First days in Japan...re-learning to drive, moving in and food of course!

As I said in my last post, I fell asleep around 6:00pm that first day here. Unfortunately that meant I was wide awake by 4:30am on Tuesday...

We went to a briefing about driving and took a written test to get our drivers' licenses. Wow, it was going to be different driving here! They drive on the left hand side of the road, driver is on the right side of the car, and all the street signs are different!

We had sushi for lunch at Kappa Sushi. There is a "train" that goes around past the tables and you just grab whatever you want as it goes by. When you're done eating they charge you based on the colors/numbers of the plates. I didn't get a picture of the train that time but here's a pic of some of the sushi we tried.

I think the roll on the left was shrimp with avocado
(and tons of onion..eww) and the right one was 
tempura shrimp roll.

Sign at Kappa Sushi...hilarious translations!

After lunch we went shopping for a car. We checked out the Lemon Lot on base which is where people can park their cars that are for sale. There really wasn't much to choose from there, either full sized vans, minivans or cars that had major dents and were rusting out. We weren't looking for anything too great, but needed something that would hopefully last us 3 years! We went off base to a car dealership, Lucky's, and found a 2002 Subaru Legacy B4 All wheel drive that seemed decent, only had 41,500km (approx. 25,000 miles). Cost a little more that we hoped to spend, but came with a couple months warranty and 2 years of JCI (Japanese Compulsory Insurance). That's a mandatory insurance that gets renewed every 2 years with an inspection and costs around $600. We told them we wanted to buy the car but didn't have any cash with us that day. They said no problem, that the car wouldn't be ready for pick up for 2 days anyway. We signed the title so they could get it put in our name and then they gave us a loaner vehicle (minivan) to drive for the 2 days until our car was ready...all without giving them any money! Something like that never would happen in the US! So at least now we had a little independence, didn't need to rely on anyone for rides.

First time driving.

So annoyed with my picture taking already...
loved the vinyl seats, sage green and tan
to go with the maroon exterior.

Awww! I feel like I'm on the wrong side of everything!

This was the end of our second day. I think I was able to stay up until 8:00pm that night!

Wednesday I was up early again, ugh! We spent most of the morning making calls to banks trying to figure out the easiest way to get the cash out of our accounts to buy the car. What a hassle! That was something we didn't think about before coming here. How we would get large amounts of cash if we needed them. One of the banks on base ended up being very helpful even though we didn't have accounts with them. We also ran errands around base, doing in-processing stuff. Most importantly, turning in receipts so we could get reimbursed for some of our moving/travel expenses. We had lunch at a place called Cake House. We both had a chicken basil pasta, it came with a cabbage salad and a beautiful, delicious dessert.

We also did some inquiring about potential openings for nursing jobs. Doesn't sound like my prospects are very good. They aren't really directly hiring civilians much due to the sequestration. I'll have to keep my eyes open for jobs through contracting agencies. Or for non-nursing jobs. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Cheese Roll House. We both had yakisoba. Yakisoba noodles are made from buckwheat and fried with a sauce, cabbage, carrots, beansprouts and sometimes meat. We also had cheese rolls. A stick of cheese deep fried in a wonton type pastry. All of it was delicious and reasonably priced. I'm sure we will eat there a lot while we are here!

Cheese rolls!

Yakisoba! This was the "regular" size portion.

Thursday morning we were up and ready to go get moved into our new house! We packed up our suitcases, checked out of the hotel and went to get our keys. The house is small, but actually bigger than I thought it would be and more storage than I expected. We also stopped at the Post Office and picked up the boxes of stuff we had mailed to ourselves. Yikes! The boxes were destroyed. I was shocked that nothing was damaged inside. In the afternoon FMO came and delivered our temporary furniture. Unfortunately we were only given a full sized bed...ugh, might be rough until our furniture gets here! Keenan's feet hang off the end, poor guy! We also got a dresser and nightstands. Living room furniture and a table and chairs. Nice to be out of a hotel and in a permanent place. I still don't feel like this is where we will stay...I keep thinking in a couple of days we'll be packing up and moving again! We also got to pick up our car that afternoon.

Here's some pics to give you a visual:

3 of the 4 boxes...at least the postal service
patched the holes with tape?

When I pay $80 a box, this isn't the condition I expect to get them in...

Front of our building (this shows 1/2 of the 4-plex).

View of living room when entering the front door,
before the arch on the left is the hall to the kitchen.
Through the archway to the left is one bedroom,
straight ahead is the bathroom and to the right is the 2nd bedroom.

Living room patio doors.

View back toward front door and coat closet.

Hallway to the kitchen,
laundry is in the closet to the left.

Laundry closet.

Kitchen.

View out of window where table will be.

Rest of the kitchen.

The window above the sink.
(yep, that's our sweet loaner minivan!)

Entry to "master" bedroom, linen closet on right.

"Master" bedroom (not sure that our bedroom furniture will fit...
may need to put a nightstand in the spare room).

Closet (not a walk in, but has storage up above at least).

Out spare bedroom window to the backyard.

Living room patio view.

View from the backyard. We only have the bottom floor.

Loaner furniture.

This came with 2 other chairs and a leaf that we left out.

So nervous that our king with big nightstands won't fit...

A main street in Misawa. "White Pole Road."

Our awesome new ride. The "Soob!"