Mabori Kaigan Festival

William and I went to the local festival. I'm talking REALLY local. Mabori Kaigan (Mabori Beach) is a small bedroom community of Yokosuka. There are 4 parts to it. This first part 'sea level,' had their party this weekend. It was neat because you can see the traditions of odori (dance) continued. The 'taiko' (drums) were really neat. William was pretty savvy and recognized that they said, "ore" when they took their quick turns. Very fun.

The festival was the past 2 nights. We had contributed to it, and had gotten a coupon to reimburse for a bag. The bag had 2 cans of beer in it!!! There was also a fan (which does help when it's humid) and some portable tissues (train stations rarely have toilet paper). I still can't get over there being beer in it!

William would go run in the playground area. He would make friends with kids by running, or chasing, and the other kids automatically understand the game. Teen aged girls would start chatting with them. They take English in school, and a little kid is easy to talk to. It did crack me up every time he was surrounded by girls. And what's cute, is that he'll recognize them in different circumstances, and wave to them!

I saw a particularly cute girl dressed in her yukatta (summer kimono) and I wanted to take a picture. So, I went up to the mother and said in my best Japanese, "Anata no musume wa kawaii desu. Shashin daijobu?" Which is anata no (your) musume wa (daughter -subject-) kawaii (cute) desu (is). Shashin (picture) daijobu (okay)? The lady looked at me and said, "Don't you remember us from Nobuko's 'Me and Mommy English and Japanese class?" Sure enough, Rii is the girl's name, and Kentaro was the little boy with them, and I do remember them. It is a class for children to learn at a young age a little English and Japanese. William and I had a good time when we went because we got to make a tanabatta (star festival) wish branch for putting on bamboo. Basically, you decorate a bamboo branch with decorative paper and put wishes on some of them. Once a year (around July 7), there is a star festival when these fabled star crossed lovers can meet. Anyway, I was ready to risk my limited Japanese, and I got excellent English in reply. Cracked me up!

It was a fun festival. William liked the shaved ice the best. He got brave enough to go ask for the color he wanted in Japanese with the polite form of please (asking) 'onegaishimasu' and give them money. I was very proud of him for doing it. He does know many of the Japanese colors. It's like preschool all over again, but this time it tastes sweeter!

Native Tour

My Japanese teacher, Nobuko, took us to lunch.  I wish I would have taken pictures of the food.  I had squid ink in my pasta sauce.  William had these tiny (size of coconut shreds) fish in his.  Mine was good.  It had a light fish taste.  Once it started to congeal, it was a bit harder to get past the fact that it looked like crude oil, but at the price of oil, I'm glad I was just having squid ink for lunch!

William loved this little shrimp.  This Ebi (Japanese for shrimp) was ready to fight.  This would shock Will, who would jump up and run off.  It took awhile to get a picture of him looking at this little guy..

There was a 'touch it tank' there.  William loved messing with the starfish.  He would put them under the recirculating water spout and 'wash them off' if they had anything on their suction bottoms.  Pretty soon, all the other Japanese kids were doing the same thing.

They weren't supposed to mess with the pots that the octopus were in, but some kids' dad helped out, and we got to see the live action of an octopus!  I was kind of glad it wasn't a sushi restaurant.  I think I would have felt a little squeamish if I'd been playing with my food.

Walking Path

It is so nice to be on the walking path.  From the train station, there are two short blocks that one has to share with traffic (there is no sidewalk), and then it's on this bike and pedestrian only path.  Now, I call those 2 blocks 'the gauntlet' because you feel a bit squeezed in there, but many safely pass each day.

William is modeling the Japanese portable shade unit.  It is starting to feel like Japanese summer.  It is hot and humid, and you're constantly grateful for the over-priced cold drink machines that seem to be on every corner.

This is right across from a 7-11 store.  I call it my 'outside refrigerator.'  

We've had a couple of friends over so far, and it's nice to have a house that one can be comfortable in.  I have made one tactical error.  The kids see the games to play in William's closet, and so we get to play different games.  I call 'Chutes and Ladders' the 'Crying Game.'  Kids just can't take it when the slides happen to them.

Today I got an account at the Bank of Yokohama.  We have to have an account here so that the school William is going to go to can deduct the tuition.  It was an easy enough process.  You have to buy the $30 hanko (name seal) before you can go open an account.  I walked away with a little bank book with my name on it and an impressive looking account balance.  Now, 100 Yen is one dollar, so you get the joke.

However, tomorrow I have to pay CASH for all the books, outfits, etc.  

Luckily, I called today.  This week is the last week of Japanese school before they go on their summer break.  The English speaking person at this school is there tomorrow, and then not until I'm gone to the states.  So, I had to get everything done today in preparation to go tomorrow and get William officially signed up.

I am much more apprehensive than William is.  I know he'll hate it for awhile, as the language difference will be an issue for him.  He is excited to ride the choo-choo train bus (yes, it looks like an engine!) and learn an instrument.  I am excited that he'll be getting on the bus in the morning, and being gone for a few hours!!!  :)

I continue to work on the house to get it in shape.  I'm still trying to figure out the best nooks and crannies to put everything in.  My office looks like an earthquake happened.  Well, one did last night, but I slept through it.  The wrong size fairy struck again as I guessed on something at a store.  Tim says not all is lost, there's a way to make the desk go up a bit, so I can put the drawers underneath it.  

Swim Lesson Update

Caroline has been working hard to keep William signed up for and delivered to swim lessons.  The lessons are every weekday for two week sessions during the summer.  She has been getting up at 5:00 AM on the sign-up days to ensure he gets on the list and then taking him to lessons every weekday afternoon.  William loves it and is making good solid progress.  When we came to Japan in March, he was reluctant to stick his face in the water and would claw on to you if he didn't have his life jacket on.  With the lessons, he has gotten much more comfortable in the water and is making real progress on floating, blowing bubbles, and some first steps in actual swimming.  We're also glad that he elects to wear the life jacket if he has a choice in the matter.  We'd like to think that is because he is safety conscious, but I've heard that it makes a bigger splash when he does a cannon ball...

Kegerator in Japan

To those of you that are not familiar with kegerators, it is a refrigerator that has a tapped keg of beer in it with the beer routed to a valve and spigot so you can pour the beer.  Kegs at your average party are normally dispensed by pumping air into the keg to get the beer out.  This works for a couple of days, but the air spoils the beer after that.  So, to get the long term use out of a keg of beer in a kegerator, you need to pressurize it with CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) instead of air. You do this by using a bottle of compressed CO2 which is at a couple thousand pounds of pressure and then regulate it down to 10 psi or so.  In the states, you go down to a bottle shop that does welding gasses and the like and they'll fill up your bottle for a small charge.  In Japan, it's different.  Here's my story:

They sell Kegerators at the Exchange.  I was enthralled with the thought of having one and I developed all kinds of debating points on why we should have one to win over Caroline (depending on your marriage, these are not things you should buy on a whim, bring home and say to your spouse, "Look what I found..."  It's a family decision.)  The argument that seemed to win Caroline over was the fact that dispensing beer from a keg eliminated recycling beer bottles and cans.  Since garbage sorting and delivery is labor intensive for every household in Japan, to eliminate one source is worth while.  (I personally believe the better argument is the fact that draft beer tastes better than bottled, but, like I said, "It's a family decision").

Having already been faced with many challenges doing "normal" things in Japan, I wanted to research out if the kegerator could be supported in Japan.  The kegerator at the Exchange comes with a CO2 bottle and regulator along with the tap, valves, and hoses to make it all work. Since it would be hazardous to ship the CO2 bottles full, you buy them empty and you need to get the bottle filled and then put a keg in the fridge to get the thing to work.  So, there are 2 supply questions to answer:  

1) Can you get a keg of beer in Japan and do they fit the tap that is in the kegerator?

2) Can you get the bottle filled with CO2?

The keg were pretty easy.  The Exchange sells Miller and Budweiser full size kegs and pony kegs.  Since they are American beer, it's a cinch that the tap will fit the keg.  It took me a week or so to work out their paperwork, though, since the paperwork you sign to get the keg says that you'll return the keg within 48 hours or be charged $10 a day.  This would have put unhealthy pressure on me to drink all the beer quickly and, really, just flew counter to the intent of a kegerator which is to have a keg of beer on tap for a month or longer. It took talking to several of the supervisors and managers at the Exchange, but they were eager to adapt and eventually fixed the paperwork so I could keep the keg a bit longer term.  OK, first question answered!

The CO2 was hard.  Really hard!  As it turns out, the Japanese will not fill gas bottles that aren't theirs.  It's not just a matter that the fittings are different. Even if you came up with adapters, they are very reluctant to fill a non-Japanese bottle.  Even if you give up the provided American bottle and get a Japanese CO2 bottle, then there is the fact that the fittings are very different and adapters aren't really available.  So, now the regulator that comes with the kegerator isn't useable and you have to find a Japanese one.  Japanese regulators also have different hose sizes, so you need to replace hoses too.  I had the Exchange guys working on this one too, but they were coming to the same conclusion. "OK, I'll just get a Japanese CO2 bottle and regulator.  OK, where do I get it?"  I asked at the restaurants on base to see where they get their CO2 (they use if for their draft beer and soda machines).  Turns out that the Coca-Cola company that supplies their soda also gives them bottles of CO2. They won't just sell the CO2 to a private individual though.  I did finally figure out that the liquor stores do sell the CO2 and loan you a bottle with a deposit, but I didn't have a clue where to start looking for a regulator and hoses...  Also, this was starting to look expensive.  The kegerator was $500 to start with and then I needed to buy an unknown regulator and some hoses...  I suspected that was going to cost an additional $150 or more...

One lead I had on all this was a bar owner that had bought one of the Exchange's kegerators. The guy at the Exchange mentioned who it was and through an acquaintance, I was introduced to Bubba who owns Bubba's Bar and Grill in Yokosuka, where you can get frog's legs when they are in

 season (I wonder if he does them sushi style...).  Anyway, he had bought the kegerator and went through all the pains

 described above on the CO2 supply issue, but since he runs a bar, he has a Japanese beer supplier that has all the parts, pieces, and supplies so Bubba was able to get a Japanese regulator and hoses that would connect to the Japanese CO2 bottles that the supplier provided.  Turns out the kegerator wasn't really as useful to Bubba as he'd thought, so he wanted to sell his kegerator.  He was selling it for $400 which is $100 less than the Exchange was selling it, and, more importantly, it was already modified for Japanese CO2 and he even arranged for a full CO2 bottle to go with it. Sold! "Honey, look what I found..."

It was the first item we moved into the house!  We actually used it as a refrigerator for our food until the base delivered the real refrigerator.

The learning curve continues, though...  It turns out that the pony kegs that the Exchange sells are plastic kegs.  Pretty cool innovation, but it takes a thicker wall of plastic to hold the pressure, so the keg is physically larger to hold the same amount of beer as compared to the old standard aluminum kegs.  Avanti, who makes the kegerator, apparently didn't see this one coming, because it didn't fit!  I got it half way in and it stopped going in since it was wedged between the sides.  I shoved a bit harder and it moved farther in.  It took a lot of work of shoving, jostling, and coaxing.  William shoved on it with his best 4 year old grunt while 

I took a break.  When I was ready to start working on it again, I asked William to step aside so I could get both hands and a foot on it.  As I started shoving and doing my own grunting, I felt William's hands on my back, pushing me with a grunt as I pushed the keg in...  Between the two of us, we got it in till it hit the back, but it sill wasn't in far enough to close the door!  I was seriously considering sealing the 1 inch gap of the door with duct tape!  I felt around the back of the keg to see if there was more room to gain.  It turns out that one of the ribs of the keg was hitting the compressor box which is at the bottom back of the fridge.  I figured that if I could lift the keg up about 6 inches (or decifeet...), I could get it to go in a bit further.  So, after all that work of shoving it into place, we pulled it back out, found a bin to turn upside down, set the keg on it and shoved the entire thing back into the fridge.  With a little extra coaxing, the door finally sealed shut!

There is still more to work on.  The Avanti thermostat has a quirk in that you can set any temperature down to about 40F, but any farther and the motor sticks on and cools the kegerator down to 26F or less where beer will freeze.  I think 36F is the ideal beer temperature, so this is a real issue! Bubba heard wind of my plight and is working on getting a temperature controller from his beer guy.  He's also working on getting a regulator with gauges, a longer hose, and a variety of taps to allow tapping Japanese beer...  Hmmm, my first keg of MGD is empty, I wonder what a keg of Asahi Super Dry would cost...  Will it fit...

Nameplate

So tonight we 'tagged' our house.

We needed to put our name and number out front.  Today we had a delivery of our kitchen cabinets (Japanese kitchens have only the sink, stove and a few cabinets built in... everything else gets added by the tenants or owner) and the guy called me to say they couldn't find our house because there was no posted address or name. 

Well, I THINK that's what he said.  I spoke more Japanese than he did English, so there you are.  The lady who helped me with the name plate spoke no English as well.  At one point, she went and FOUND the demo model to show me that it was bevelled.  She'd tried to explain, but I wasn't getting it.  We kept talking dimensions (numbers are easy), but I wasn't sure what she was meaning (the outer dimensions are larger than the front ones).  The good news, it is all correct, and in the correct fonts.  There was a lot of pointing, and 'KOCHIRA' (this) being done.  

The gardeners finally came and did a reasonable job.  It took 3 skilled men a very long day to spiff this place up.  I'm glad they did it, and not me.  I promptly went out and washed down our walkway to get all the dirt they'd tracked on it.  And then, William and friend Christopher when tromping through the mud and replaced the big muddy prints with small muddy prints.  Back to square one.

The place looks much better from the walking path, which our house faces.  Our house faces to the south, and has good light.  

Today the Tokyo Gas man arrived to check if there were any leaks or anything.  I had guessed from the letter they'd sent that the gas would be turned off the morning of 7-10 between the hours of 9-12.  Nope.  The guy was coming to check the house!  I can't even begin to read kanji, so I'm glad it all worked out.  He spoke enough that he could explain how to use the fish broiler.  I still think I'll stick to the small oven we purchased.  

I went and got grass seed to try and re-grow some grass between the concrete pads the 2nd car parks on.  It has none now, but we have a golden opportunity to try and get some green down there while we're not parking on top of it all the time!

A good friend took William for a couple of hours yesterday.  Today, another good friend took him for even more hours!  I was getting a ton done without having the slow as molasses child  to drag around.  There is control is going s-l-o-w-l-y.

OH!  The kegerator is EMPTY!!!  It happened tonight, right before Tim's gone for a month!  Wow!  Is that perfect timing, or what?!?

New Chairs

People have been clamoring for pictures of our house.  Notice our nice, new chairs?  Aren't they cool?  See that wonderful piece of pre-fab board conglomeration that we thought would make a wonderful DVD storage unit?  See the engineer modifying the unit that Caroline bought on sale so that it will hopefully work?  No measuring was done by a measuring tape.  Caroline asked the HOMES store attendant if it was for DVDs.  That sent the man scurrying to find a DVD, and a hasty fit measure was done.  Unfortunately, we didn't check to see if the front rolling shelves would roll past the DVDs in the back shelf.  Perhaps Japanese DVD cases are smaller, but our large collection of DVDs are 1.5 centimeters too big.  Consequently, Caroline's SECOND foray into the prefab world would be a near miss if it weren't for Tim's determination to make it work.  Or, it could be that Caroline says she bought it, therefore Tim must take it back and explain in Japanese why we want to return it.  :)  Desperate times require desperate measures.

Today the gardeners finally came.  It has been nice all of last week when they were supposed to show.  Today, it was a bit rainy in the morning.  It was muggy and a bit misty this afternoon.  The place looks much better than it did, and they carried away all the bits and pieces.  It took 3 men a very long day to get it weeded, chopped back and cleared out, so I'm feeling pretty good about waiting out the realtor on this one.  I don't have the time, inclination or energy to get the weed fest under control.  But, now it's our job until next spring to keep it looking nice.

We have been solving many of our storage and other issues at HOMES.  It is kind of like Home Depot on the ground floor, but you can buy cases of alcohol on one end.  From the prices, I guess you need a bit of lubrication before you go pay.  On the second floor there's furniture.  It has everything from funky Ikea look to handmade authentic Japanese wood tables.  Most of the furniture is 3/4 scale.  If you look closely at those chairs, they're none too tall.  The third floor is covered parking, and the roof is also parking.  William loves to go park on the roof.  If he does really well while we're wending our way through the aisles, he gets a 100 yen coin to put in the gum ball machine where the gum balls go through this intricate track with drops and lifts.  It's pretty cool.

And for those of you who have been waiting for this to happen (I KNEW it would):  The other day in HOMES William proclaimed that he had to go poo.  Tim always gets this deer in headlights look because William is now old enough that he wants to go into the men's room, which gives me the automatic pass.  I proceeded with our purchase, and soon (too soon) William and Tim returned.  The look on Tim's face told the tale.  He didn't even need to tell me, I KNEW what happened.  The toilet seats in HOMES are not heated like our ones at home that William has gotten used to.  He just couldn't 'do it' on non-heated seats.  Camping in America when we go home is going to be a rude awakening for the child.

Happy 4th From Japan

We've been spending most of our time getting our house organized and set up.  The 4th for me was mostly about hooking up our entertainment system and getting started on the office.  We did take some time to head to base for the 4th of July festivities.  It does feel a bit different here with nobody shooting off fireworks around town and us being in the minority for celebrating.  But the base puts on a good festival with bands playing, bouncy rooms, and a paintball shooting range.  They even put together a military record for the longest Yakitori (barbecued chicken on a stick).  

Afterwards they had a pretty impressive fireworks display considering the small crowd.  One nice thing here is that since they don't have daylight savings time and we are farther south than Bremerton, it gets dark by 8:00 PM, so the fireworks ran from 8:00 to 8:30 and they started right on time in good Navy fashion.  So, we got William back home and in bed not too long after his bed time.  In the video William looks behind us as the fireworks go off.  There are a lot of tall apartment buildings behind us and the sound is reflecting off of them making it sound like there were fireworks behind us as well.

All in all, it was a very pleasant 4th of July for us.  Not too crowded and hectic, but a nice reminder of home.

Mail

William haunts the mailbox.  We can see when there's something in it, and the postman is on a motorcycle going down the walking path in front of our house.

Today, I feel like I'm living in a real home.  We got the electricity bill (we've only been in a house a week) for $20.  I don't know when they read the bill.  And a couple of fliers for 'specials' for fat reducing and the like, and 2 credit card applications.  If it weren't for the kanji Japanese on them, I'd think I was still in America!

William has his friend Christopher over again, today.   They are playing trains.  

Yesterday I bought garbage bins.  I thought it was funny they came in boxes that require recycling.  I used one for my recycling needs, and the other has been William's toy.   It's been a train, a coach, and at one point he'd asked to use some of my tape to 'couple' on his trains.  And there he was, with a huge box, and these tiny little toys dragging behind it.  Cute.

We are getting all the final little things purchased, and I hope that this weekend we can solve most of our problems and get to the next level of readiness.  I still have to sort my clothes.  Tim has already done that.  Since the closet is so small in our bedroom (William has the master bedroom, so there is enough room for it to be a play room, as well), we are attempting to only keep current clothes in with us!  We'll see how that struggle goes.

So, we're enjoying the joys of being in a home.  Every weekday morning is a different garbage or recycling collection.  So, you get to see all the neighbors right before 8, when it must be in these little cages.  The birds can be so bad, that they have these cages to put the garbage in.  And it is done right in front of the home with the most beautiful garden in our block area (13) in Mabori Kaigan.

Kaigan means beach.  But that isn't a really good description.  It's a part of Tokyo bay, and there are a ton of jellyfish right now!  We are a few blocks from the seawall promenade.  I was chagrinned to find out that the #1 portion of Mabori (portion, block area, house number) is called 'SEA LEVEL' portion.  Oh great...  :)

EYE BALL

We went to our local park today.  And I took and emailed this picture from my cell phone, so it's not the best quality.  The kids are on the swings in the shade.  You see the trellis for the shade where I was sitting.

William had a play date with Christopher.  They played and played.  When there was trouble in train town (William's bedroom/play area), I took them to the local park.

Two Japanese boys, maybe 9 or 10 years old, befriended them.  One spoke a few words of English.  He said, "Abunai, honey!"  and pointed to the clover patch.  I figured he meant DANGER!  Honey bees!

William had started out the friendship by saying things back at them, repeating what they said, and saying, "Cheeky eyeball," his current favorite phrase.

They pushed both Christopher and William on the swings for the longest time, and were so nice about it.

At some point, I realized that they were calling William by his name, which was obviously EYEBALL.  Hee hee hee.  CRACKED me up!  Thankfully, I did remember the boys names to thank them for being so nice.  And I used my sparse Japanese to say Musko no namae wa William desu.  Which I hope meant: Son's name is William.  Otherwise, they'll wonder when eyeball is going to come play again!