to make the train so I had to keep on.

Look at the solar panels on this house.

Some homes here have statue dogs, which I'm not sure if they have it as decoration or to scare away people or what, but this one caught my eye the first time I walked to the train and I say hello every time I pass now. He looks like a "Petey" or something.

At the bottom of that hill/path, we cross a street and walk through another neighborhood.

Those containers are where they collect trash every morning. The trash is rather complicated and they separate EVERYTHING and wash everything prior to throwing it away so it might be recycled. It's pretty impressive. I should make a blog entry about that some day.

Now, down another little path.

Vending machines everywhere! it's awesome! They're never out, either. They also have hot drinks too.

Now, down this other road. No sidewalk here, so you pray you don't get run over. haha

It curves and adds a sidewalk!

Then, we cross over the train tracks.

Turn right at our Suzuki dealership

I eyeball that wrx every time I walk by here.....

Then, parking for mopeds and bikes start

Walk down another back road

Recognize him??? hahaha

That little old lady was creeping along so slow. I can't imagine how long it takes her to walk to the train.

Add money to our Passmo cards

Our train station. Kitakurihama. So small compared to the big cities. you'll see...

Cameron was charging his solar powered Iphone backup battery while we rode on the train.

This guy caught my eye for some reason...

Cameron liked this one.

This was a motorcycle class we saw from the train. It looked intense. They had some crazy cones set up on the other side of the track.

So many buildings so close to each other. It's like this everywhere!

Exiting the train station in the Tokyo area

I have no idea what these things were, but they were so cute. I think these two were sumo wrestling!

The toy station we went to first! 6 floors! it was crazy!

In Ueno park. Kinda reminds me of Central Park. It was really pretty and huge. We sat down to munch on some bars quick and people kept running up right in front of me for some reason and at this point I just realized Cameron sat us down in front of the park map! haha. He thought it would be funny. All these Japanese kept coming up and standing right in front of me or next to me. Awwwwkward!

Karp? Koi? Some crazy nuked fish.

I really wanted to go in this karaoke bar. I think this must be where Jesus would sing Karaoke. I wonder what he'd sing.....Cameron thinks "Come Together" or "Imagine". Interesting thoughts....What do you think? Maybe "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

After Ueno Park, we walked a mile or two to Asakusa (a shopping district) and I saw this adorable old mini. I love these things and they are everywhere.

After about a 2 hour escapade to find this one store in the HUGE underground mall at the Tokyo train station, we found it! We asked several people and many times we got, "ohh, mmmmm....ettttoo.....HNK?" Many people sounded like they didn't know what store we were looking for. We finally got an information lady who had a map and showed us right where it was!

Running in the train station!

I got a Domo I can have everyone sign at my birthday party.

Waiting in line for our train. The Japanese are all about lines, so they line up perfectly where each door should arrive at. So neat and polite.

 So, that was our perfect day! Our feet were TIRED, but it was so much fun. I love that we can just hop on a train and be in Tokyo in an hour. Things are getting better and better here and I fall more in love with this country the more I get to experience it. :D

We were a little more snug coming home from Tokyo. You get packed in like sardines at times. At least I can snuggle up next to my boo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The freeways there are jammed with all kind of folks on their bikes." - Beach Boys, It's a Beautiful Day

One of the first things that just amazed me when I arrived in Japan were how many bicycles there are! I think every single person must have 3 personal bicycles here in Japan to account for how many I have seen on the road, sidewalk and all over.

I thought I would dedicate a post to the Japanese bicycle culture. It's not so much a culture, I guess, as a necessity here, but still.

Parked at our train station. They all look like this!

Busy street in Tokyo

Foldable bikes. They are pretty common here and I can understand why. They can go on the train, in  a car and all over.

Business women ride bikes to work....in HEELS

Bike lane to cross the street. Not big enough. Bikes cross all over and you nearly get run over.

The guy on the left was picking up a bike that had tipped over because of the wind. Notice, none of them are locked up. Bikes don't get locked up and they don't get stolen.

Every few feet you see a bike parked on the sidewalk.

In the US, when a woman has a kid, they buy a bigger car usually. Here, they exchange their bike basket for a kid seat. I LOVE it.

Many have two seats! Having another kid?? Just add a seat in the back! Or, they will strap them on their back and ride. I think it is so awesome. i hope it's something I can do when I have kids.

There's one now! Sorry it's a bad pic. I couldn't get the camera out fast enough when one would ride by. She has the kid strapped to her back and she's riding with stuff in the basket. Just running to the store.

I have my cool Schwinn here, but it's not one I want to ride rough on with the hills, etc around our house. I need to get one that I can ride up and down hills so I can start using it to and from the train station.

There is so much going on when you're driving. Hundreds of pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, motorcycles. It amazes me more people don't get hit.

They will ride in heels, skirts, in the rain, wind, heat. The culture here impresses me on how they just do what they need to do in order for all these thousands of people to live in harmony so close together.

Spoon sports in Japan. Naturally aspirated vs Turbo EK9.

Just to give you an idea of what our car could do..... ;)

All that I can see I steal as I fill up my garage. - Sublime, Garden Grove

I got him to smile even though he probably wanted to throw some tools at this point.

Look at him go!

Yeah, that motor mount was WAY back there!

I got my hands dirty too. Twas fun.

 A week or so ago, Cameron and I drove Walter (I'll explain his name later) up to the auto hobby shop on base. I think we are going to be frequent users of the garage while we're here. They have everything you need. Lifts, tools, paint booth, welding tools. Anything.

We went to install some motor mount inserts to help stabalize the existing motor mounts. I learned a lot about what motor mounts do and how they help. Before all of this, you could see Walter's shifter moving as we drove. That was basically the motor and everything moving around under the hood. So, we went to put inserts in to help hold them still better. The main one we needed to get to was way at the bottom and behind a lot of things under the hood.

I noticed while we were in the auto hobby garage, that a garage works much like a hospital.

-First, when we got there and started on the car, Cameron had not told me exactly what we were doing or how I could help. I was standing there, silent, not knowing what I should be doing and I thought, "We should have done a team stepps moment..." I really did. Yes, that's sad. For those of you who don't know what team stepps is, it's something all the Navy hospitals are implementing to help communication and safety for patients in the hospital. It gives power to techs and corspmen to be able to tell the doctor they don't feel comfortable with something the doctor is doing, etc. It also gets everyone on the medical team to get together and talk about the plan for that day, that patient, etc so everyone knows his/her role.

I didn't know my role. Team stepps would have been good there.

-Second, safety safety safety. That pretty much sums up point number 2.

-Third, don't EVER say, "gee, it seems quiet in here..." or even THINK it. That leads me to number 4.

-Fourth, when a disaster happens, everyone moves quickly and smoothly to react to the disaster. The radio had stopped playing and I actually thought to myself that it was particularly quiet, but I know we never say that in the hospital so I didn't say it out loud in the garage. Even thinking it caused a problem.

A few minutes later, a man that had been rotating his tires on his beautiful BMW somehow messed up and the car fell down on just one jack and the back wheel/tire looked like it bent because it was only on with one lug nut at that moment. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I do know in that exact moment everyone sprung into action. It was like a code. One guy calmly yelled, "grab a jack" and the owner ran over to where the jacks were kept. They were all being used, but I realized we had one we at that moment didn't HAVE to have under the car, so I dropped it and handed it off to him.

It was so funny. No one said anything. They got the car jacked back up and I'm not sure if the car was damaged or not, but it had looked bad. It was the garage equivalent of a code. Quite interesting to see.

-Sometimes you need a second opinion. They have some guys that work in the shop in case you need help with your car or the tools, etc. They helped many times by just giving another pair of eyes to the situation.

All the motor mounts ended up being cracked and all broken! We had to order new motor mounts all together. Cameron replaced 2 of the 3 in our drive way one day.

Boo boo under the car working in the rain and his awesome coveralls.

I sat right next to him to hold the flashlight and umbrella.

It slowly started to rain. I sat outside with an umbrella and a flash light for him. We'll have to go back to the auto hobby shop this weekend to get that last mount put on. It drives SO much better now. Before, I had trouble shifting and at times couldn't even get it in gear. It's like butta now.

Our wheels arrived, but now we're waiting on tires. Cameron loves things from Japan, but actually buying them here is so expensive. Also, it's almost pointless to get nice wheels because so many of them get curbed due to the small roads, etc.

We ended up ordering some wheels and tires from the states. They are a lesser known brand, but they are made from another company that does make popular Japanese wheels. They most likely are coming from the same factory anyway, so what does it matter?

The car has been consuming most of Cameron's time. He didn't expect to have this much basic maintenance to do on it as soon as he arrived. It's good though. I really am learning a lot and I'm starting to bond with the car.

Our car is a 1998 Honda Civic Type R, or EK9 for the chassis code. You can read up on type r's here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Type_R

;)

I was not a Honda fan before we arrived in Japan, but I told the boy to show me why it was he loved these cars so much. He's doing a good job. This car impresses me daily.

The name, Walter comes from the movie The Money Pit. Walter is the name of Tom Hank's character and since this car has been needing more and more things done to it, we just joke it's like the money pit. It's really not so spendy. We just joke. It's a good name, though.

I'm a displaced person whose culture let me down, I raise my own daughters in a pornographic town. - The Pretenders, Every Mother's Son

***************WARNING. NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG EYES!************

Okay, so my friends here told me about a fertility festival that was going on today. We weren't really sure if we'd feel up to going out since Cameron just arrived in Japan Friday and is dealing with a cold and jet lag....but then I told him what the festival was going to be like and we just had to go.

You can read about the history of the "Festival of the Steel Phallus" here.

We were lucky enough to have a really nice day for the festival. It was sunny and not too cold. I showed Cameron how to walk to the train station from our house and then bought him a Passimo card. It's just like the DC Metro Pass. It makes traveling on the train around here very easy.

A couple quick shots of our house and car. Also, my handsome husband. :D

Then, we were off. We met up with a bunch of my new friends here to ride the train into Kawasaki. You will find that you can really get "close" to your new culture in Japan by riding the train. It was our first time to stop and transfer and find our way around. It is nice that we can drink and eat on the train...but no talk. Just kidding. All the Japanese are quiet, but we. We were loud.

We got to Kawasaki and made our way to the shrine. You could just follow everyone (and the people dressed up as male genitalia) to the shrine. There, you found crowds of people drinking chu-hi's and sucking on lolipops shaped like male and female genitalia.

It was an interesting festival and I was quite surprised to see Japanese, who are normally quiet and reserved, jumping around and wearing phallic symbols. 

It also was our first big group adventure here. Cameron was a good sport, despite being jet-lagged and sick.

We people watched and had some chu-hi and moved on. :D

We stopped in Yokohama to go eat at a tex-mex restaurant on the 29th floor in the Sky building. It was nice to be able to have guacamole! It was almost like we were back in the states for a couple hours.

After that, the group headed back and Cameron and I wandered on to Yodobashi Camera Store. It took a few U-turns and looks at the google maps app, but we eventually found it. It's basically a HUGE Best Buy or something, but they have a whole floor of camera goods. Digital and film. Lots of film and developing items. The first thing Cameron and I saw when we turned the corner was a large case of Leica's. In unison we both just said, "whoa....". It was impressive.

Needless to say, this was Cameron's dream store. We shopped and then headed for the train to get back to Yokosuka. It was a long day and we were both exhausted, but it was pretty fun way to get out on our first weekend together.