Keenan started working in his office on Monday and I started getting the house somewhat set up. First on my list was laundry...we have what appears to be a really nice high-efficiency washer and dryer. The washer works fine, the dryer on the other hand, not so impressed. The first day in the house when I was trying to wash sheets I found that it takes a LONG time to get anything dry. It will go for a few minutes then stop for a while then go again for a couple minutes, all the while the minutes count down. So on a 50 minutes cycle it might be doing actual drying 20 of those minutes. It takes breaks to cool down. It takes about three 99 minute cycles to get a large load dry. I think this is because the dryer is American made and designed to run on 60 Hz, but the electricity here is 50 Hz. I guess that's only a big deal with appliances that have motors. The motors will run slower than they're designed to and then will overheat more quickly=not last as long. For example, I shouldn't be surprised if my microwave, vacuum, hairdryer, etc. decide to quit on me in the next couple of years... So anyway, laundry takes a long time! That first week I spent a lot of time cleaning the house, unpacking suitcases, getting groceries, figuring out how to communicate with everyone back home and even fit in a couple hours at the base beach!
Communicating:
E-mail and Facebook are easy of course, but we found that TextPlus and MagicJack apps are amazing! Completely free and allow us to use our stateside phones to call and text (as long as we are connected to wi-fi). Verizon does not have cell towers in Japan so we had to cancel our contract prior to moving here. We were able to get out of our contract without any early cancellation fees and keep our phones (shocking because we were only 6 months into our 2 year contract with 2 new phones!) due to having military orders to move overseas. Not exactly sure what we'll do about cell phones here, Keenan will get one from work, but I'd like to have one that we can pull up maps when traveling and that I can take when I'm out just in case I need something. There's 3 different companies to choose from, so we'll have to look into it a little more. We were also able to video chat with our families. Having so many ways to communicate makes it seem like we aren't so far away.
Groceries:
On base we have the Commissary (grocery store). I went there on Tuesday. I was pleasantly surprised by the prices on most things. Produce was expensive though and I've heard that it's close to the end of it's shelf life by the time it gets here (most of it's shipped from the states). Saw a single peach for $4, bananas $1.29/lb, potatoes $8 for 5lbs, etc...I'll probably end up getting most of our produce from off base. The big grocery store off base is called Universe. I went there on Wednesday. I was definitely overwhelmed. I only managed to make my way through the produce section, walked through one section of the seafood and down one aisle and decided I should just leave. EVERYTHING was in Japanese, reading this you might say "what did you expect?". Well, for the most part, everywhere we've been has had some things written in English, at least enough so we can get by. Walking down an aisle there I wouldn't have know if I was buying soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce or squid ink... And it's a big store, think large Hy-Vee. I'll explore it more another day!
Food:
I started cooking again on Tuesday. But we did eat out a couple times during the week. One lunch was at Thunder Ramen. Real ramen is a lot different than the boil for 3 minutes and add a packet of seasoning or cup-o-noodle type! And it's not easy to eat! The bowls it comes in are huge! We also picked up some sushi from the Commissary one evening, mine was half price (they discount it in the afternoon so it sells that day), it wasn't bad, but it was a little dried out. We have been craving Cheese Roll's yakisoba, but have fought off the urge to go there again so soon.
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| Keenan had hot and sour ramen. |
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| Vegetable and BBQ pork spicy miso ramen. Ramen style noodles with bean sprouts, sliced pork, 1/2 boiled egg in a spicy broth. Eaten with chopsticks and the spoon to drink the broth. We haven't quite taken to slurping like the Japanese people do, it's funny to listen to when in a noodle restaurant! |
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| Sushi from the Commissary. |
Weather:
It has been nice so far this week, 70's and sunny, the sunny part being rare for this time of year. Perfect beach weather, but the water is still too cold for me. The base beach has a small area roped off for swimming but the water doesn't seem very clean. The sand has lots of gravel in it too. Not what I would consider a "nice" beach, but it works for catching some sun. It will get HOT here soon, usually end of Julyish. The summers are short, 6 weeks or so, but there is no air conditioning and when it gets to be upper 80-90's with 100% humidity it will be pretty miserable. Right now the base doesn't have the electrical capabilities to have a/c installed in all of base housing. As they are renovating housing they are preparing for a/c but it won't be installed until the electric has been upgraded and all housing has it installed. We heard this week that they have made enough progress with the electrical upgrades that they will be authorizing portable a/c for the first time ever. It will have to be purchased out of pocket and have to meet specific requirements. We haven't decided if we'll get one or not. Don't know how much they'll cost or where we'd be able to get one yet. As an overview of what we can expect for weather...after our quick summer, fall (starting mid September) is supposed to be great weather and then around Thanksgiving it will start to snow and it will snow until April. The average snowfall for the months of Dec, Jan, Feb is 2-4 feet per month. I think I heard that last winter they had 14 feet of snow. Luckily, it won't get that cold here and we won't have the cold winds like in Nebraska. May is usually really nice spring weather and June and July have moderate temperatures but are rainy/foggy season.
General Information:
Here's a couple links that give great info about the base/weather/culture.
http://www.misawa.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-120412-076.pdf
http://www.misawa.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=14537
http://www.misawa.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=14538
This site is also a great resource for info about culture, etiquette, food, etc...
http://www.japan-guide.com/
So we're getting settled in, as much as we can with a couple suitcases and boxes of our belongings and loaner furniture. Can't wait to get our stuff, at least our unaccompanied baggage would be nice, however we really are hating this full sized bed that we've been given. One of us is lucky to get a good night's sleep, but usually its neither of us...sigh
Here's a couple of pics from around sunset at the base beach on July 3rd.
Coming soon...Independence Day, a visit to a Big Buddha and a hike in Oirase Gorge!
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