Where In The World Is Kacey?!?

Alaska Adventures, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:50:00 +0000

One of the first things I did while in Alaska was casually explore the Fairbanks area. This included hitting up the free Alaska historic theme park, which was okay. It's a good thing it was such a nice day, and the fact that it was free helped.

At least I got to ride a giant salmon. That's always a win, isn't it?

Like I mentioned in Part 1, Aaron and I were able to spend a day together in Fairbanks, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to sneak in the obligatory pixelated Aaron.

I'd love to have this art.

The Tanana Valley Farmer's Market was great. So many beautiful vegetables and local crafts! I suppose that since they only have a few months of decent weather, the 19 hours or so of sunlight really make up for it.

And of course Denali. I talked about that a little in the last post, but it was gorgeous!!!

It was crazy, the weather would be awesome one minute, and then we'd drive a few miles and it would be freezing and windy. And then a few miles later, totally fine.

This was pretty neat. Inside of the Eielson Visitor center, about 66 miles into Denali National Park, was this image on the window to show you were the 2 peaks of Denali (Mt. McKinley) would be if you could see them. Only 30% of the time you are able to see the mountain, and obviously the day we went was super overcast. There were markers on the floor for you to stand on based on your height.

In order to preserve and protect the natural resources of the park, you have to take a shuttle bus if you'd like to go any more than about 20 miles in. That was totally fine with me, since the view would totally distract me of this interesting road.

Oh, you know, just napping on a bear.

The last day I spent in Denali, I was pretty beat. I took it easy going for a few short hikes and then walking through the woods to the dog sled demonstrations. It was pretty interesting to learn about the dogs and the importance of them in the park. During the winter, the sled dogs are the only way for the park rangers to patrol the land. A few of the more friendly dogs were chained outside and were more than happy to be pet and cuddled with the visitors.

Later that day I was picked up directly from the park by the cool college kids that work at the Denali Mountain Morning Hostel. I stayed in a womens only room in the octagon log cabin fit with our own private giant bathroom. Seriously, it had this enormous tile and stainless steel shower, and it was quite refreshing to stay in there as long as I wanted to with the door locked. My last hostel had quarter/min showers because they had to truck water into the location. I settled down, reorganized my gear and walked across the street to this great little everything-homemade restaurant where I got a huge plate of fish and chips, a local beer, and just relaxed. I was in no rush, and when the woman carded me for my beer, she must have spotted my military ID card, because she brought me over their last piece of strawberry rubarb pie (which I had previously inquired about but then declined), thanked my husband for his military service, apologized for the wait (I wasn't aware of one) and said the pie was on the house. I was stuffed so I brought it back to the hostel and ate it later that night, and it was delicious. Also, when I ~~told~~ thanked Aaron later for the free pie, he was extremely jealous that he had not yet been given free pie for being in the military, but I have for being married to him. Oh the benefits of a military spouse!

The next morning I caught a ride back to the park from the hostel folks again. I didn't have time to go for any hikes so I explored the bookshop and museum, and tried to stay out of the rain until my train came. I was SO excited about this part of my trip. I was originally going to cheap it out and take a bus from Denali to Anchorage (about 7 hours - $60) and instead decided on the more adventurous route of the Alaska Railroad (about 8 hours - $156). It was even better because they were able to provide me with a military discount of 20% off! Sweet! I wasn't counting on it because not all places (especially in Alaska) give military discounts to spouses.

Taking the Alaska Railroad - Denali Star was worth EVERY.SINGLE.PENNY. It was so much fun and relaxing and the sights were amazing! I paid for the cheaper class, Adventure class rather than GoldStar Service. The main differences between the two were price, seats (all seats in GoldStar had a domed roof), and GoldStar got priority restaurant seating. I'm glad I chose Adventure class and saved $100. There weren't many people on the train, and even in Adventure class, there was a domed section that you could take turns sitting in. My assigned seat was just below that, so I could see that barely anyone was utilizing it, so I sat their almost the whole time. My assigned seat reclined a ton, so I was able to zonk out comfortably for a bit. I also opted not to eat at the restaurant, but grab a beer and a snack from the cafe/snack bar.

For nearly 8 hours, I had views like the one below. There's no way a bus on a highway would have this good of a view.

This is one of my favorite pictures I took on the trip. In between every train car was open doors, so you could stand with the wind in your face and some fresh air. I hung out here a lot.

See what I mean? Gorgeous!

Outside the train.

Well, this is still only a week into my Alaska trip, so there's much more to come! Keep a look out for my next post!

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Alaska Adventures, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 13:16:00 +0000

Where in the World is Kacey?!?!

I've spent the last few weeks in Alaska and haven't had full access to computers, and while I could blog from my phone or public computers, I'm not willing to do that - not while I'm busy having fun at least. Sometimes this blog has to wait for me to catch up. I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry about it. I'm still 'on the road' so you're going to have to put up with some instagram photos until I have time to edit and do a full months recap.

So Aaron had to go to central Alaska for a while with work stuff, and I was able to utilize Space-A to get to Alaska. *Warning - Bragging Ahead!* Not only was I able to score a free flight to Alaska from Japan, but it just happened to be on the plane that Aaron flies. AND Aaron happened to be on that flight also. He wasn't flying that day, but we were able to hang out in the back together for the trip over.

Freaking. Awesome. Right?!

I couldn't pass this trip up. Ever since I could remember I've wanted to visit Alaska. I don't even know why a 7 year old would want to go to Alaska, but I did. Free flight to one of my dream location? Yes please! Aaron was going to be working constantly for numerous weeks, so I planned to do my own traveling and exploring. One of us should have fun, right? Sure! I went at the same time he did with the intentions of traveling solo and if he happened to have a day or two off, we could spend some time together.

I ended up staying at an AMAZING hostel in Fairbanks, Alaska. It's called Sven's Base Camp Hostel and I highly recommend this if you need a relaxing, laid back and fun place to stay. Everyone was great here and I LOVED my tent cabin (The Lynx). I had the whole thing to myself most of the nights I stayed.

I pretty much did everything there was to do in Fairbanks. Four days was more than enough to become a tour guide, which I didn't become, but probably could have. My second day in town Aaron was able to meet up with me to explore. We hit up a museum, downtown, and my favorite thing to do in a new town, go to a farmers market! We had a delicious lunch of street tacos and elk sausage and then hit up Hot Licks (hehe) for some homemade Alaskan Blueberry Ice Cream. Aaron had to catch the last bus back to where he was staying, and I headed to the Fairbanks State Fair. It was actually pretty decent. I was educated on the Eskimo Olympic games and traditions, listened to music, looked at Alaskan crafty things and ate deep fried pizza.

I met a bunch of great people from all over the world at the hostel: Finland, Iceland, Barcelona, Australia, Montana, etc. I also met Chris and Jimmy who are a couple of awesome dudes currently riding their motorcycles over 24,000 miles, through 17 countries (Alaska to Argentina), and using these 6 months of their lives to raise awareness and money for Cure for Life Foundation. Check out their site, Heads in the Clouds Wheels on the Ground to follow their adventure and find out more information. Bad-ass to say the least.

I spent another day in Fairbanks running some errands, getting my stuff together, making traveling plans, and sleeping in. I explored the area a bit more, and took a 15 hour bus tour to the Arctic Circle. Worth. Every. Penny.

I had originally thought to rent a car, but decided not to for a few reasons. The ONLY road north to the Arctic Circle (198 miles north of Fairbanks) and Prudhoe Bay (500 miles north of Fairbanks) is the Dalton Highway. Also known as the "Haul Road", this is the road you might know from the show Ice Road Truckers. Yup, that same road. The ONLY reason this road exists and still exists is to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and support the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Due to the conditions of the road, regular rental cars are banned from this highway (true story: I had to sign something saying I wouldn't take my rental on this road). There are just a few companies that will rent vehicles specifically for this trip north. Just to explain how dangerous this road could be, these rentals include: a CB radio, numerous spare tires, first aid kid, a car maintenance kit, etc. In the winter they also include a Satellite phone, warmth kit, studded tired, engine block heater, etc. Asides from a rental fee of $200-$300 per day, I would be driving by myself (not usually an issue, but here...ehhh...) and basically have to pay attention to the road 120%, not being able to enjoy the area and it would take forever.

So I went through Northern Alaska Tour Company and paid $189 for a 15 hour bus tour. I was a little hesitant because, lets face it, that's a freaking long time on a bus not knowing if your tour guide is going to be annoying or your fellow visitors obnoxious. Look at me, being all positive and stuff. But like I said, it was worth EVERY PENNY. Not only was our tour guide the best tour guide ever in the history of tours. (Seriously, I'm writing the company a letter about how great she was), but the information she provided about Alaska, the Pipeline, and the highway was PRICELESS. It would have been a pretty freaking boring trip by myself, and I wouldn't have known about anything I was viewing. We learned about the Alaskan gold rush, Alaskan natives, the pipeline (which I became much more interested in than I ever expected), oil production and the tundra. Seriously. Worth every penny.

After actually physically crossing the Arctic Circle, we stopped on the side of the road for some blueberry picking and to dig a hole 8" deep so we could feel the permafrost. I don't know why I was surprised to put my hand in the dirt and hit a block of ice (well, frozen ground) so close to the surface. I mean, I've learned about the permafrost in school since I was little. It was just a whole different experience actually seeing and feeling it first hand (pun totally intended). I guess I always learned better in labs.

The final morning I was there, I picked up our rental car to go get Aaron and head down to Denali National Park. Driving on the other side of the road in Japan seems so normal to me now, I was a little nervous to drive back in the states. Not to mention I was able to go really, REALLY fast. 70mph fast, which is so much faster than in Okinawa. ZOOOM!!!

Aaron and I spent the day together in Denali, taking the bus 4 hours into the park to Eielson Visitor Center. You can only take a private vehicle a couple of miles into the park and then buses the rest of the way. We were hoping on seeing Mt. McKinley aka Denali, but weren't successful. On any given day, there is only a 30% chance of being able to view the mountain due to the crazy weather there. Below is a picture taken at Eielson. If we were able to see Denali, it would be towards the top right of the shot.

Regardless, it was a fun and beautiful day. We didn't see much wildlife, but up in Alaska you're able to see nearly anything just on the side of the road. Because of Aaron's work schedule, we were only able to spend a day in the park with each other and then grab some dinner. It was totally worth it though, since that was the last day we were able to see each other for 3 weeks. I would definitely like to visit here together again to explore deeper into the wilderness and do some backpacking and camping.

Denali was awesome even though I only saw a small percentage of it. Like I said, I'd love to go back. I have so many photos I want to share with you, but it's going to be a little bit longer before I get a chance to organize and sort through them. At least you get the idea of what I've been up to. By the time I left Denali, I was only day 8 into my trip, so I have lots more to share.

Check back soon!!!

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July 2013 Monthly Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Oh Man! I just realized now, nearly a month later that this never posted for you guys! Ahhh!!! I've been recently traveling a bit, which I'll catch you up on for the August Recap, but for now, enjoy July's!

The longer we are here the faster time seems to be going. This month was almost strangely speedy though. I started volunteering more often, including an entire week (part-time) of organizing storage for the new USO Okinawa branch office. It was sort of heaven for me, sorting through office supplies and putting them in order. Although I only worked half days, by the time I drove back and forth to the other base and then did my normal daily errands and chores, the day was done!!! No time for the beach...pffft!!! I haven't posted here at all this month, but check over at Kacey's Kitchen where I've been doing an "Eating Japan" series of everything we've been shoving in our faces...oink oink! Now, onto the recap!

Let's start off with a smiling face... How she lays like this with her legs only an inch off the ground, I'll never understand.

I can't get enough of the beach. Kassie, Maylee and I explored some islands on the eastern side of Okinawa and found what I think is my new favorite hidden beach. Don't go there. It's really horrible.

Aaron's parents sent us a Betsy Ross flag just in time for Fourth of July. It actually looked really nice in this huge window. Plus, Aaron is a direct descendant of Betsy Ross, so we definitely have to represent the family! True story.

Have I mentioned you can get really cheap and really good massages here? I'm talking $30 per hour. Crazzzy! This may or may not be my first one here. But, it was my first Lomilomi, which is a Hawaiian massage. Kacey approved for sure.

We signed up for library memberships and received this awesome pin. Libraries remind me of a dream I had where I said "Read more books motherfuckers", and ever since, I have really wanted to make that saying a t-shirt. You heard it here first.

Aaron finally got certified and we were able to go diving together a couple of weeks ago. We did two dives and had tons of fun. I forgot how hungry and tired diving makes you. We went right off the Sunabe Seawall. Although people dive there all the time and say how nice it is, I couldn't believe HOW nice it was. At one people I was floating around at about 45 feet and actually thought to myself "Wow, I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of coral!". Geez. Dumbass. Ha!!!

On our way back from returning our rental gear, we stopped for mango shaved ice at a stand run by two older gentlemen. I pass them all the time and have never stopped before. It's going to be hard to drive past WITHOUT stopping from now on. Shaved ice is a huge thing here, it's like snowcone but a MILLION times better. It's light and fluffy and they layer the toppings. You can even get them with azuki beans (red beans)!

Breakfast is awesome and brunch with champagne and friends is even better. A few of us in the neighborhood have been taking turns with brunch on the weekends, which is one of the most brilliant ideas EVER. I made baked caprese egg bites one day. My turn to host next!

Not the most exciting picture, but it's so nice that Italian tomato chicken (which I think is supposed to be Chicken Parmesan) comes with peace!

We like to torture the cat. On this particular day, I dressed her in the shirt I was brought home from the hospital in. She just laid there, defeated. Muahaha!

Did I ever mention how I love going to the beach. Another exploration day lead to Aaron and I laying in the sun on Ikei Island. When it got too hot we floated around in the 86°F ocean. It was rough I tell you. So. Freaking. Rough.

Penis cookies. I'm not even going to go there...my parents read this blog.

This book was recommended to me, and I finally got around to checking it out at the bookstore. This book is beautiful, and has so many fresh Japanese basics. It would fit lovely in my kitchen if anyone wants to buy it for me.

I've been desperately needing a hair cut, and although a few years ago I swore off dying my hair to go all natural, I couldn't help feel like I needed a change. I received a ton of in-town stylish recommendations and eventually made my decision based on closing my eyes and pointing to the list and made my appointment at Earth. Armed with multiple photos and a list of English=Japanese hair style terms, I decided to go all out. I paid extra for a higher level stylist, opted for highlights, and chose a deep conditioning treatment. A few people came over to talk with me about options and what I wanted done, they wrote everything up and reviewed the price with me to make sure I was okay with it. I thought that was awesome. No surprises!!! I showed my inspiration photos and then told the colorist that he was free to use his judgement, which seemed to take him by surprise but was very happy about. The only thing I told the stylist was "lots of LONG layers" and I want to keep my hair very long. After 5 HOURS in the chair (not an exaggeration), multiple glasses of iced tea, my butt was sore, but I left a happy girl. I originally requested a subtle ombre coloring, so when I took the picture below, I was a little concerned because I had foil all the way to my scalp.... But being as flexible as I am with my hair (I really don't care), I was curious what he decided to do.

The colorist was awesome, we talked quite a bit, his English was pretty good, and I tried to speak in as much Japanese as possible, which I'm sure I butchered because they were really amused with it. We also taught each other some words in our respective languages. I felt like a tool being a little nervous to speak with him so much, but it got easier as the hours passed. Gotta take advantage of speaking the language when I can! So I was happy with the color, but I was BLOWN away (hehe) buy the stylist. This was BY FAR the best hair cut I've ever had in my life. Even though he was really tall, he ended up kneeling most of the time to cut the back of my hair. He was a wizard with scissors I tell you. He really did keep my length, which you can see on the picture on the right (I was headed to bed when I took that picture) and thinned my hair so much I swear I lost 10lbs. I have really thick hair, and was so impressed with the way he thinned it out with scissors (not a razor), that it really showed off the layers and actually makes my hair manageable. The picture on the right shows the color a little bit more, although it's another weird photo - I'm sure you'll see better pictures in the upcoming posts. I have highlights on top also, but those are a little more subtle then the ones underneath, which I love. People say there are better places to go, but I'm going to have a hard time leaving this stylist.

KayCee, Kaylee and I did a last minute beach trip to catch the sunset the other day. Seriously, anywhere you go here the view is beautiful.

I feel like these might be floating around the US somewhere, but either way, I found them interesting. So...it's basically a $1.00 (¥100) converter for smaller batteries when you need a larger one. I feel like it would melt my gadget, but if you've tried it, let me know.

I had the pleasure of dog sitting ANOTHER lab. This is Millie, and it's not just her brown coat that reminds me so much of Bosco, but her personality as well. She thinks shes a human and she'll do anything for your love. Unfortunately she hurt her leg at some point, so we weren't able to play as much as we would have liked, but she did get some human cuddle time in, with both me and the elephant.

Lauryn and I dubbed this entire day amazing before it was even 1pm. After walking the dogs we headed off to do some paddleboarding in the East China Sea at Torii Beach. This was my first time and it definitely showed. The ocean was a little choppy (for beginners) once we got out there, but I was able to stand up a few times and we had fun just paddling around on our knees as well. After baking in the sun for about an hour we decided to return them ($5 an hour) and float around in the water just enjoying the day. I couldn't believe how many different muscles it took to stay balanced, pros make it look so easy! We later grabbed some gyros at Sunabe Gyro's (I got goat, she got falafel) and sat on the seawall enjoying our delicious grub. Picture of my view below. It was just a really good relaxing day all around.

At the end of the month we sponsored a new guy moving to the island and joining Aaron's squadron. We were pretty excited about this. The new guy seemed pretty cool based on the emails and phone calls we exchanged, and we were happy we could help someone out. At a minimum, the base requests that you pick up the new person, book lodging for them, and show them around. When you take into consideration that no one has a car or even a drivers license when they first get here, there is lots of relying on complete strangers for help. Seeing that we only arrived in February, our lack of freedom was fresh in our minds and we were determined to be awesome sponsors! Anyway, the new guy ended up being really cool and laid back and I'd like to think we helped him get settled in a little and have some fun.

While waiting at the airport, I had to get some shots with the mascot. He's so happy sitting in an airport all day!

Last but not least, fancy turtle! While browsing a pet store, I stumbled upon the store turtle. I'm not sure where he/she was going all dressed up like that, but it was a pretty huge and cool dude.

Again, sorry for not realizing this post hadn't actually post. In just a few days, we'll be recapping August! Woo Woo!!!

So tell me, what have you been up to?
Do you have a blog with monthly recaps? If so, leave me the link and I'll share them with the world!!

Click here for all of the past monthly recaps.

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June 2013 Monthly Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:02:00 +0000

I feel like I've been getting busier and busier, which makes me really glad I started this monthly recap. Although it doesn't cover everything we've done, it's a good little summary if I haven't gotten a lot of posts in throughout the month. Aaron has stayed busy with work, and we've gotten a lot done around the house. ~~We've~~ I gotten a lot more plants, which is a chore in itself to maintain all of them, but they make me happy. We've also been doing a bunch of wood working projects which I'll share at some point. We made our own end-grain checker pattern cutting board, our own 6 foot long floating shelf, and a console table behind our couch. It's finally starting to feel cozy here. Below are some other things that have been keeping us busy.

One of the bases here held a flightline fair with lots of planes on display for sofa status folks and locals to climb in, take pictures, and ask questions about the planes that are stationed here. I finally got an up close and personal tour of Aarons tanker. In typical Kacey style, I climbed all over everything had to get a picture of me in the pilot seat pretending to fly and then laying in the boom pod. While he worked the fair, I climbed in and out of every osprey, helo, and cargo I could. More pictures in a future post. It was pretty neat to see all the locals wanting to learn about everything and how grateful they were that we are here.

This next picture blows my mind every time I think about it. I've known Aaron nearly 16 years or so, and never EVER once have I seen him eat a pancake like this before now. Hell, I've never seen anyone eat a pancake like this. He hollowed it out and poured syrup completely in it. By the way, these were the best pancakes ever....brown butter is the secret!!!

People ask us a lot of there are weird bugs or rodents here. From my experience, I'd say not really. We experienced tons of bugs in Florida, and here I would just say that there are A LOT more of them. EVERYWHERE. There's definitely a larger variety of spiders. And then there's this guy who's been hanging out on our recycle bin for a while.

I dropped a friend off at the airport a few weeks ago and decided to take advantage of my trip south. I got lost and found some new neighborhoods, and then headed to the Itoman Farmers Market which is now my favorite market to go to here, but a trek from our house. There is one huge building of fruit and produce, one building of fish, one building of restaurants and gift things, a garden center, and a handful of food stands. I bought myself a couple of the largest oysters I've ever seen, they were shucked and wrapped up in ice for me to go. I drove down to the southern most cape of the island and ate my oysters on the cliffs with this view. How is this even my life?!?!?! Seriously...it's just a normal Wednesday.

While I personally didn't care to see the headliner American pop band that played here last weekend, I was curious about the turnout and how the base put on this type of all day music festival. It was pretty freaking professional, I was impressed. And I couldn't believe how many people there there. It was insane to see that many people on base, never mind that many Americans in one place in Japan. I couldn't get enough of the sunset, and left shortly after it set.

I've been trying to get some volunteer hours under my belt, and am still in the process of applying through different places. I'm officially a volunteer with the USO - which just reminded me that I need to pick up my volunteer appreciation certificate!!! Earlier this month I volunteered at 6am to set up a tent and grills and whip up hundreds of pancakes for the runners of a 5k. It was a lot of fun and everyone was super nice, so I've already signed up for future events.

I was really excited that I got to dog-sit for 2 labs for a few days. It made me miss Bosco a whole bunch, but it felt good to be appreciated by a Labrador for a while. Those of you with labs know exactly what I mean.

We spent a hot day up north and hiked Hiji Falls. Bring lots of water, there are 5 million stairs.

Spelling gone wrong. Cantion = caution and an undocumented wraning = warning.

We've got bullfighting here in Okinawa, and it's a little different that what you probably think. This time, there are bulls fighting each other. The first one to chicken out and turn to run away loses. Trainers are there to encourage the bulls to stay mad and against one another. It was really awesome to go to a local event like this. I'd like to do a post on it soon.

Oh! Here's a picture of me going wood shopping. This is for our console table. Do you have any idea how awkward it is to put a 10 ft board in a itsy-bitsy car (that is NOT 10ft long) all by yourself in the tiniest parking space ever while chasing down your lumber cart as the wind whips it around the parking lot? It's awkward. I'm surprised no one stopped me with it sticking out the window.

One of the most exciting this I did this month happened just this past Sunday. We went deep sea fishing with some friends about 3 hours off the coast of Okinawa. Our boat of 10 people caught about 70 fish, mostly Yellowfin Tuna and Skipjack Tuna. This is one of the smaller tunas, on average they were 2-2.5 feet long. Someone on the boat caught a 70lb tuna on a drift line and a 3.5ft wahoo while trolling. It was a crazy long day, being on the boat for about 11 hours, but it was so much fun and I'm such a happy girl seeing all of the fish in my freezer. Oh man, the amount of raw tuna we've consumed the past few days is probably criminal. So amazing.

Iejima (Ie Island)

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 23:43:00 +0000

After reading my last post on my adventures with Kassie on Kourijima, I know you're just dying to find out if we ever made it to Iejima, our original adventure destination. We woke up early, drove up the oh-so-familiar-by-now highway and arrived at the ferry terminal to find a packed parking lot and long lines. This looked much more promising! The lines moved fast and within a few minutes, Kassie was loading her bike up in the storage area of the boat and I was wading through a sea of people to find a spot to claim for our 30 minute ride.

Be sure to check out Kassie's blog and recap of our trip here.

As soon as the ferry hit land, I hopped off to find a bike rental place. The day before I totally forgot that I knew how to say bicycle in Japanese, but this time I took the opportunity to practice asking where they were. They were right around the corner. Duh. The ferry cost about $14 round trip per person, and I think Kassie paid about $12 to bring her bike, which, if you have one is definitely the way to go. I rented a bike for the day for $10, but being out in the salty island air, it was rusted to shit, and I had even harder of a time this day than I did the previous. If you were to bring a car to the island, you would need to make a reservation and it costs something like $40-$50, which isn't bad if you have a car load of people and are staying for a few days.

We caught up with each other and headed off to find some cool stuff. We ended up finding a neat little beach all to ourselves and hunted for sea glass, interesting shells, and this guy.

I played with the hermit crab for waaay to long trying to get a focused picture of him/her while Kassie went exploring along the cliff. She was gone for a while and I thought I should go look for her, but then I dozed off for a few minutes laying on some coral. Good friend I am, ha!!!

We biked a few kilometers to the Hibiscus Garden which housed over 1,000 different varieties. While they had really nice walking paths and outdoor gardens, they hadn't bloomed yet, so we headed inside a giant greenhouse, which was still really fun.

There were so many, each on more beautiful than the last.

We couldn't get over how tall the plants were and how large each flower was. I had never seen anything like it before. Some were literally bigger than my head!!!

Next up was the feature of the week. The Lily Festival!!! We followed tour buses and the crowds through the windy streets until we found a place to park our bikes unchained next to about 2034982349 other bikes. Walking just a little ways down a path, we came across this view!

Here we grabbed some lunch from some food vendors, listened to music playing from the stage and people watched.

I think we both expected something a little different from this. For some reason I was thinking that all these lilies would be growing wild, but it made total sense that they are maintained and cared for. There were people working in nearly every patch of lilies picking off dead petals and fallen leaves to keep everything looking pristine. I thought that was pretty impressive.

Don't get me wrong, we both loved the Lily Festival, and I would definitely recommend anyone who lives here to go to it. I mean, come on, how could you not love being in a field next to the ocean in a middle of these gorgeous flowers. The whole island as a whole was awesome, and definitely go exploring outside of the 'festival'.

Mandatory Japanese pose of the day.

We strayed off the beaten path, not far at all from the festival and climbed over a ton of coral (that stuff is SHARP! It ripped through my sneaker!) to spy on some fisherman on the cliff. While we were standing there, some water shot up through a little tiny crack in the coral, so we had fun getting as close as we could to it without being blasted and taking a ton of pictures. Check out Kassie's blog for a hilarious but mega unflattering picture of me posing 'terrified' of it. Hehe.

We knew it was about time to get back on our bikes and check out at least one more place before we had to catch the ferry. Ugh...there were hills, and my rusty bike didn't want to peddle and we were tired and my butt hurt. But then....we arrived at Wajee View Point, which was worth every second. Seriously, check out this view!!!

Time to head back. We had only seen a fraction of the island, and thought we had missed all of the historical sites until we passed this building which had been destroyed during WWII. It was too bad we couldn't read about it, all we knew was that it was a historic site.

Iejima played a major role in Japan surrendering to the US during the war. There are 3 runways that still exist, one which is still used for civilian aircraft. The US Marines use the island as a training facility, and we were able to watch some paratroopers jump out of an Osprey!!! Farming is huge on the island (as is most of Okinawa), well, as huge as could be on a 9 square mile plot of land, and raise tons of things including ducks, cattle, flowers, tobacco, potatoes, fish, and probably tons others I don't know about. There is even a rum distillery. We got the impression that you cannot tour the factory, but we did bring some home to try!

We headed back and returned my bike, and as we were walking away, we were yelled at in Japanese to come back and get a free snowcone! We each got one and enjoyed our surprise treat sitting in the shade. It was very appreciated after being in the blazing sun for hours!

After buying some treats for the boys back home, and some lilies for ourselves, we headed back. The ferry ride back was uneventful and quiet. We plopped down in our hidden little spot on the top deck and relaxed, uploaded photos of the day, and talked about how awesome our island adventures were. We'd love to go back, maybe bringing the guys and check out the other side of the island, some of the historic stuff, climb the mountain and go into the caves. Maybe we could stay at the resort of even camp in the winter.

Kouri-Jima (Kouri Island)

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 12:39:00 +0000

I'm so behind on blogging it's crazy, but I've been busy, so definitely no regrets going on here. A few months back I met Kassie of Mr. & Mrs. O and Crafts and Carafes online and after following each others social media accounts for a few weeks, it was obvious we were meant to be friends. I sort of fell in friend-love with her when I learned she doesn't wait around for her husband or anyone else to go off exploring. It's harder then you'd think to find people like us!

So for our first get together, we planned on biking around Ie Island and visiting the Lily Festival there. Honestly, I was a little nervous. Over the past few years I've gotten really out of shape, and while I've been working on that pretty religiously, I still had no idea what kind of 'biking' my new friend expected to do. After all, she was bringing her bike, and I was renting one. I just imagined me at the bottom of a hill passed out yelling "Go on...leave me....save yourself..." *Gulp*

It wasn't like that at all. We realized we both wanted something easy going and casual. To be outside and explore. And it was actually pretty funny, apparently Kassie got a little freaked out when I showed up at her house in exercise type clothing, she thought I was so marathon biker or something. HA! I quickly explained that comfort and sweat control were my biggest priorities while biking all day in 500% humidity.

Anyway, we drove over an hour to the ferry building for our trip to Ie Island, and both of us were thinking, "Wow! There's barely anyone here, that's awesome! So glad we came on a weekday." Um. Nope. Turns out that the ferry runs hourly during the lily festival except for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - when we showed up. Sooo....basically if we waited for the next ferry, we would be able to spend 30 minutes on the island before having to go back. Not going to happen. That's the sort of adventures you encounter when can't read the local language. We grabbed some more pamphlets and using those combined with the ferry building signs, we were able to decipher the schedule for the next day and headed out to find a new adventure for the current day.

A short drive later, we found a few other islands accessible by car (later to learn we drove across the largest bridge on Okinawa), Kouri Island. We found a bike rental, and started off strong. Until we hit the first hill.

We worked hard getting ourselves up that first hill, and decided to reward ourselves with lunch at the first cafe we saw. It was pretty tasty, my meal below was a pork set, with some soup, custard, salads, fried veggies, rice, etc. It hit the spot for sure.

The view didn't hurt either.

Lunch gave us a much needed boost of energy, and I appreciated that we both wanted to stop a lot and take pictures. We explored down some trails (which got a little too crazy for the bikes) and found some gorgeous spots. We also joked/not-joked about habu snakes while making our way through the jungle.

It was well worth a little mud and bushes to find this view on the other side. Kassie climbed down a little ways, but the tide was coming in and the waves were crashing pretty hard. It was awesome and so peaceful!

I couldn't resist taking a picture with the cow with the largest nipples in the world. But really, who could?

There were the cutest little island homes, farms, and vegetable stands all over the island. These buoys remind me of Maine a bit. You don't often see this many strung up around here.

It was such a perfect day for a bike ride, and it was pretty hilarious how much we struggled up hills. And I learned how much rental bikes suck. My brakes were barely working and made this awful screeching sounds every time I touched them, so we constantly laughed about it and imagined me flying off the road into the ocean, but all worked out well.

We were pleasantly surprised to see the bridge again, while we were biking for quite a long time, we thought we had only gone half way. When I handed in the bike, I noticed this little guy hanging out next door. I tried to say hi, but he didn't really want anything to do with me.

We walked around the beach area, which had a couple little food stands and a nice produce market, where we picked up some goodies to bring home for the boys.

After leaving Kouri Island we found another little spot on Yagiji Island and sat there watching the tide go come in and taking pictures. I think it was here that I realized it was my first day in Okinawa that I didn't see one other American. It was really peaceful and nice to be explore areas the locals do, a little bit off-the-beaten-path from foreigners.

Kassie took some great photos of our day, including the one of us below (Thanks Kassie!!!), so definitely go check out her blog. I don't think we realized how tired we were, but before we even got home, we planned for another Ie Island and Lily Fest trip early the next morning.

Check back soon for our Ie-Jima adventures!!!

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Okinawa World

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 05:28:00 +0000

I might have mentioned this before, but it's totally true. We often run into the problem of what to do, because we have so many options, it's hard for us to narrow it down. Last month it rained a ton, so when the clouds parted, even slightly, we jumped on the opportunity to get outside. We decided to go to Okinawa's theme park - Okinawa World with some new friends.

This park is all things Okinawa, including Gyokusendo, the second largest cave in the country, Kingdom Village, a replica of old time Okinawa with hands on folk craft workshops, and a Habu Center, a museum of Okinawa's famous deadly snake!

These Shisa dogs might be my favorite I've ever seen, and I really like this picture of us with them. I just wish that damn bench was better placed.

We bought tickets to see the entire park, which cost about 1600 yen (approx $16.85 at time of purchase), and we spent maybe 3 hours here without doing any hands on activities. The park was nicely laid out. As soon as you enter, you can go downstairs into the cave where you walk all the way underground to the far end of the park, and then you make your way back to the entrance seeing all of the above ground attractions. Here is the largest room of the cave.

In the 850 meters open to the public (I believe you can go spelunking here also), there was a small stream, and tons of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites.

Once emerging from the cave, we were immediately at the villages. Here I got myself a cup of delicious fresh made sugar cane juice, here's a woman making mine.

Right next door we watched some Ryukyu glass making and watched as some people were taught how to make it. We didn't participate this time, but it's definitely something I want to do while we are here.

In this little area, there were tons of buildings where you could learn how to do basket weaving, fabric dyeing, paper making, pottery, etc... There were also small museums and attractions going over folklore and history.

While in the village, we were able to watch an Eisa dance show. Eisa is a folk dance originating in Okinawa and incorporates singing, chanting, drumming, dancing, and sanshin playing. They wear beautiful costumes and it's really mesmerizing. I can't to go to more festivals with these performances. We weren't able to take pictures, but if you get the chance, definitely google or youtube it.

They did have a beer and habu sake brewery on site. We do plan on getting some habu sake at some point, but it isn't cheap, so I snagged some Okinawan beer to bring home instead.

One thing we were looking forward to the most was the Habu center and show. The show was entirely in Japanese, but we were able to figure out what was going on, the host was very entertaining. Later we realized there were pamphlets in English for us to follow along - but it was even more fun figuring it all out. Here they raced a mongoose and a habu snake in water to see which was fastest. I expect Sammy cat would run just as fast as that mongoose did in order to get out of the water.

Another demonstration showed how snakes can feel the temperature change around them, and how they know what is a predator or not. The pink balloon was soaked in water water while the white balloon was room temperature. We all kept our eyes on the habu the entire time and he moved so fast you could barely see...but it went from curled up to popping that balloon in a fraction of a second. Yikes!

This next one was the most fucked up demonstration of a snake I've ever seen. If you are reading this on Okinawa and haven't been or heard of what he does to this cobra, then stop reading now. Go there and watch it. Don't let me ruin the ending for you.

So anyway, this guy throws the cobra down and he shows how the cobra can only see in front of them and 45° to either side. They can also only strike in those areas and as far out as they are sitting up. To actually show us this, because apparently just telling us this (even in Japanese) wasn't good enough, this crazy motherfucker teased the snake with his foot. While the snake was paying attention to his foot, the guy bent down OVER the snake and WHACKED it on the back of it's head. Like...not just touched it. He smacked this thing crazy hard, which pissed the snake off, but it didn't know where it came from. So he laughs as the audience gasps, and then the guy DOES IT AGAIN. He bends over the fucking snake and punches it in the back of the head. What the fuck?!?!!? So why not.....he DOES IT AGAIN!!!! Jesus....

So now the snake is really ticked, and the guy, in order to calm it down, grabs it by the back of it's tail (what the fuck, right? and picks it up and SHAKES the things senseless. I'm not even kidding. He picked it up and shook and spun it like you would a rope, the snake is flopping around everywhere, and when he puts it back on the ground, the cobras hood is back down and it's all mellow again. The end. Sheesh.

After the show, we wandered around the museum and small wildlife center where we saw pits full of snakes, the mongoose from the water show and a bunch of other creatures.

I'm not sure what it is, but we tend to really like giant tortoises.

Sorry if this makes you gag. Apparently people had that reaction when I posted these next photos on instagram. I thought it was grotesquely amazing!

We had a lot of fun here. Sure, it was touristy, but we learned a bunch of stuff and it turned into a great day trip with friends.

On a final note, please don't throw trash at "this snakes".

May 2013 Monthly Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:49:00 +0000

Oh man, this month flew by. Quicker than normal it seems. I still haven't been blogging as much as I would like to, but have been trying to stay consistent, and I hope you are all enjoying it. We stayed really busy in May, and here are a bunch of pictures to see how we've been spending our time. I do plan on elaborating on some of our adventures in the near future, so keep an eye out!

(photo courtesy of Kassie)

Making new friends is cool. Especially when you met and bond through each others blogs and living in a foreign land. I met Kassie (of www.markandkassie.com) a few months ago, and in the beginning of May we met in person and attempted to go to the lily festival on IE Island. Missing the ferry that day, we explored Kouri Island instead and had a great time biking all around. We had so much fun that we attempted IE Island the next day, which was a huge success.

(photo courtesy of Kassie)

Biking around 2 islands in 2 days is extremely exhausting, especially on a rusted-to-shit rental bike.

I thought some of you would get a kick out of this. A chocolate fondue set in the shape of a toilet. I like that someone thought this was a good idea and then actually produced it.

We are huge fans of the sushi-go-rounds here. We tried out a new one which, in addition to taking dishes off of a conveyor belt, you could order on a monitor and have a duck captaining a modern sushi cruise liner sail over to your table for delivery. While we've had much better sushi elsewhere, this was still a fun place.

I've got the garden started. A few varieties of lettuce, jalapenos, strawberries, lemongrass, basil, parsley.

While this is genius to wrap the watermelon in rope so you are able to carry it...I will NOT be purchasing a $24 watermelon while I'm here. Thank you anyway...

I'm not going to get all into the politics of shit and living overseas with the military, but locals here have all sorts of feelings about 'us'. Mostly, you only hear about the negative (typical, right?), but there are lots of people here who are thankful we are here and are willing to take the time to tell us. I Love American!!!

We just recently started geocaching, which I think will be great for us, especially when we want to get outside but can't decide where to start exploring. During our first day, we found all 3 caches we searched for AND discovered a park we would have never found on our own.

I know you love the signs just as much as I do. Obviously, if you throw litter in the ocean, the fish will throw it back at you. I really don't want to mess with that red one, he looks pretty evil.

During Golden Week, there is a dragon boat race in Naha (and other places around the island) to impress the gods and ensure a good and bountiful fishing season. Each boat is powered by 30 paddlers and race to become the champions! There are dozens of competing teams and the races run from morning to night. I went down with some friends and we enjoyed trying out the Japanese festival fare and cheering on random teams.

I really thought I would go the entire 3 years here without getting a Japanese pedicure. I mean, it's just so much going on on your little toes. I made it 3 months before getting one. I LOVED it!!! For $40(ish), you are pampered. It's unlike any stateside pedicure I've ever gotten. First, you are in your own recliner with an ocean view. Then you are given a blanket and a delicious melon iced tea which is constantly being refilled. There is also a bar and Japanese candies if so interested. Then, you relax for 2 WHOLE HOURS!!! And the leg and foot massage is incredible. None of this 5 minute massage crap, this goes on for at least a half hour, maybe longer. I completely lost track. The hardest part is picking out what to get on your toes since the binder of options is about 7" thick. I think I can handle this while I live on an island.

We need a few Sammy shots in here, don't we? Here's her mid-sneeze. Oh man, cat sneezes crack me up.

As usual, I collected some more sea glass at my favorite beach hideout.

We went to the Okinawa Prefectural Museum down in Naha, where we were not able to take photos. But it was a really nice place and very well put together. If you want to learn the history and culture of the Okinawan people, this is the place to go. As we entered, we really appreciated the umbrella 'check'. Do they have these back in the states? I've never seen them, it's brilliant! Especially for here when everyone carries an umbrella with them all the time. You just stick your umbrella in, close the little latch, and take the key out!

I still look up when a plane goes overhead. You'd think I'd have whiplash living near multiple airfields, but so far so good. Sometimes some really neat aircraft come through. In this case, I managed to get a shot of a helicopter going over the cave I was in at the beach.

This is one of many elevator caution signs we've seen. It seems a little excessive. Maybe they have a door-closing-on-hands epidemic here we don't know about.

My friend Vikki and I went snorkeling for the first time since living here. IT. WAS. AWESOME. I can't wait to bring Aaron soon, and I can't wait to finish my refresher SCUBA class so I can get down deep. This location at Maeda Point was great for snorkeling, it's definitely a place I'm going to bring people when they come to visit!!!

I appreciated the warning about angry waves. Good thing they showed us some examples.

I definitely have to do a post on this over at Kacey's Kitchen, because it was so much fun and I'm so proud of my little bear bento. For just a few dollars, I took a bento making class on base, made my own lunch, and was able to keep the bento box!!!

I wish she wouldn't disapprove everything I did.

Aaron and I have been wanting to do some woodworking projects for around the house. Our main goal is to eventually build our own dining room table, but we wanted to start off small. Here I'm scraping off excess glue for our cutting board. I'll share more pictures including the finished product with you later.

I was really excited to dog sit this past week. My neighbor was dog sitting and got busy so I hung out with this hairy guy all day. We both took a nap in the sun. Sammy wasn't too impressed...as usual.

We went bowling in May also, which always makes me want to join a bowling league. I average an amazing 100 (give or take 20), but at least I got some good poses going on. I'd like to enlarge this picture and frame it, what do you think?

(photo courtesy of KayCee)

That was quite a bit of photos this time, but you know, it's so hard to narrow a whole months of photos into one post. Is there anything else you guys are interested in seeing here at Where in the World is Kacey?!?! Let me know, and I'll see what I can whip up for you!!!

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Katsuren-jo

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Back in April we went out with some friends to Katsuren-jo or Katsuren Castle ruins. It's one of many, many castle sites on the island, and none of us had been to this one yet. It was a gorgeous day for an adventure!

There are many legends of this site and one of the most famous lords in Okinawan history, Lord Amawari. One interesting version of history (1450's) is about Amawari as a sickly child who was abandoned in the mountains to die and instead survived and married the daughter of King Sho Hashi. After becoming a powerful ruler of the Katsuren region, Amawari attempted to overthrow and kill King Sho, resulting in defeat and his own death. Moral of the story: don't fuck with the king.

The castle was pretty easy to get to, you sort of head out into the middle of nowhere, following signs for "Katsuren-jo" and viola! you've found it! It's a free historic site, with plenty of parking below which is always appreciated here. We started with a steep long hill up to the base of the castle. The view from here was awesome, you'll see in a few moments.

At the base of the ruins were a few sites, including a cave (there are caves EVERYWHERE on this island). The word Ujinuji means "a place of refuge in time of danger from enemy attack".

Next to the cave was what was left of a large palace. Based on the structure and location in the castle, it was likely the most important room in the building (but unknown what for), built nearly entirely of limestone.

I know you can't get enough of Aaron's unique pixelated face. It cracks me up every time I edit it. Maybe I should just make him a pixelation on a stick to hold up. Ha!

Once we got to the top, we kinda forgot to continue reading about the castle, and instead took in all the views. Talk about a great location for a castle...you could see everything from here, especially with the Pacific Ocean on both sides of it! In the background of this photo are a few islands that we plan on exploring soon.

On the other side, a view of a few towns on the main part of Okinawa Island. I think I see my favorite fish market!!!

We walked back down and scrambled our way up another hill to grab another view and see the castle (ruins) in it's entirety. I feel like I could have stayed up here all day. It'd be a great spot for a picnic and a book and just hang out.

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Cultural Awareness Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:26:00 +0000

Living overseas with the military definitely has it's benefits, especially when you don't speak the local language. I often feel like I'm 'cheating' over here because of it, especially that we live on base (*sigh*). I basically do everything I can off base, but I do also take advantage of what we have going on in our little American world inside this fence.

It actually blows my mind how many people I meet here who do NOT go off base unless it is absolutely necessary. Honestly, I'm not sure if I feel bad for them or just want to call them stupid. Maybe a little of both. Asides from taking advantage of everything Japan and Okinawa have to offer (how often do you get to move and live in another country for FREE!?!?!?), that's gotta make for a really fucking boring few years. A lot of people WILL NOT drive off base. What the hell people? Seriously. Sheesh. Yeah, it might be a little scary the first time, but just do what everyone else does, close their eyes and step on the gas.

Kidding. I'm just kidding.

There is no excuse not to do stuff here. When I get bored, I drive to a part of town I haven't been, park it, and wander. I'll look up online of a store/restaurant/site I haven't been to, and I'll check it and it's surroundings out. It's the same exact thing I do in the states when I move to a new area. So you can't read anything? Big deal! Just be polite, use common sense, and get out there...you'll figure it out.

Okay, enough on that tangent, I'm sure it'll be brought up again. Back to my original meaning for the post. Most of the bases here offer tons of stuff to do. I guess, even if you didn't leave the base, you'd be plenty entertained if you involved yourself. One department here (on almost every AF base) is the Airman and Family Readiness Center (A&FRC), which is kind of your one-stop-shop if you (military members & dependents) need practically anything. They cover a million topics from career services (jobs/volunteer/resumes/education), relocation, transition (going in or out of the military), personal finances, emergency assistance, deployment readiness & transition, etc. The offer classes almost everyday, and they are all FREE. I've utilized this quite a bit in the past, and I'm sure I'll be using them again in the future. I've taken new-to-the-military classes, finance classes (there are lots of different pays/taxes/investment options to watch out for in the military), relocation (military moves are crazy different), federal resumes (that'll make your head spin!), Space-A travel, and others. I often go to these classes and come home with tons of notes and handouts and go over everything with Aaron. A lot of information and benefits are out there for us, and you wouldn't know it if you don't go looking for it.

Well, another thing the A&FRC offers here is Cultural Awareness classes. A woman from Okinawa works there and teaches a variety of things from a Japanese for Busy People class (which I took when I first got here), Japanese craft classes (like the one I'm going to show you now), a Kimono wearing class (ditto), and she even will go to a Japanese grocery store with a group to show you how it works and what's available (I've already got that covered thanks!).

I signed up for the Washi Craft class, where we made a Japanese candy dish. I expected this 'class' to be a little different, more of the history and culture of washi, and maybe something a little more custom I guess. It was still fun, and I met some new people, and it only took an hour.

We sat down at our stations and were basically just there to put it together step by step. Okay, that's fine. But I started to ask questions, because that's why I was there. Washi is a type of paper created in Japan. Different types are made from different barks of trees, and traditionally, it's made by hand. It's very unique feeling, much thicker than regular paper, and it has a wonderful texture to it. It's also much more stretchy than regular paper, and has been made into clothes. There's a new washi product called washi tape that you're probably more familiar with, it's getting really popular in the states, where it's freaking expensive. I can get it for crazy cheap over here if anyone needs some!

I also learned that washi craft isn't really something that Okinawans do regularly, it's more of a mainland Japan thing. It's something adult women will get together and do. As far as the things you would 'washi', I would compare it to the modpodge craze, whatever you could and would modpodge, you'd washi!

Here's my finished candy box. I sprayed it with acrylic and will probably put it in my bathroom once I get shelves in there.

Later that week I went to a kimono wearing class. Here we did learn a lot about the culture and history of the kimono in addition to learning to wear them. After learning about them and actually trying to get into one, I would actually consider buying one while we are here. They are very comfortable.

We learned a whole bunch about them, and I'm sure you could wiki it, but I thought I'd share with you some interesting facts I learned. A kimono is made from a entire single bolt of fabric, and each one is approximately 14 inches wide and about 38 feet long, and it's hand sewn. If you were to want to clean it, you would bring it to a professional kimono cleaner and they would take all the stitching out, clean each piece and then sew it back together. There are also something like 10 different types of kimonos for women, each varying in material and pattern based on formality. It was interesting to learn what an average Japanese person would wear these to today, mostly weddings and festivals, but there are still some people in certain areas of Japan that wear them daily.

It's also crazy complicated to put on. There is a whole system, and I guess there would have to be if it's a one sized fits all outfit and should look the same on everyone. Here our instructor is helping me into mine. We put ours on over our cloths, but typically a kimono outfit would have an undergarment, which is like a thin lightweight kimono (think a slip!) to go underneath, obi (the large 'belt' looking piece), socks, sandals and other accessories. To properly wear and adjust a kimono takes around 30-45 minutes and a very formal wedding kimono could take nearly 2 hours with multiple people helping.

I didn't do a very good job with my figure in the kimono. The point is to have very straight lines, no chest, hip, or butt curves. For those that have curvy hips, you're supposed to wrap a folded towel around your waist under the kimono to create a straight line. I failed on all parts of this. Here's a picture of me & my friend KayCee with our group. Thanks for the photos KayCee!!!

When it's all finished (well, as well as it was going to get in this class), the kimono is very comfortable to wear. It's snug without being too tight, and it makes you sit and stand up a lot straighter. This helps when sitting because you aren't allowed to lean back into a chair while wearing a kimono. The shoes were another story! It was pretty funny to watch all of us with our giant American feet wear these tiny wooden shoes. They have a little platform on them and are made to wear on either foot. All my toes were hanging off and gripping on to these things for dear life!

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Azalea Festival 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:46:00 +0000

It recently came to my attention that people were having some trouble commenting on my blogs with the program I was using. I have since reverted back to my old commenting system, so hopefully that works better for you!

The second weekend in March, we took a trip with ITT¹ here on base. We had never taken an ITT trip before, so we figured now's a good of time of any. Being new on the island we got a 10% discount on tours (offered to people here 90 days or less), which was even better. A little before 9am we met the bus, and boarded for a little over an hour. Our tour guide was great! She was Okinawan working with the base for years, and had some really funny stories to tell along with history of places we were driving past and other events and places she recommended us to go to.

Located on the East coast of the northern part of the island about 45 miles away (see map below), is an amazing little hill top with over 50,000 azaleas grown and taken care of by the village people of Higashi. With a great view of the ocean, there were tons of trails winding in and out of azalea gardens and mangroves.

There were some great viewing areas all around, and actually, my favorite spots were down in the valley walking along the mangroves being able to look up at the azaleas.

Love these trees!

The festival lasts for about 3 weeks, and along with beautiful views and trails, there is a small area (that doesn't interrupt nature) where they have food stalls, flower demonstrations, a small farmers market and live music. Of course we had to try some things while we were out. Lunch time after all, don't want anyone getting a case of the hangrys.

We split an order of nikumaki onigiri, which, if you love onigiri like I do, this will blow your mind. It's simply a rice ball wrapped in meat. You can't go wrong with this, trust me. Mine was pork, but they come with beef also. It's a thinly sliced piece of meat marinated in a delicious sauce, wrapped around a rice ball and then baked or fried, it's then coated in more sauce.

We also split some takoyaki. This is a go-to snack/street food in Japan, you'll see takoyaki stands EVERWHERE. It's delicious so no wonder why. It's a doughy ball filled with octopus (tako), green onion, and ginger which is cooked in this special grill pan. After it's done cooking, it's coated in a takoyaki sauce which is like a bbq sauce with mayonnaise and bonito flakes. There are a lot of variations of this, but the dough and octopus stay the same, otherwise it would be a different dish. I really enjoy takoyaki, but with a little less sauce. This guy was drowning in it. Just my preference though.

More adventuring. Aaron had a good time trying to read all the Japanese signs. He was able to pronounce a lot, but we had no idea what the translation was. That didn't bother me at all, I was busy taking in the views and taking pictures.

I have never seen this many azaleas before, it was awesome!

Once we made it to the lower area, there was a small stream and a boardwalk around the mangroves and some beautiful trees. I could have stayed here forever.

Towards the end of the trail, as we were making our way back up to the entrance, we spotting this elderly couple taking photos of themselves. It was so cute the way the man was pushing his wife up the hill (which was pretty freaking steep to be pushing ANYONE up, never mind doing it at that age). They reminded me a little of my grandparents, how sweet they were with each other, and I really love this picture.

¹ITT (Information Tickets & Travel)

A service offered on our base (and many other bases) that supplies information and tickets for events off base. Trips usually include transportation. They also offer discounted tickets to many things including special events/activities/hotels, and can make reservations for flights and hotels off island.

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April Monthly Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:51:00 +0000

Only a week late with what I was so excited to start doing. Our monthly recap!!! Below you will find random photos of random experiences in random order that happened randomly in the month of April. Sometimes were purposely left out because I intend to do a full blog post on, some I will expanding on in other posts both here and at Kacey's Kitchen, and some experiences aren't here because we didn't take pictures! Enjoy!

If you are looking for a pet, they sell chipmunks at Tabata, a hardware store right at Naval Kadena. I know. A chipmunk, for the low price of $100(ish). A freaking chipmunk!!!

Earlier in the month some of the squadrons here celebrated what's called "Warrior Week". It's a moral event/tradition involving heritage room crawls (aka a bar crawl), pranks, gifts, a banquet, and yearly awards. I barely participated by helping sew and stuff tiger tails (Aaron's squadron is the "Young Tigers") which were eventually placed on squadron commanders cars in the middle of the night. I also helped by making some tiger fudge as gifts.

My friends KayCee and Erin (and little Kaylee) came over to help with the tails. Well, Kaylee managed to play with every item in the living room while Erin did a nice job sneaking up on her pulling out some dvd's.

Because if you didn't understand the words 'rest room', or a picture of a toilet, someone sitting on a toilet should get the point across.

One day I randomly ran into Shin Koyamada at the Foster Exchange. Running into the store for a can of spray paint, I managed to stand in a line of only 5 people waiting for an autograph and photo. Koyamada played opposite of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.

Driving over to a fabric shop, I ran into some insane traffic. I eventually arrived to the source, a building had collapsed into the main road. Whoops. It appeared to have been undergoing construction or demolition already...but I don't think they intended it to fall where it did.

I found an amazing store called ETWS here on the island. A strange big store that's half housewares half Spencers gifts, with some interesting costumes.

After lunch and a stroll on the beach, we found some rubber shisha dogs.

Please clean away your dog's dung. With a picture of a pooping dog. Nice job Japan.

The sunsets here are gorgeous. What's great about living on this little tiny island is, we can drive 20 minutes to the beach to watch the sun rise, and 5 minutes to the beach to watch the sun set. While having dinner and drinks one night with friends, we caught this beauty.

A monthly roundup wouldn't be complete without an appearance from the cat. Never before has she been interested in the dryer, but lately, she wants to climb in it all the time. We'd like to say she's helping us do laundry, but we know that could never be the truth.

Aaron spent a couple of days working in Guam. 'Working'. Here's his view from the hotel room.

Here's a photo from my seat at the warrior banquet. It was held in a hanger and TONS of people we there. I think something like 6 or 7 squadrons and all their spouses. Here they were presenting some awards, looks like we may have won something here with how many of our team is standing.

The base offers lots of free (and paid) classes/presentations. I took a 3 day Japanese For Busy People class and followed it up with a Washi paper craft class. We made a Japanese candy box. Might not have been the most exciting hour ever, but it's a great way to get out of the house and meet people. Know I have no idea what to do with this thing.

Another class I took was a Kimono wearing class. We learned a little about the history of them, and then we each got to learn how to put one on. It takes forever, even for people who wear them often, depending on the style it could take up to an hour or more to put on. Fun Fact: A kimono are typically made from a single piece of fabric that's almost 40 feet long. I'd post more photos, but they weren't at ALL flattering. This was a lot of fun to do, and now I would actually consider buying one, and actually wearing it.

Oh man, the signs here are great. Good thing it was here, otherwise I would have tried to pet a snake. Or not.

Exploring on the island is always amazing. There are lots of castle ruins on the island, and this was the first one that we checked out. I'll do a little blurb about this later.

Believe it or not, not every day is sunny and perfect here. In fact, there were a few weeks in April where it rained and poured every single day. I used this time to do some crafting. We have intentions to build our own dining room table at some point, and in the meantime, I found 5 chairs in 2 different styles for FREE (only 1 style shown). They needed to be stripped down, re painted, and reupholstered. I'm not sure on the colors of my finished product, but it works for now, and much, much better.

One of my favorite beaches here.

Beach time always calls for ice cream time. A famous American ice cream shop here adopted by Okinawans. Everyone loves Blue Seal...and I mean EVERYONE. They have some amazing flavors, mine is Ube (purple yam) and Aaron's is Beni-Imo (Japanese sweet potato), both are purple, the beni-imo has a smoky flavor. Plus, look at their cute cones!!!

Another exploring day (aren't they all exploring days?) with some new friends, we checked out Okinawa World, which is a little heritage park filled with underground caves, craft/heritage village, habu museum and demonstration, and Eisa dancing. More on that later, but I just wanted to share with you these awesome Shisas! I want to build one!!!

More snake signs. BTW, there are a shit ton of snakes on the island. They will bite and kill you, and they will eat your children. Just saying. Also...don't throw stones or trash at THIS snakes.

Another beach (I keep showing you pictures at low tide) on the East China Sea side of the island. This was a great little spot. When the tide is down you can walk out really far...all the way to the dark part of the water past those last rocks/coral. Lots of locals were here this day picking scallops.

When on a beach with millions of hermit crabs, the only logical thing to do would be to race them. We held 2 races, mine lost both. Next time, Aaron's not allowed to pick out my crab. We did have couple cross the finish line though. It was waaay more exciting than it should have been.

Well, even though that doesn't show you everything that we had done this past month, I hope it gives you a little window into our daily life. I'm excited to share with you some of the food we've been splurging on over at Kacey's Kitchen soon. Keep an eye out!

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Interesting Signs and Products Found in Japan (February and March 2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:20:00 +0000

You asked for it, so here it is. A whole post of weird, funny, unique, and sometimes troublesome signs and products from Japan. This won't be the end of it either, I plan on including these in my monthly recaps in the future.

Bathrooms deserve their own post, but I couldn't resist with sharing this now. Below you will find something I found in a bathroom stall. Similar to a hand sanitizer dispenser, this is clearly a little more special. According to instructions, a little cherub coming in, ripping off some toilet paper, spraying it with this Purelet dispenser and cleaning the toilet seat with it. It's quite deceiving. In real life, no little angel flew it to help me out.

One of the first silly signs I saw here. At first glance, it just looks like a dog sad because it's not allowed to run on the track. Not so, this poor little mutt is sad because it has a chicken wing as a leg, and CAN'T run. Poor pup.

Vending machines. Everywhere. It's something I looked forward to when moving here. We haven't found anything too 'out there' yet, mostly hot & cold beverages, cigarretts, phone cards, and ice cream. But if you look closer, you will very often find a can of creamed corn along side the beverages. It's served hot. And no, we haven't tried it (yet).

Where can you find one of those creamed corns you ask? Simply one of the many vending machines located at your nearest street. Tommy Lee Jones will be there, on the front of the machine, posing like a BOSS. There are lots of American celebrities on advertisements here...and they are always at least a little on the strange side. You'll see.

Gargling fountain. Weird at first, right? But once you try it, GENIUS!!! Seriously. We found this at the aquarium, and after eating lunch and spending a few hours walking around, we all had that dry stale mouth. Until we used the gargle fountain. Simply turn it on by placing pressure on the step, and something that sort of looks like water, but isn't shoots out like a water fountain. I would describe it as mouthwash, but it tasted completely different than what we are use to. Gargle for a few seconds and then spit it out. It was AMAZING how it perked all of us up. Why don't more places have this!?

I love the packaging here. I don't think I'll ever stop loving it. It's not just the packaging, but the little cartoony characters on it. For example, here's a cat, cleaning out it's own litter. It's also the most unique cat litter I've ever seen, we'll have to give it a try one day and see what Sammy thinks.

I believe this was the first time I've been to a 'ticket' restaurant. This one is a small chain on the island called Ramen Kagetsu Arashi, or more commonly known simply as Arashi. When you walk in the door, you are greeted by a vending machine. These are your choices to order. No real detailed explanation on them, enough is in English to sort of figure out what you want. The pictures help too. I'll do a little review over at Kacey's Kitchen at some point, but thought it was interesting to share with you. You insert your money, choose what you want, and a little ticket prints out. You go find yourself a table and hand your ticket to the waiter.

At another Japanese fast food place, I enjoyed their descriptions of spicy levels. BTW, Japanese sit down fast food is waaaay better than in the states.

Thanks to the commissary, we do get the food comforts of back home, but I was still surprised to see this hot sauce from my home state of New Jersey. I've never seen it in a commissary back in the US, so I wonder why it's here.

Here we go with the American celebrity advertising. Leonardo DiCaprio holding a GIANT glass of Jim Beam filled to the brim. I mean, there's so much booze in there the ice cubes won't even fit. Stay classy Leo.

It's sunny here, so why wouldn't you buy a hat for your cat. No joke. These are cat sized hats made for cats.

Okay, I'm not sure about this one. Obviously if you have hats for cats, you should have shirts for dogs. Obviously. But I'm curious, is this a fad everywhere that I've missed? Do they sell/display dog shirts like this in other countries?

After your done shopping for Fido, make sure you don't leave in him the elevator. Don't worry though, there are signs to remind you. Watch out for your jump rope too!!!

Cats are loved here, except when they aren't. Don't want a stray marking his territory all over your garden? Simply line the area with this spikey plastic mat, aka cat repellent. It'll make them cry.

And as a reminder, please leave the hermit crabs where they belong.

The real winner of this post is this. A handful of friends have received these already as gifts from me, but we all still can't figure out what it really is or WHY. WHY. WHY. Wait, maybe we don't want to know. No, it's not a condom. It's a self inflating goose with adhesive to go over your cloths. The real question is why the fuck is there that creepy dude on the packaging.

Well, hope you enjoyed this catch up of weird shit. The month end is coming up, so I'll be doing another roundup, this time, of all things April soon. Stay in touch!

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Random Things We've Been Up To (February & March)

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I have so many pictures of things we have done and seen that I would love to share, but I've been thinking of how to do that without doing a whole blog post on each individual thing. Maybe like a monthly round up of our highlights and fun things? That might work. Seeing that we are closing in on the month of April, let me catch up now with some highlights of our life in Japan for February and March.

I'm going to do a separate post for snacks, signs, and other products I've found, so keep an eye out for that soon! Of course, restaurants and food will be found over at Kacey's Kitchen

Here's our February and March Japanese happenings.

Our welcome sign we were greeted with when arriving to the terminal. No pictures of our actual welcome group but I spoke a little about it here. I didn't take pictures because I was too busy being frantic inside my head figuring out how to get straight to our hotel room instead of socializing after our 26ish hour flight. That's right, we are social butterflies.

I was excited to find one of the nicer fish markets in the area. This place gets deliveries every morning from all over the Pacific and brings them into the store fresh from the boat. I plan to do a blog post on this, so for now, you get a picture of me catching a big one! They have tons of these wood cut out picture opp things. Are they actually called something?

Right across from a great produce market is often and out door plant sale. Anything from bonsai to herbs to trees you can find here!

I found my first geocache with a new friend here. Her and her husband go all the time to find new places to explore on the island. We weren't able to find our first one, but were successful on our second location. You can see how tiny it is compared to my finger. Tricky, Tricky!

I do a lot of general exploring, especially by myself. Usually it starts out trying to find a new store or market and then wandering around the neighborhood aimlessly. It's the best way to explore in my opinion.

We supported our local roller derby team in March. They play in various locations, but here they skated in a fighter jet hanger on base. That's pretty awesome. I miss my team back in Florida a ton, especially watching other people. Still undecided though on joining up with their volunteers.

The first weekend we were here, we went with friends to Pizza in the Sky, which deserves its own post. But they had beautiful gardens and tons of Shisa (lion dogs). These mythical creatures are believed to protect homes/businesses from evil spirts. They are often found in pairs, one on either side of the doorway or roof. One has a closed mouth (keeping good spirits in) and one has an open mouth (to keep bad spirits away). They are really interesting, and there are so many variations of them. I wouldn't mind getting some small ones at some point.

I can't even remember the last time I dyed easter eggs, but we had a nice dinner and dying party with friends a few weeks ago. Lots of competition over the best egg.

Here's the couch I was talking about the other day. Total big kid couch. The pillows are all discombobulated because they literally just put it all together when I snapped this photo. See, the tags are still on it. Speaking of pillows, those are metallic silver pillows that came with it. Amazing!!!! And that ottoman, how dumb that it was a huge selling point to me, but I love it. It's on wheels and opens up for storage. Man, this couch is huge too, it's almost 10 feet long on both sides, which is awesome to lay on and watch movies.

More exploring. We took a trip down to Naha (the largest city here) and walked around the famous (touristy) Kokusai Street. Here's a picture of Heiwa Dori (Peace Street) marketplace, just off of Kokusai. The marketplace was definitely our favorite, with more variation of shops, and an amazing fish and meat market. We plan on going back to the market. A very nice man working there asked if we spoke English (his English was excellent) and thanked us for being here. He explained that we could buy any of the fish we saw and bring them upstairs to have one of the restaurants cook it for us.

I can still coupon here. At the commissary at least. Of course, we don't get the newspaper or anything, so couponers here rely on people back home sending them to us. The commissaries and exchanges overseas allow us to use coupons that are up to 6 months expired. There are lots of programs and groups back home that mail bulk coupons to our family readiness center, and from there we are able to go and pick up envelopes or boxes of coupons. Before we moved here, I would also send my expired coupons overseas. Of course, you can also send your high value coupons directly to me *wink wink*.

Man, they love their arcades here. Arcades EVERYWHERE. And they aren't your typical arcades. Maybe I should do a whole post on them as well. Asides from games, they have these really fun photo booths. After it takes your picture, it enhances your features and colors, making the photos really pop. It widens your eyes and makes your lips and eye color really bold while lightening your skin. Then you can go and edit the photos with words, borders or embellishments. We may or may not have taken photos in this booth, and Aaron may or may not look prettier than me in the photos.

Found a number of fabric shops in the area. There are some pretty good ones. The prices are reasonable. Think JoAnns or Hancock but without the sales. I've been having a hard time deciding what to buy. These were all so fun, but I didn't buy any of these. Ha!

When I first got here, I joined our squadron spouses crud team. Crud is a game made up by drunk fighter pilots played on a pool or snooker table. It's a competitive, confusing, and frantic game played with teams. Go google and you tube it. It doesn't make any sense, and depending on who you play with, the rules are different. Every year a tournament is held. We were all newbies this year, and we thought we were more prepared then it showed. We were the first team out, and I was the first person to 'die' on my team. That was almost 2 months ago now and it's still driving me nuts. Seriously. My name was 'ACE'. I could have done better than that. But it was an awesome way to meet people, and super fun to play.

Home Sweet Home - Moving in, Again

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:54:00 +0000

Well, it's been 2 months since we have arrived in Japan, and it has flown by in record time. Since we've been here for so long, I thought it was about time to share with you our house hunting experience.

The following pictures are a mixture of photos taken during our initial walk through before we accepted the house and the day we moved into the house and got our HHG shipment.

The Tuesday after we arrived (We arrived Friday) we stood in line at the housing office to get into their first meeting. What we weren't told is that it's a group meeting held at 8:30am, so really, no need to rush. At this meeting we were given a copy of our application (we had applied for housing before we arrived even though it didn't go into effect until the day we LEFT our last duty station - this is good to know since housing is on a first come first serve basis). We also found out during this meeting that we were NOT authorized to live on base. Major bummer here folks. We were trying not to get our hopes up even though we had been hearing for months that the base housing is full and everyone who has wanted to has been able to live off base. Housing is provided based on rank, dependent status, and when you filled out your application. Single military members are required to live off base here - basically why have one person utilize and ENTIRE house. According to a procedure they put in place the prior week, if our base OR a base next to us is under 95% capacity, we are required to live on base. At the time of our meeting, our base was 99% full and our neighboring base was 93% full, requiring us to live on base.

GODDAMMIT.

People who arrived the week prior and the week after us were able to live off base.

We asked the people at housing a couple of times to explain it to us, and we realized there was no use in arguing, it's just the way it worked out.

We really, REALLY can't complain though. We have a really large house (which is actually my biggest complaint, and yes, I know how strange that sounds), it's in a nice neighborhood, convenient for work, and it's new and modern and clean.

After our Tuesday meeting we were told they would review our application and give us a call in a few days. We were called that afternoon and given 2 houses to look at as soon as possible. We hassled some folks for rides again (still didn't/couldn't have a car at this point) and took a look at both locations. The first one was actually neighboring our friends house, was really nice, big, and close by everything (the commissary, work, the exchange, etc..). We checked it our and headed over to our other option.

The second house was almost the same exact house as the first one, but every room was about 2 feet smaller. It was still huge compared to what we are use to. The major selling points to this house was how out of the way it was. The only cars that drive through this neighborhood are those people who live here. It's up on a hill, so we have a little view of the town off base and some view from our bedroom of mountains and such. There aren't many playgrounds around, and just some elementary schools off in the distance. Our backyard in this house is actually elevated from the neighboring buildings, so pesky little ~~bastards~~ children won't ~~trespass~~ wander into our property. The first neighborhood was really busy, with lots of school zones, and high school and middle school kids wandering about, and you could see the house from the main road. We really liked the privacy of the second location - for being off base, it's sort of off the beaten path, which we really enjoy. It's also pretty quiet, bonus!

So we called in the morning to accept the 2nd house. It was either that day or the next that we were able to meet with our housing counselor and sign everything that needed to be signed. We picked up our keys are were allowed to move in Friday morning. Since our HHG (Household Goods) arrived about a month before we did, all we had to do was schedule a delivery date. Our counselor was kind enough to do that for us, which was awesome cause she got on the phone, spoke a ton of Japanese, and scheduled delivery for the morning we moved in. AWESOME! Asides from having all our stuff, it meant that we didn't have to deal with government furniture, which is furniture the government loans and delivers you until your stuff arrives. It's a great free service they offer, and would have been glad to take it if needed, but it was nice not to have to bother with extra deliveries and pickups. It also meant that after 7 months, we were able to sleep in our own bed.....holy shit....that thing felt like a fucking cloud that day....

The movers were awesome. They showed up during their scheduled arrival 'window', and were in and out of there in an hour, and asked me numerous times if I wanted them to unpack everything for us.

The moving company was a local one, and I got my first experience of how polite the locals are when they enter your home. We had 3,774 lbs of stuff shipped over (total of HHG and UB), which sounds like a lot of weight, but really isn't, we were authorized over 12,000 lbs. I can't even imagine owning that much stuff!!!! Anyway, 3 guys carried my 3,774 lbs of boxes out of our 4 crates, to our door, unwrapped anything that was wrapped, carried it all inside to the room I directed them. As they did this, I had my handy dandy copy of inventory, and checked off each and every box number that came in. Even though everything was in crates, I did this. One of our crates had been opened and inspected (I know this because the seal was broken). It was also easier to tell what was in the boxes by looking at the inventory.

Each and every time one of the workers came into my home, they removed their shoes. I actually didn't even notice it at first, because they were so quick about it, never missing a step. They literally got to the door, and stepped right out of them. On their way back out, stepped right back in. Communicating with them wasn't difficult at all. The guy in charge spoke English pretty well, and the other 2 guys seemed to understand me most times. If they didn't, they just went to work unloading the truck until they could verify with their boss what it was I wanted. Never once did they stop to chat, rest, or take a break. I was pretty impressed by how strong these guys were, for being smaller then me....they were carrying stacks of boxes in and up the stairs, dressers over their shoulders, mattresses like they were pillows.

We even thought we were missing a box at the end labeled 'parts'. It was on the inventory, but I didn't recall having a parts box. The guys went through the entire house twice, looking at each and every box to make sure we didn't miss it. We filed some paperwork to say it was missing, but I came to realize that it never existed. Most people probably have one, our initial packers probably just wrote it first on the inventory sheet, and I just overlooked it, since it was waaaay at the top of the page.

I gave the guys some Coke, which they seemed to really appreciate, signed a bunch of stuff, and they were gone. *POOF* Not one scrap of paper or garbage remaining. Like I said, they seemed to really want to unpack me, but I've never had movers do that, and I don't think I will, even though it is part of their job. Yes, it would be really nice to be rid of all the boxes and packing paper, but I couldn't live with piles of shit just laying all over the house. I need to put stuff away (even if temporarily) while I unpack.

As you can see, we have tons of storage space in this house. Including that giant ass closet right in the middle of our living room. Also, we have a little "Harry Potter" room/closet under our stairs, directly in front of the bathroom.

My favorite part is how clean it is, and how many windows there are. In our living room, we have an absurdly large sliding glass door to the back yard. Yay!

Is it even right of me to complain about too much space and too much storage? I know, first world problems for sure. It just seemed so empty, and neither one of us really wants to own more stuff...so the challenge is to make it cozy without filling it up with crap.

These houses were really built with families with kids in mind, which then, the size would make sense. The 8 closets plus 2 outside storage rooms would make sense. 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms would make sense. It just happens this is what we were authorized also, and it was available. It's really nice, and for having to live on base, I'm so glad we were able to secure a home on our base, our neighborhood, and how clean it is. It almost seems like we are the only people who have lived here, I can't even imagine how hard the cleaning crews work.

Since taking these pictures, we have acquired some more furniture. A king size bed for one, which is awesome. We have been talking about getting one for a while, but with moving around and hoping on getting off base, we weren't sure if we could fit one anywhere. We put our queen in the spare room, which will be awesome now for guests...no more air mattresses or couch sleeping. Damn...we are like real live grownups now!

We also ended up....oh shit....here's another grown up thing we got.......we bought a sectional. For real. I actually have always hated sectionals, but saw this one at the Foster (a Marine base nearby) furniture store and fell in love. I'll show you some pictures another time. It's a monster, but it comes all apart, and has one of those giant ottomans (with storage inside) that everyone can put their feet on. It's big and gray and has metallic pillows(!!!) and we love it. I really like how big it is, that you can fit a whole bunch of adults on it and no one feels cramped or right up next to each other.

We were temporarily missing 2 things when we got our stuff. We couldn't for the life of us find our bed frame screws. I know I put them somewhere safe that I wouldn't forget. We picked up 2 screws for free at Eagle Hardware (a free self-help store on base that supplies you with things like screws, air filters, light bulbs etc. Things needed for base housing that residents can do themselves instead of calling maintenance). The next day, I found the screws. They were with our tools. The same tools we'd need to use to tighten the screws. Derp-Derp. The other thing that we didn't find for almost 2 months was our darts.

We had them in Altus, and packed them last...so that narrowed down where they were significantly, but we still couldn't find them. It was driving me INSANE that I couldn't remember there these were. I bought some more at the Exchange just to hold us over, and then one day not too long ago I was sitting on the couch and it dawned on me. I blurted out "THEY'RE IN THE GUITAR CASES!!!" Sure enough, in the pocket of the guitar case were both sets of darts. Phew! Crises solved.

We moved our love seat up into the office, and still have our red couch in the living room. I'd love to show you, but asides from being completely unpacked in 2 days and buying a bed and couch...our home hasn't gotten much better looking. I shop either on base, in town, or online nearly everyday but still can't even agree with myself what kind of curtains to buy for the office, never mind decorate anything else. We haven't hung pictures on the wall yet because at first we thought we'd paint a wall or two, then nixed that idea, then brought it back and nixed it again, and we don't know if we are going to do shelves over the couch or just hang the frames. Should I re-order photos larger. I don't know. Do you think John & Sherry from Young House Love will made a trip to Okinawa to help me out? After all, I did support them on their book tour by purchasing their $15 book. It's only fair, right? Maybe I should at least present them with the invitation here.

As you can see, Sammy enjoyed exploring all our stuff. She was all 'mind blown' when we put here in the spare room while the movers were here, and when she comes out it's like Cat-Disneyworld with all the boxes. I enjoyed unpacking, and putting stuff away (most of it is staying where it was first put which is always awesome). It's funny when you live without your stuff for half a year and finally see it, you don't even want half of it. We did without all this fine...so now what should we do with it all? Yikes! I wanted to start downgrading after the first box was opened!

Anywho...I've been thinking a lot about this blog, and how frequently/infrequently I have been posting lately. I have lots of photos of things we've been doing here, and things I think you'll find interesting, I've just been busy going out and exploring and taking those photos, that I haven't spent much time blogging about it. I am though, going to put in a little more effort to blog on a more regular basis...hopefully enough to keep you all here and entertained.

One thing I'd like to ask from you is....what are you interested to know about our life in Japan??? Are you curious about food? The 'military life'? Do you want photos of poorly translated signs and menus? Explorations and activities? Really....I would love to know what you want to know! Leave me a comment below.

If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

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Cars and Driving in Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Driving in Japan. Is. Interesting.

I was actually shocked it only took me a couple times driving off base to feel comfortable. Now, driving on the other side of the road like a lunatic seems completely normal. Maybe I'm good at crazy driving, who knows. The drivers don't seem so crazy anymore. Deep down, I know they still are though.

Having a car here is pretty important. There's really no way to get around it, even if you plan on staying on base forever (Ew). Unlike our last few bases, this one is so large that there's no way you'd be able to walk every place you need to go. Some people might be able to get around with a bike...but it rains and rains HARD here, so you at least need a car for back up.

We sold our cars back home before we left, and once arriving in Japan, we had to bum rides EVERYWHERE for almost a week. It's something everyone has to do here, and lots of people offer you rides, but it was seriously taking a toll on me. I hadn't needed to ask for a ride since before I had my license, and I hated having to rely on other people to bring us to required in processing appointments. It all worked out, and many many "thank yous" were said (and meant) over and over again.

Coming in as a military member and dependent, we had a little process of acquiring our own wheels. First, we had to take a drivers license test at the newcomers orientation the Wednesday after we arrived (Day 6 of no car). The test was easy peasy...they showed us some videos to scare us into driving conservatively and went over Japanese rules and laws, and taught us what the signs meant (remember - no English on the road signs!). Everything on the test was something they went over.

Some interesting highlights include:

There is an unofficial "3 car rule" that locals partake in. Once a light turns red, it's very common for 3 or so cars to continue driving through the intersection. If you have the green light, and drive through the intersection, and someone hits you because THEY ran the red light...you are still partially at fault because you should have made sure the intersection was clear.
SOFA¹status members are considered professional drivers by Japan. That means you have more responsibility on the road (i.e. steeper fines, and more severe penalties).
No left turns on red.
The roads are made of corral and are very slippery. It is common to slide/skid even when the roads are not wet.

After we obtain our drivers license (immediately after you take the test), you are legally allowed to purchase a car. Most people here buy used cars off of someone who is leaving the island. You just need something that is going to get you around the island, pass inspection, and last 3 years or however long you are stationed here until you sell it to someone moving in.

There are a few places to find cars. Online (Okinawa Yard Sales), at a dealership, and 'lemon lots' on base where cars are left with contact information for the owner. We checked out a bunch at the lot, and ended up finding the silver 2004 Mazda Verisa (pictured above) on there for $4,200. It was in really great shape and reliable, and the owner took great care of it. It's sort of funny because it's very similar looking to the Mazda we just sold in the states. We were able to buy it within a week of us getting here, and it was a huge stress relief to finally have our own car.

A few weeks later a friend gave us the heads up on a car for sale advertised on Facebook. A pink Toyota Vitz asking $500 obo (not a typo). We called about it, met the girl right away and decided it was the steal of the year. She was leaving the island just a few days later, so we made arrangements to buy it for $450, let her drive it the rest of the week, and then met for the paperwork/insurance/registration exchange. The old owner and new owner have to be together to complete the transfer paperwork.

We've gotten Pinky checked out with no major issues, and I really couldn' t be happier with my little car. I say mine because I've been driving it more than Aaron has lately, but he has no problem driving it being pink and all. I bring that up because I think it's funny how many people here are surprised to find out Aaron doesn't mind driving a pink car. Dude. It was a $450 car. I don't car if it had pink unicorns painted all over it. It drives great and was cheaper than my cell phone.

Both are 4 door hatchbacks with lots of room and working air conditioning, and it still surprises me every day that I don't have to get out and crank start it or something. They don't have a lot of power, but not many cars here do. You really just need enough power to jet in and our of traffic, which ours do fine with...and for 2 cars under $5,000...you really can't complain. There are a couple of souped-up cars here, and it really just makes you wonder....Why?!? After all, most roads are only 50kph (31mph) and only the expressway is 80kpm (50mph).

Asides from a fancy car being completely unnecessary here, there are a few reasons why you might NOT want to get something you care deeply about...

The roads here are really narrow and tight. People park IN the slow lane. There is a reason the cars here have buttons to fold in your mirrors. Lots of cars get too close. Smash.
People drive crazy. When we arrived, people told us, it's not a matter of if you get into an accident, but when.
The salt will eat away at your car. If you don't wash & wax it on a regular basis, people have had layers of paint strip off within a year.
If the roads are tight, parking is tighter.
Did I mention that the roads were tight? Those were the main roads I was talking about. Side roads, HA! A steep as hell windy road that barely fits your car is really 2 way road. It's interesting when a truck comes barreling down. Standoffs happen. Backing down roads happens. It's where a tiny car like Pinky comes in handy.

I was a little nervous driving off base the first time by myself. It's not so much the driving that is complicated (it's not), but if you don't know where you're going, it can get interesting, especially when crazy drivers are around and motorcyclists are driving in between cars to get ahead. They don't have street signs here (unless it's a major road). Not in English, not in Japanese. So directions are landmarks, which makes it hard to focus on driving and keeping track of where you are going when nothing looks familiar.

Like I said, over the past few weeks, driving off base hasn't been weird or scary. It's actually become normal. And just when I think that...I come across a crazy ass intersection and just bust through it hoping I come out on the other end. (Just kidding mom! Well...kinda...)

¹SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement

An agreement between a host country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country that clarify the terms under which the military is allowed to operate.

Toguchi Beach - Okinawa, Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 07:08:00 +0000

It didn't take us too long to find a beach to explore. Actually, it took us about a week, which really surprised me I didn't insist on going to one much, much sooner, but we were really so busy. I guess that's what happens when you move to another country.

Toguchi beach isn't too far away from our house, only about 6 miles, it still takes about 20 minutes due to traffic, slow speed limits, and insanely tiny roads to navigate and squeeze multiple cars through. When you first arrive at the parking lot, there is a cafe (which we haven't tried yet) and a playground. The playgrounds are different here, with cement slides and roller slides! There were a bunch of families playing the day we went, so of course we avoided them and photos. But I do want to go down the roller slide, so you'll get photos eventually. Just past the playground are walking paths to the beach and some really nice picnic pavilions.

And something that made my day...seeing 2 cats playing on the beach. You can see this guy running off with something in his mouth. Cats are everywhere in Japan. Literally, everywhere. Some of them are in rough condition, but others are pretty cute and it's hard to remember that they are wild.

The tide was low when we arrived, and we saw many fishermen standing waaay out in the water, and families out harvesting seaweed.

There are numerous caves here, like on most of the island, and the rock formations are beautiful.

This beach is on the west side of the island, the East China Sea.

This photo doesn't show it, but the island is also COVERED in coral. Coral, coral EVERYWHERE!!!

Shrines and large tombs can be found everywhere on the island, on business property, on the side of the road, in peoples yards, and on base. It'll be interesting to learn more about them.

Along the path are multiple places to stop and rest, and small yet beautiful picnic pavilions. This one here is way out on a point overlooking the sea.

On the other side of the parking lot, there is another walking path, stairs to the water, and different levels of grass to sit on and enjoy the outdoors. See that big rock way in the back in the photo below? Just past there is a quiet beach with finer sand and places to enjoy the water.

Here's some families out in the tidal pools collection sea weed and other things.

Oh, and don't take the hermit crabs!!!

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Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:52:00 +0000

The weekend we arrived on the island, it was an American holiday weekend, so we went to the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium that Monday with our friends KayCee, Jake, and Kaylee. They hadn't been there yet, so it was a great exploration for all of us. We thought since it was still a work day for Japan, it wouldn't be busy, but I felt like every person on the island was there! Even so, we were still able to see a ton of things and take some great pictures, and I know we all want to go back!

The aquarium is one of the largest in the world, one of the few that have multiple whale sharks in captivity, and the first aquarium to successfully reproduce manta rays. It's definitely one of the main attractions on the island, and after being here once, we know why. We ended up buying season passes, which pays for itself in 2 visits, and it's a good thing we did. I don't think we were able to see even half of the exhibits on this day, and it's just over an hour away, so we'll be able to come a lot.

There is more than just an aquarium here, it's a whole park/village. You park above everything which overlooks the ocean, and as you walk down 23909 (or so) flights of stairs, there are beautiful gardens and flower displays everywhere! Literally walls and walls of flowers and plants.

Ocean themed plant displays!

These guys were my favorite!
But it wasn't just flower and plant displays. They have a dolphin theater (we caught the end of a show, you'll see below), Sea Turtle pools, Manatee pools, Arboretums, Oceanic Culture Museum, restaurants, and more.

Walls and walls of orchids everywhere!

I can't even imagine the amount of time, work, and money that goes into these displays. They were endless, everywhere you turned, more flowers!!!

Once you actually make it to the Aquarium, which takes quite a while going down all the levels, looking at all the flowers, and taking pictures, there are even more photo ops and activities you can participate in before actually paying.

After we got our photos taken for our annual passes, we headed straight in and pet some starfish and other safe-to-handle creatures. I think Aaron really liked this part. I took his picture and walked away, and when I turned around, he was still petting things.

For a while, it was a pretty standard aquarium, different displays for different fish, a bunch of larger tanks with varieties of fish, etc. It was really nice that everything was both in Japanese and English, so we were actually able to read and learn about the local sea life. That's were I focused my time on, reading about and watching the local creatures.

Of course, I forgot exactly what everything was called... so I'll just call these water snakes 'creepers', because let's face it...that's exactly what they are.

My favorite though are the squid of course. They were quite popular with everyone else also, so I didn't stay too long watching these guys float around.

But just long enough to get a few shots in.

The main exhibit was next, and it was pretty freaking cool. I wish I was able to take better pictures, but either my little p&s camera doesn't like dark places or I don't know how to adjust the setting properly or a combo of both, but KayCee got some amazing shots with her DSRL, so maybe I could borrow some from her to show you (*hint *hint KayCee if you're reading this!).

So...if you don't know why it's so awesome that we saw a whale shark here it's because they are fucking enormous. They are the largest known fish, and only around 15 or so are in captivity in the world. They average 30 feet in length and weigh about 9 tons. There isn't a whole lot known about them yet, no one has every seen a whale shark mate or give birth (they can carry 300 pups at once!), so having them in captivity is a pretty big deal.

In the same tank (which is so large you can barely call it a tank), they have giant manta rays, which are beautiful. The 'wing span' on these are around 20 feet wide, and it was amazing to see them swim along the glass.

Speaking of the glass, they had a little display about this tank that held a handful of mantas and the whale sharks. After all, it is curious how they build something to sustain all of that. This one large tank (Kuroshio Sea) holds nearly 2 million gallons of water, and has a glass panel 27'x74' long! The glass is an incredible 2 feet thick! Another cool thing about the aquarium is that all of the water is pumped in from the ocean, 300m offshore. They pump in the new water, filter it into the tanks, filter it out of the tanks and back into the ocean. The aquarium also generates 4 times more of its own power than it uses commercially. Totally worth the 3,600 Yen ($39.15).

We finished off our day at the aquarium with the last few minutes of the dolphin show. It was pretty impressive with a variety of dolphins and the ocean right behind. It'll be nice to go again to watch the whole show.

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Japan: The First Days, Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:11:00 +0000

Back to our first weekend on the island. We had to start things off right by trying out these way too cute eggs from Japan. Slightly smaller, sold in packs of 10, and delicious!!!

The yolks are so much brighter than US eggs.

The Okinawa marathon was being held on base, so we walked around cheering runners on, and exploring a little of the base by foot.

We were so excited to be able to go to a sushi-go-round within the first few days of being here. Our sponsors wife took us out one night to one of her favorite go-to spots.

If you're not familiar with sushi go rounds, it works like this. You sit at a table or booth that has a little conveyor belt going past it. The sushi chefs work in the middle preparing awesome stuff, and they put it right on the conveyor belt. The dishes are color coded based on price. I think here the prices ran from 100 yen to 580 yen, or something like that. What else was cool about this place was you could also order off the menu if you don't see something coming around that you want. Here they provide you with a menu and a little slip of paper and pencil. You have to write down what you want in Kanji and the waitress will take your slip and place your order.

*GULP*

At least I only had to copy it from the menu. There were a few very complicated Kanji combinations that I didn't try writing, but I would really like to try those dishes, so we'll have to go back. That won't be a problem for us. We loved this place.

Another cook thing was they had a hot water faucet at each booth. See that little black round thing on the 'wall' of the booth? You pressed your mug against that and steaming hot water came out. They had a container of green tea powder there for you also.

One of my favorite! Hotate aka scallop. I had to really resist not just ordering a ton of these and nothing else.

Here were our stack of plates for 3 people. I think it cost around $50 for all of us. We were stuffed, but it would have been so easy to do a lot more damage. Each plate has a 'chip' in it, and when you are done, the waitress will come over to the table and scan the stack of plates and the computer automatically calculates it!

We walked around town, checking out a little mall, our first 100 yen store (basically a dollar store on crack), and headed down to Comprehensive park where we fed the carp! Those bastards are aggressive!!! By the time we did that, it was dark, so I don't have any pictures, but we liked it there so I'm sure we'll be going back soon.

Here's a little shot of the arcades. They have a shit ton of arcades and pachinko parlors! We've been to the arcades and peeked into a pachinko parlor, but maybe one day we'll get brave enough to go partake.

And the required kitty update. Sammy was able to stay with us the first few nights because we had a pet friendly room, but we had to kennel her after day 4 since we had to switch rooms. She was still doing great, just tired of moving and traveling. Here's her cuddled up with Aarons sweatshirt. And I don't know why she looks cross eyed sometimes...it's just how she is. But only sometimes.

Japan: The First Days, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Our first few days on the island were HECTIC!!! We decided to start things off right by waking up early that first morning and going with our friend KayCee to watch her coach youth softball. It was nice to get outside and relax.

We walked around a bit during the game and found our first humorous sign...Turkey Leg Dog!!! Poor guy, first he's born with a turkey leg, and then he's not even allowed to hobble on the track! Sheesh!

We watched the game for a little longer, and headed off with Jake (KayCee's husband) to go get us cell phones. Conveniently 2 of our best options had a kiosk/store in the Exchange1 mall, so we got to check that out, and compare plans (both companies had the same exact plan), phones, and service quality.

We easily made up our minds when I questioned one of the sales people about their service having dead zones on base. She shrugged and agreed that yes, there are dead zones. Dead zones aren't cool, and if your sales person agrees with the complaints...it's time to move on, so we did just that, and moved on to the original company. We had heard people complaining about the prices, but for 2 smart phones and comparable plans that we were use to, it wasn't much more a month than we were use to. Having the convenience of maps, email, and apps to communicate back home with, it was definitely worth it to us.

KayCee met back up with all of us, and we all headed out to lunch. By now we were starved. So we all went off base to Taj Okinawa, a place none of us had been to yet!

I think we all ended up getting a lunch special, but with a different type of curry each. This giant feast you see below cost 900yen which was about $9.89 that day. It also came with a brothy soup with pasta and veggies in it, and a drink of your choice. I chose lassi, which is a yogurt type beverage. It went really well with the spice level of curry I chose. Check out that nan! It was HUGE!!!

We headed back to base where we picked up our cell phones and met some more folks from the squadron at a BBQ/kids birthday party. We may have done some other things, but KayCee knew I'd love to check out one of the produce markets off base, so we went there next. I loved it, and it turns out to be even more awesome because it is only a few minutes right outside the gate we live near. I've already been shopping here a few times.

Still being my first real day in Japan, I couldn't resist buying one of my favorite Asian snacks. Steamed buns!!! Right in front of the market are a handful of vendors making food right there and selling it. I got a spicy pork steamed bun. I LOVE THESE THINGS! I think this cost me 100 yen ($1.09) and was worth every penny/yen.

Before I show you what else I got, thought you might be interested in a receipt. Or not. It's the little things here that I notice and enjoy.

Another favorite snack/side is seaweed salad. There are tons of different variations of this, and I don't know what this was called, but it was seaweed with a soy sauce based dressing and sesame seeds. I planned on mixing it with some other veggies, like cucumbers and peppers, but we ended up just eating it like it was in our hotel room. This was from an additional stand at the market, and I think it cost somewhere around $3-$4.

Okay, I don't know what's up with their carrots here, but they are HUGE. That is a normal sized DINNER fork right next to it. You could seriously damage someone with this. I also thing you'd have to alter recipes that call for 'one carrot'.

Another favorite Japanese snack is onigiri. I could eat this for every meal. I'd love to blog about onigiri over at Kacey's Kitchen, but they are basically a snack made of rice and seasonings, sometimes fillings. The rice is mixed with herbs or veggies and rolled into typically a triangle shape by a salted hand. I've never had one I didn't like, and I particularly like the salmon filled ones.

Later that evening we had dinner at KayCee & Jakes. It was nice to help KayCee in the kitchen again (we'd often have each other over for meals while we were in Oklahoma together), and we had some time to catch up while the boys entertained the baby (their baby - not that you needed me to clarify) and catch up themselves. The night was awesome, they had another couple over for dinner, which was awesome to be able to meet and hang out in a low-key setting. We met so many people in 24 hours I barely remembered where we went, never mind names and faces!

Don't worry, I don't plan on writing our entire 3 years in such detail, I just really want to share our first few experiences on the island, and then I'll be more selective on what I bore you all with!

'til next time!!!

¹Exchange
I describe this as the military department store. It's THE place to buy stuff you need. Depending on the size of your Exchange, you can get cloths, furniture, household supplies, gifts, tvs, etc. I think ours here is one of the largest Exchanges in the world. Don't quote me on that though.

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Getting to Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 01:12:00 +0000

The big day was finally here. FINALLY. FINALLY!

Unfortunately we had to leave our fancy-pants suite waaaay too early in the morning, with our alarms going off at 2am. I started to get nervous belly at this point. Not because we were moving to Japan, but I was terrified that I forgot something. Like I forgot our passports (nope, I checked for those consistently), I forgot to reserve space for the cat (nope, that was done and verified. Wait! Did I verify it?), what if I'm missing paperwork for the cat (THAT was my main concern). I have spent MONTHS and MONTHS preparing for this and making sure all our documents were in order. The thing was, I did some of it so long ago, that I started thinking....did I do it? Or did I THINK I did it? Too late now, I guess we'll find out.

There was so much fucking paperwork and running around for last minute vet visits for the cat (we had to make a 4 hour round trip to a military vet a few days before we left for Seattle to get one of her required visits done), I was terrified something was overlooked and I'd show up at the airport and they'd say, sorry she can't board the plane and I would be in the terminal balling my eyes out not knowing what to do with the cat who can't get on the plane that I am boarding.

Nevermind all that though, the paperwork was fine (of course), and she boarded the plane. They even made an announcement when we were on the plane that all the pets had been loaded up! Yay!

Since we were flying a military contracted flight, our check-ins and procedures were just a little different than normal. Our flight was scheduled to depart around 7:30am, and we had to check in as early as 1am but absolutely no later than 4am. Since we were already guaranteed a seat, as long as we were there before 4am, we were going to be fine. The folks flying Space-A (Space Available) need to be there ASAP because those seats are handed out on a first come first serve basis. Little did we know that since we had the cat, we'd be bumped to the front of the line. Sweet! Well...sort of. You'll see why at the end.

We grabbed 2 luggage carts. Again...we brought way too much luggage, but in my defense, we were living out of these bags for 3 months while our stuff was already shipped to Japan. I thought I had narrowed down our belongings, but I guess all those little things spread out over the apartment really added up. Now I know better. Next time, I am only allowing 1 bag each, plus Aaron's uniform/equipment bag. Plus the cat. Next time...

We lined the pets up, and started their check-ins, which consisted of handing over lots of paperwork, answering some questions, and paying $112 for her. Look at her...she looks so tiny next to those dogs! She was definitely the most calm out of the animals that we saw, she just sort of sat there and looked around, I'm sure wondering why those dogs were making so much noise.

If you're curious how we handled her eating/drinking/bathroom situations, I'll briefly go over it. Vets will tell you to freeze water in their bowls, so it'll defrost over the length of the flight. That wasn't going to work for us. She was put into the kennel a 2:45ish am, and wasn't even going to be put on the plane until 7am. Our total travel time from hotel to hotel was going to be around 26 hours. A small ice bowl wasn't going to cut it, and I thought she would be worse off if she was soaking wet for the whole trip. Some folks suggested using a hamster/rabbit style water bottle, which was a great idea, but we tried getting her to use it the weekend before we left, and she wasn't having it. I didn't want her dehydrated BEFORE our flights, so I let her eat and drink up to the night before. When I went to bed, I took her food away and when we woke up before the flights, we took her water away. We also make her use the litter box by picking her up and putting her in it over and over and over again until she gets the idea. This works every time (if she has to go) and takes anywhere from 1-15 minutes. But it works. We lined her travel kennel with animal training pads, and put her bed and her favorite toys in with her. We were able to see her during both stops in Japan, so we gave her a little food soaked with water, although it didn't surprise us that she didn't eat it until after we picked her up at our destination.

It's a hard call what to do with animals being transported that long, because other people have very strong opinions on what you should be doing. I believe (and I'm obviously no expert here) that if you talk to your vet, and your pet is healthy, you'll know what the best situation is for him/her. I've traveled a lot with Sammy, and I've used these procedures every time, and she's been fine every time. I knew she would be okay without food and water for 1 day, and if for some reason we got 'stuck' somewhere, there was food taped to the top of her kennel and she had food and water bowls attached. She did amazing. She held her bladder the entire time, and when we got to the hotel room in Japan, she ran out of her kennel and right up to her litter box. Yay Sammy!

Okay...back to our flight. After dropping off the kitty, we headed up to the USO for someplace comfy to sit. It was crowded, but not too bad, and we were able to grab some juice and relax for a few. Around the time they were going to take Sammy to the plane, we headed down to check on her one last time, then headed through security and to our gate. We boarded around 6:45am.

I was actually surprised that the plane wasn't nicer with more modern amenities, but then I remembered I didn't have to pay for it and it's a contracted flight to shuttle people back and forth across the world as efficiently as possible. But just because the actual plane wasn't all spiffed up, doesn't mean the service wasn't awesome. The flight attendants were super awesome and friendly for the entire trip.

Hot towels before every meal and snack? Yes please. Hot towels before meals are very common here in Japan and I LOVE IT. It's so hot that at first you feel like your skin is going to melt off, but then you just realize it's just the germs melting off. I've also been to a restaurant here that has a sink & soap in the entry way. How nice!

After a couple of hours in the air, we were served a hot breakfast. By now I think most of us were starving so whatever they wanted to give us was fine. I think we had the option of an omelet or pancakes. Both came with a ton of food though...Sausage, hashbrown, bagel, fruit cup, and yogurt (which I noticed was non-dairy.....can someone explain how that works?).

After breakfast, everyone started to wind down and get comfy. They played movies and tv shows throughout the entire flight. It was our goal NOT to sleep through the flight. We agreed that taking a small nap here or there would be okay, especially since we had been awake so early, but the more we stayed awake, the easier we would be able to deal with the time difference. This was especially difficult for me since I just pass out whenever I sit in a plane. Maybe it's habit to make the time go faster, I don't know, but I can sleep on a plane like no ones business. My head might feel like it's going to snap off and I might drool all over the person next to me, but I'm asleep!

It was probably around this time that I realized we were sitting within a few rows of THE EXORCIST CHILD. Aaron's probably not going to appreciate me talking about this here because THE EXORCISTS parents might stumble upon my blog one day...but seriously....your kid was a fucking nightmare and you know it. Let's be honest here. Most of you know I feel about kids. But I REALLY hate kids in confined spaces. When I board a plane and watch a child come in I am filled with emotion. Hatred is one of them, but so is disappointment, panic, and sorrow. I'm that person on the plane that sits down and watches you struggle with your 10 carry-on bags (because you feel like it's your right to ignore the rules since you have proven to the world you are capable of reproducing). I don't offer to help, not because you have kids, I don't help because you brought 10 bags and your husband is right next to you and not helping because he already told you not to bring 10 bags. You don't need 10 bags to entertain a 1 year old. You need 10 bags to piss everyone else off. I'm the person on the plane that hated you and your family before you've even boarded. I don't think it's cute when you let your kid run up and down the aisle tripping people and then screaming when the beverage cart runs her over. I don't think it's cute or funny that you are brilliant at ignoring your child as he/she screams for 7 out of 9 hours of the.first.leg of an international flight.

Back to the EXORCIST. I hate when your EXORCIST child pukes all over the fucking place and I hate it when I overhear you telling EVERYONE that she's has gotten motion sick since she was born, and no, you didn't bring a change of cloths on board. Because that wouldn't make any sense, would it.

I should say that there were a TON of kids and babies on our flight, and not ALL of them were bad. There were actually a few that I had no idea were sitting right around us. Awesome! And thank you to those parents who actually acknowledged they had a kid with them and took care of them!!! But...for those evil children, most of the time it wasn't the kids fault. Even I will acknowledge that. The parents let them run wild and didn't do a thing to calm them or comfort them. Nothing. And trust me...I watched you all with an evil eye. I really felt like the mentality of a lot of these families was, "I'm military and it's oh-so-gosh-darn hard to move across the world with a child, we are exempt from acting like civilized human beings."

That gets a big thumbs down from me. And a bitching rant on my blog.

Also...while we have a 2 hour layover somewhere...please please PLEASE wake your kid up and make them run around like crazy, so when we board the plane again you can just strap them down and let them sleep. Because 35,000 feet is not where I want your kid bouncing off walls.

I'm sure I have no more readers with children at this point, they've either stopped reading, unsubscribed, or probably have some mean and nasty things to say to me. That's fine. It's not going to make me like your evil child any more.

Not all was bad. MAJOR props to my friend Jenni who provided us with earplugs before our flight. Yes, I had all those strong feelings above while wearing earplugs the entire time. I don't know how people handled it without them...although I did see a few guys who were close to breaking down. The earplugs saved our sanity, incredibly. Thank you Jenni!

Okay. Phew. I got that outta my system. AND I've had 2 weeks to chill out about it. It's a good thing I held off writing this post.

Moving on....

The ice was really pretty. I had never flown north enough before to see the ocean frozen over...

A few movies later (I lost all sense of time during this flight), we received a hot lunch. I chose the chicken.

Aaron chose the Pot Roast. Both were edible and appreciated. Enough said.

I'm not really sure what I did the whole flight to entertain myself. I read almost an entire book, watched some movies, and stared out the window whenever we had a view. Once we got into the Japan area, there were some great views of the outlying islands. It sort of reminded me of Hawaii.

This was us coming into our first stop, Yokota AB (outside of Tokyo). I'm not sure if they refueled here, but we needed to drop some folks off and pick others up. We all got off the plane and corralled into a room to wait, and those of us with pets got to go outside on the runway and check on them and walk them. We took Sammy out of her cage and just carried her around, just to give her a different view. There was one couple who took there cat out and just let him walk around. It was really amazing. This cat just followed his owners around as they walked, not going anywhere else. After the second stop, we learned that the cat was blind! The lesson I learned from that was in order to have a loyal cat, you must blind it.

So they re-boarded everyone onto the same plane and headed off to our next stop of Iwakuni AB, about 1.5 hours away on the main island of Japan. The same procedures took place, de-board, check on Sammy cat, re-board, and another 1.5ish hour flight to Kadena AB on Okinawa!!! Yay!!!

The sun had set and it started to rain by the time we were able to see Okinawa, but we were able to check out the coastline and the city lights! It seemed like FOREVER before we landed.

We flew right into base, where they have a small terminal for baggage and customs. We got off our plane and took a bus to the terminal and waited in line for someone to check our passports and orders, then went downstairs to gather our bags.

This is where it did NOT pay off to be the first ones in Seattle. First bags on, last ones off. We were able to get Sammy right away, but waited probably close to 45 minutes for all of our bags. After all of our traveling, and seeing our friends beyond the exit doors waiting to welcome us....it seemed like HOURS. The Kadena USO was there handing out water and pet treats!!! How awesome is that! While waiting, we were also greeted by someone from the Vets office to hand us a packet of paperwork and tell us what procedures we needed to follow with the cat in the next 72 hours.

We finally got our bags, went through customs, and some guy with a microphone asked if anyone was here to great us. Being that we were one of only a handful of travelers left in the building, it was easy to find our welcoming group. Plus, there were about 10 of them standing right at the door waiting for us with a big 'Welcome Aaron & Kacey' sign. That was pretty awesome considering we only knew 2 people (and a baby) here, and didn't think our sponsor would be there. There were a bunch of folks from the squadron including the commander of the squadron. I thought that was pretty cool, because I'm sure the last thing the commander of the squadron wants to do after a week of commanding the squadron is stand around at the on-base terminal waiting around to say 'hi' for 2 minutes to a couple who just spent 26 hours traveling and isn't going to remember a thing about the introduction.

So we shook hands with everyone, their names went straight through my brain, we were handed some welcoming gifts of beer and wine, and everyone help load our bags into our sponsors wifes car, who then brought us to our lodging (on base). She was awesome enough to have filled our room an fridge with food, so we wouldn't have to worry about the essentials right off.

There were a few Japanese treats thrown into the mix! Yay!

Oh! And our friends KayCee and Jake here gave us the best welcome gift ever. Nice shampoos, soaps, lotions, and poofs. I definitely have to remember this when we become sponsors. It was so nice to be able to shower that first night without having to dig through our bags for our stuff. And this stuff was WAAAY better than the hotel soap.

And more food and Japanese snacks. Very much appreciated!!!

We postponed going out to eat with our sponsor since we were so freaking tired. That's what you get for not sleeping the whole flight! It worked out well, because by the time we actually got our bags into the room, it was probably around 9:30/10. Sammy was relieved (in more than one way) to be let out of her kennel, and finally got to stretch her little legs, and then we crashed and we crashed hard, but we woke up at a decent hour to start our first day on the island.

Next up I'll actually share with you guys what you've actually been waiting to see. Photos of Japan!!!! Yay!!! Now that we've been in our house for a week, I've had some time to do cooking, so I plan on updating Kacey's Kitchen here soon also! I apologize for not updating sooner, it's been really hard to sit in front of the computer when I just want to be out exploring and setting up our house!

If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

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Sending Mail to an APO

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:00:00 +0000

I've recently sent my friends and family our mailing address here and thought it would be useful to post some information about sending things to an APO. I had to look up most of this information when I got our new address, so I'm sure it's bound to help someone!

Congrats on your PO address! But wait, I want to mail you guys amazing things from back home. How do I do that?

It's easy! If you are mailing an envelope that weighs less than 1lb, is less than 3/4" thick, and only contains paper...you just slap a stamp on that sucker and throw it in the mail. If you want to mail a package, you'll need to fill out a customs form, and which one depends on how much your package weighs. If it's under 4lbs, you'll fill out 'CN-22 PS Form 2976', if it's over 4lbs, you'll fill out 'CP-72 PS Form 2976A'. That one is a bit longer, but not impossible. You can fill this out either at the post office or online and print it out. Hopefully your postmaster isn't a grump and is willing to help you. Oh, and you'll still need a separate address label with the address and the return address. More information (and online forms) can be found at https://www.usps.com/ship/apo-fpo-guidelines.htm

Yay! That doesn't seem too hard. Since you are in another country, how much is it going to cost me to send you amazing things from back home?

You'll love this answer. Because it's an APO address (Army & Air Force Post Office), it's going to cost you the same as sending something to California!!! When you send something to us, it goes to a military mail center in San Francisco, where the military & state department handle getting it to us. The "AP" in our address stands for Armed Forces Pacific. It might be smart to add insurance since it's going to me man-handled so much (usually about 1% of package value).

How long will it take?

Your postmaster probably won't tell you this...because they aren't handling it to it's final destination. The typical times are as follows:

Parcel Post (Normal Mail = Cheapest) 30-45 days. It's sent by boat.

Priority 7-12 days, sent by plane.

Express Mail (Um...don't send us express mail, that will cost way tooo much) 2 days. Sent by an important fast plane.

Are there anythings I CAN'T send you?

Asides from the normal things you can't mail anyway: alcohol, drugs, weapons, paints, matches, etc...you also cannot mail us any type of porn or seminude articles. Not even as a joke, sorry guys. I would hope you wouldn't send that stuff anyway, but it really wouldn't be cool at all to send that to another country and to a military base. And yes, they can check by x-rays and opening the packages if something suspicious is in there. You also cannot mail money to us. I know, you guys were running to the post office to do that. Well, I think technically you can, but then you have to declare it and I don't think you want to write on the outside of the package that you have $1,000 cash inside. So, if you wanted to send us $1,000, you'll just have to wire it.

Do I have to mail you things in a special box?

Nope! Just do what you do when sending things back home. I would recommend you use those flat rate priority mail boxes, even if half of it is just shoved with packing paper. If you are sending something with any sort of weight to it, you'll definitely want to use these boxes. I think they can hold up to 70lbs or something ridiculous like that, not to mention it will only take about a week to reach us, unlike a month or two sending it slow boat. Because it's traveling around the world, I would definitely take extra time to make sure the box is tightly packed and taped up really well, more so than back home. These boxes take a lot of abuse, and I've seen tons here that are practically ripped to shreds or looked like it was run over. The ones that were packed well look like they are brand new.

Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:56:00 +0000

On February 1st, Aaron got one of his favorite birthday presents ever.

WE WERE LEAVING OKLAHOMA.

I should say that Oklahoma really wasn't horrible. It wasn't even really bad. It just wasn't for us. We stayed busy while we were there and did as much as we could do in the year and a half living there. We traveled around the middle of the country, we saw lots of flat land and cows, we ate lots of fried onion burgers. We checked out the sites (yup, there are 'sites' in Oklahoma), learned about the land rush, and realized that Oklahoma isn't as windy as you might have heard. But it is in the middle of nowhere, and we did our time and were ready to leave. And trust me, we were ready to leave.

So from the 1st to the 11th, we drove back "home" (the northeast) and spent time with family and friends before we headed to Japan. There was lots of driving. Sammy spent lots of time in her kennel in the back. She had to explore hotel room after hotel room on a regular basis. I think she should be earning her own hotel and airline points by now.

Super early in the morning on the 12th, we lugged our bags (you'll see all of them in the next post) to the airport and flew off to Seattle for a day and a half before going to Japan. I highly recommend taking an extra day before traveling overseas like we did. It was so relaxing and it was nice to do something just for ourselves. The past month we had been staying with numerous family members and driving and driving and driving until our arms fell off (no, not really), and it was nice to deplane and sit in a jacuzzi tub for a few hours (literally).

For those of you who are reading this that are military moving overseas....The military will pay up to $150 for one night stay in a hotel. They do NOT have to book the room for you. You can book it yourself anywhere you want. If they book it, your going to stay at an express hotel across from the airport. Why not stay at a boutique hotel downtown? They'll reimburse your taxi to and from the hotel also.

Day 1

My cousin recommended the Alexis Hotel in downtown Seattle, which was AMAZING. We wanted something within walking distance of restaurants and shops, unique and cat friendly. The Alexis met our requirements! Oh - and they have a GREAT military rate (your per diem rate).

We were able to get an early check in, which was great since we had the cat. And that would have been pretty annoying to carry her in the rain everywhere we wanted to go. The first mission was to find food. I was starved, and starting to get Hangry, so we headed out to the public market just a few blocks north. Perfect, because I love farmers markets, I love food, and farmers markets have food. Bam!

Doing a little chowhounding, we found out about Jack's Fish Spot and the delicious chowder and COD fish and chips. So that's what we got, and it was delicious! I also threw in a fish taco which was pretty awesome too. Just some food that you really can't get in Oklahoma...and if you can get it, you don't want it. It was really tasty and we enjoyed the on-the-go vibe grabbing a stool at the fish counter (watching them scale and filet some). We loved how normal it was to sit out in the rain in the middle of winter eating some delicious food.

Next up, Beecher's Cheese, where you can watch them make it from the street. We popped inside where I ate too many cheese curd samples and got stressed out trying to make a decision of which cheese to buy to eat in our room later. TOO MANY CHOICES!!! And they let us sample as many as we wanted. Aaron explained that we are probably going to like anything so we shouldn't try anymore, and we opted to blindly choose a soft goat cheese and homemade crackers.

See what I mean? And this was only half the counter. On the other side, they also had a little deli counter where you could get cheesy sandwiches/paninis made!

With a number of breweries in town, we chose The Pike Brewing Company out of pure convenience. I got one of their flights and think the Kilt Lifter was my favorite. Surprise, surprise! HA!

It was a really cute city, and although we only strolled through a couple of the neighborhoods, we really liked the vibe here. We'll definitely be back.

The flower selection in and out of the market was amazing!

After walking around for a couple of house, we headed back to the hotel for some R&R. Knowing how much we traveled the past month and the fact that we were moving to the other side of the world in less than 2 days, we didn't want to go crazy.

Dinner was a hard one to narrow down, but I knew that I wanted to check out one of Tom Douglas's places. I had heard about Tom Douglas a while ago, and it seemed like ever since we knew we were going to Seattle, his name has been popping up everywhere. Randomly stumbling on blogs about his restaurant reading a local Oklahoma magazine featuring him, and missing a Tom Douglas cooking demo by just a few hours in Oklahoma. After surveying up the menu's, we went with Palace Kitchen.

OH! I gotta tell you this part. So prior to dinner we went down to the lobby "wine hour" at our hotel to partake in some complimentary drinks. On a cold and dreary Seattle evening, we chose hot toddys before we walked on. We stood in the lobby shooting the shit with the managers (our lobby bartenders) about this being our first time in Seattle, first time at a Kimpton hotel. Where have we been, where are we going to eat tonight, where we should go for breakfast. We have a cat, we are going to Japan. Oh! You're moving to Japan!?! Woah! (I know!). So this cool dude manager Mike says, "I've got a surprise for you!" Um.....Aaron and I just looked at each other...Okay.... He runs up to the front desk and comes back a few minutes later and says, "Well, the executive spa suite isn't available but I've upgraded you guys to another suite for tomorrow night. You really should stay someplace special for your last night in the states. Is that okay?"

Is that okay? Really Mike? Is it okay that after speaking to us for 3 minutes you upgraded us and the cat to a suite? Um, yeah, I think it will be okay.

Woah. Right? That was freaking awesome!!!! So after many thanks and some more chatting, we left for dinner. Aaron and I high five as soon as we are out the door.

Okay...so back to Palace Kitchen:
I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures. The lighting was waaaaay too dark, and I made the decision to forgo fighting with the lighting and just order and enjoy eating my food. I can tell you what we ordered and that it was all really REALLY good.

We both ordered one of their classic cocktails (Of course, now I can't remember what they were). For an entree I decided to go with 2 appetizers, which in my experience is usually a wise choice. This time did not disappoint. I went with the Puget Sound Black Mussels (with leek, taragon, white wine, and meyer lemon) and the Crispy Fried Pig Tail (celery root, honey mustard, horseradish, chervil). I really enjoyed this dish. Mussels are one of my favorite dishes, and I'm not sure if I've ever had Puget Sound mussels before. These dudes were HUGE! They packed tons of flavor and the leek/taragon/lemon/wine sauce was perfect with them. The bread they served with the dish was AWESOME, it was charred over an open flame and it was perfect. I could have just eaten the bread for dinner and would have been happy. The pork tail was really fun. I had never had it before, and was really happy I ordered it. Let's see how to describe it. Each little joint broke apart, so you could get all the meat and fat from between them. The outside was chewy and crispy...sort of like the tip of a chicken wing, but the meat was tender and fatty. It was a great combination and fun to eat with your hands (really, the only way to do it). The horseradish mustard sauce was an awesome addition to it. Aaron was going back and forth with a few different options here as well, but decided on the meat and sausage plate (actual name unknown by us). I know he really enjoyed it, but I was so wrapped up into my dish, I don't even remember trying his. He's asleep right now otherwise I'd ask him to describe it for you. We were STUFFED, so skipped on dessert and headed back to the hotel.

Day 2
Breakfast. One of my most favorite things in the world! Once again, I had done some Yelping and Chowhounding to find something suitable for us. After grabbing some coffee we walked up to Lower Queen Anne, about a 40 minute trek. Toulouse Petit was supposed to open at 8am, but had a little trouble getting started, so we strolled through this amazingly cute market just up the street, and then to grab some more coffee next door. We weren't in a rush, and I was glad Aaron didn't mind waiting, because I really REALLY wanted to eat here.
It was really hard to decide what to get, but eventually we figured it out. Aaron started with a Creole Bloody Mary, which is always YUM! and I couldn't pass up the Cured Pork Cheeks Confit Hash which had been featured on Food Network's 'Best Thing I Ever Ate'. Aaron settled for the Oyster and Bacon Benedict.

The verdict? Bloody Mary - Yum! A great way to start off a great meal. Enough booze and enough spice to satisfy us!

Pork Cheek Hash? Mega yum. The veggies included some greens, asparagus, and apple. Whatever the herbs they used on it were great. The pork cheek was amazing. So tender and such a different flavor then other cuts of pork I've had. And really, 2 sunny side up eggs??? That could make any breakfast dreamy!!!

Although I would definitely recommend the Pork Cheek Hash over and over again. The real winner this day was the Oyster and Bacon Benedict. A homemade english muffin with wonderfully thick slices of bacon (and very nicely crisped I might add), with HUGE, and I mean HUGE and juicy and tasty and crunchy fried oysters. They were so huge, I wish I got a picture of one next to my face. On top of those, 2 perfectly poached eggs and a homemade hollandaise. No sides forgotten about, these crispy potatoes were some of the best crispy potatoes I've ever had. I may have snuck ~~one~~ ~~two~~ 30459 off of Aaron's plate when he was too busy savoring the benedict. It was just an all over perfect combination. And I want it again!!!!

One thing that is pretty awesome about this place is that they serve breakfast all day, but from 8am-11am Monday - Friday is breakfast happy hour! $7.50 drinks and $8 entrees. There are a few select dishes that aren't $8, but are still heavily discounted. Mine was $8 (Normally $14) and Aaron's was $11 (Normally $16), and we would have been happy paying the full prices, but it was even better that we didn't! There are so many yummy things here, that even if you can't get to Seattle for breakfast, I still recommend checking out their menu to drool over. It was by far the best breakfast we have ever eaten.

I need to stop looking at those pictures because I'm getting SOOO hungry!

How about we talk about music and zombies next? Okay, here we go.

Brendan recommended the EMP Museum to us, and it was only 8 or so blocks away from breakfast. So after we got there, realized I left my camera at the restaurant, went back to get it, and walked back, we bought our tickets and headed inside. It's a pretty neat pop culture museum with exhibitions such as Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, Science Fiction, Horror Films, Guitars, Black Leather Jackets, and The Art of Video Games which was opening a few days later. It was pretty neat, and they had a hands on room where you could learn to play guitars, drums, keyboards, etc...

After a few house at the EMP, we headed back to the Alexis just in time to switch rooms into our suite. It was pretty fucking awesome. Check it out:

You better believe I took advantage of that huge bathtub. I was so pruney I thought my fingers were going to fall off. I couldn't help it though, I could practically swim laps in that thing!

It was so nice to have such a big space, since our main goal after walking around all day was to relax. After all, we had to wake up a 2am the next morning to head off to Japan. Lounging on the couch(es) in our leopard print robes, we broke into our snacks from the market. Russian Piroshkies (the smoked salmon pate one was amazing!), Beecher's cheese and crackers, and the rest of our free wine (from the hotel!).

So not only did our manager friend Mike hook us up with the ballin' room, he gave us a call that night to see how we were doing. "Hey, this is Mike from last night, not sure if you remember." Really, that's what he said. And seeing it out of context now sounds like we were up to some pretty shady dealings I wouldn't want to be blogging about. But I was thinking...Mike!!! Of course we remember, we got this bitching room thanks to you!....I said something sort of similar. Well, Mike just wanted to make sure our room and service were up to par (I should have requested bubble bath), and he wanted to see when we were leaving the next day because he wanted to have coffee with us and chat. Just like that. Maybe we sounded interesting or something. Maybe it was the whole, getting drunk for free in the lobby and moving to Japan with our cat made us sound really cool or something. I'll think that for now, it works. Anyway, Mike wasn't digging the whole wake up at 2am thing, so he hooked us up with some free drink passes for the hotel bar/restaurant. Sweet! So to sum it up, our stay in Seattle and at the Alexis was great regardless of our upgrade, but that totally raised our experience up quite a bit.

I'll be blogging about Japan soon, so please stay in tune. We've been here for about 12 days now, and it's been really interesting! We've recently moved into a house, trying to get settled and meet new people, so it's been crazy busy...but I'd really like to carve out some me time for blogging and cleaning up the office.

See you soon!

MilSpouse First Friday Fill-In (February)

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 01:36:00 +0000

Wifey of Wife of a Sailor came up with this 5 question monthly series to get to know our fellow bloggers better! Once you post your answers on your own blog, you will submit your link on her site, where all the contributors are listed! Check it, Check it!

Here's my questions and answers for February!

1. What’s one thing in the past month you would have changed? There isn't much that I could have changed, but it would have been nicer to have a smaller gap between finishing up our TDY and starting in Japan. Let me say this though, I have absolutely no place complaining about Aaron having tons of free time. We had over a month of just hanging around couch and hotel hopping, which was nice to have a bit of time for relaxing, but it was so much time just WAITING to move to another country. We are very ready to get started on that part of our lives. It was nice to find new things to stay busy with and to get to know our family better.

2. What was your favorite thing that happened in January? Spending a relaxing, fattening and drunkening New Years with Aaron, my sister, her boyfriend, and her kitties.

3. What are you looking forward to in February? Moving to Japan, duh!!!!

4. What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? Flying to Japan motherfuckers!!!!

5. What is your best advice for a MilSpouse whose spouse is deployed for Valentine’s Day? I really can't be giving advice to any part of this because Aaron and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Annnnd, he has yet to be deployed. If I HAD to give advice, I would say start now and admit to yourself that V-Day is just another day on the calendar, cause it is. And if you can't do that, then buy yourself a container (or two) of Ben & Jerry's (and non of that fat-free shit either), a bottle (or two) of wine, and brag about your night. Make people jealous you're going to eat and drink and be merry sitting in your underwear on the couch watching lots of reruns of Law and Order or Glee or whatever it is that floats your alone time boat.

Real Talk: January 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Kacey) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:00:00 +0000

I usually like to keep my blogs light and airy with some stupid bitching about unimportant things along the way. But it's my blog and I feel like real talking for a moment. I mean, it's always been real talk, but it's gonna get more real in a second.

Realities of Moving
I'm moving across the world here shortly. We've known for nearly a year, and I feel like I've done everything humanly possible to prepare. Okay...so maybe I haven't master Rosetta Stone Japan yet, but whatever...let's come back to that one. But maybe by being prepared, I've become my own worst enemy. I've been ready for a while, and now I'm waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And please, I know that's how life is, how the military is, but knowing how it is doesn't make it any less annoying.

Excitement & Nerves
Since day 1 of knowing, people have tentatively asked if we were excited. Do you want the truthful answer? We were, we have been, and we are 400% excited! It might sound cliche, but it's a dream come true for me. Another question people ask is if I'm nervous. Aaron doesn't get this question a lot. Maybe it's cause he's a guy and should be all emotionally strong and stuff and I'm a woman and should be all soft and mushy and emotional. HA! Another truthful answer: Neither of us have been nervous. Not about living so far away from family and friends. Not about moving to another country. Not about not knowing anyone in that country. Not nervous about that country not speaking English (primarily). Nope, not nervous at all.

Anxieties and My Ridiculous Brain
As I said over at the kitchen, we are in transition from our last assignment to our next one. Only since moving out of our apartment have I started to get anxious. Maybe it's not really having a place to live (of our own). Maybe it wasn't having an address anymore (we have since received our APO PO Box). Maybe it's the stress of making sure the cat's paperwork (she has more than we do) is all taken care of and she survives the multi-day travel and flights (why in the world did I read this article about Pet Deaths in Airplane Cabins!?!?!). Maybe it's just the sitting around and waiting while living out of a suitcase for a month and a half. It's probably a little of all of that, but I'll tell you something that I've been thinking about. And trust me, I know how ridiculous it sounds.

I'm concerned I'm not going to be able to do all the things I want to do while living in Japan for 3 years.

Seriously, that has been consuming my brain at 3am. I KNOW that I can't do everything in 3 years. Fuck, I know I couldn't do EVERYTHING in my whole life. So why the fuck did that thought ever cross my mind?!

I mentioned this irrational concern to Aaron the other day. When he asked what I wanted to do while in Japan, and why I don't think we'll be able to do it, I responded, "I want to do EVERYTHING."

Yeah. Not a lot of things, not most things, I want to do ALL things.

He gave me 'the look' and very kindly said that I might need to readjust my expectations.

People...I know this. Really, I don't expect to do EVERYTHING. I really don't. I think I'm just looking forward to taking advantage of as much as I can. I don't want to be that person who sits around on base because it's familiar - if you know me, you know that isn't something I do. I want to be the person who goes out and explores everything she possibly can!!! And you know what folks? I'm going to be that person. I am that person!!! WOO!

Friends and Family Back Home
Most of our family and friends are really excited that we are moving, but some are sad or upset, and that makes me sad they feel that way. I don't see it as us moving AWAY from anything, instead we are moving TOWARDS a once in a lifetime experiences and our future together. Wow, that sounded so mega corny, but it's true. For me, moving to Japan wasn't an option. Once we had the opportunity, we were going to take it.

Realistically, we will be able to see and speak with our families just as often as we do now, and have for the past couple of years. We are only a plane ride (or two) away, and according to google maps, you could always kayak to Okinawa (use walking directions to find your way). Phone calls are still possible. There are options for text messaging back and forth from the states. Of course there is video chatting. These are things we already do to stay in touch. The 15 hour time difference just makes it slightly less convenient.

And of course I'm going to miss them, they are my family and friends!!! I just hope they take advantage of knowing someone overseas to go visit and explore.

Learning Japanese
I'm slowly working on it...and asides from saying a few words here and there (neko=cat), counting to 6 (ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku), a few primary colors (acai=red), and some sentence that I have yet to figure out what Rosetta Stone means...it's not going as well as I hoped. It's hard to begin with and learning things like this is not something that I've ever excelled at. Apparently it hasn't changed with age. I often have to remind myself not to compare my speed of learning with other people, especially Aaron. He's learned nearly 1,000 Kanji characters, is currently using Rosetta Stone, and just started to learn Hiragana^1. All this on top of learning how to fly a plane and everything that goes along with it. I could be biased, but I'm proud of him.

I'm still plunking away at it, slowly but surely. Rosetta Stone estimates it should take around 200 hours to complete the program. I estimate more than double that. It takes me a lot longer to get a passing grade (over 90%) in each section than it suggests.

Goals
Most of you came to this blog because you follow me over at Kacey's Kitchen. You know I ~~like~~ love to cook and eat and all things foodings. Both Aaron and I like to eat. We like to eat new things, eat often, and eat well. If I can cook it, we like it even better. I can't even begin to express how stoked we are to be able to eat our way through foreign lands. Not only do we plan on immersing ourselves in the food culture of Japan, but we intend to visit many other countries while over there...eating our way through Asia would make this couple very happy.

I would really love to cook like the locals and learn lots of new techniques and dishes. I would love to do most of my shopping off base at Japanese markets. It could get overwhelming and time consuming at first...navigating my way to the stores while not being able to read street signs, navigating my way through the store while not being able to read signs for products I've never seen before and don't know how to cook with. Without wanting to put too much pressure on myself, once we get into our house and unpacked, I would like start out cooking 1 new dish (Okinawan, Japanese, etc...) a week. While I would love to tell you all I'm going to come back in 3 years cooking only Japanese dishes (oh, and trust me, we would LOVE that), I'm going to START off with 1 new dish a week using local ingredients and increase that as I get more comfortable. I also hope to participate in the Okinawa Island Produce CSA project, which is similar to the Bountiful Baskets program I used while here in Oklahoma. OIP has been 'down' since the typhoons last summer...but hopefully it'll pick back up.

Making Friends
Unless you are a freak, making friends isn't easy. I wouldn't say that it's hard...it's just not as easy as it was when I was young and in school. Moving around every few years doesn't help.

We are so lucky to know another couple over in Japan. We met them a few months ago at our TDY location and became close friends. They headed to our new base in December and doing well getting settled in and giving us the scoop on what to expect when we arrive. We look forward to seeing them again soon and go explore the island with them! I feel a little spoiled moving to another country and knowing someone there, but hey, I'm totally taking it!

I hope to volunteer a bunch while in Okinawa, and who knows what kinds of groups and clubs we may become a part of...but I don't think we'll be at a loss of meeting people. There are going to be tons and tons and tons of people in the same situation we are, with lots or resources, away from familiarity, and with lots of things on our 'to-do' list.

There are so many things I want to do while over there, and I'm so excited to get started! I'm going to try a blog a few more times before we arrive in Japan, but we'll be traveling a bunch, so we'll see how it goes.

Is there anything that you would like to know about our adventure? Leave a comment below!!

¹Hiragana

A Japanese writing style (along with Kanji, Katakana, and Romanji). Hiragana and Katakana are part of the 'kana' systems, with each character representing one sound in the Japanese language. Hiragana is used for words which there are no kanji. It's all very confusing to me.