Halloween in Japan

Happy Halloween!

Both Caroline and I were in a bit of culture shock today. Halloween is much different here in Japan. We're used to the busy streets with all the kids and defending our house by bribing the little ones. Our neighborhood was pretty quiet.

The base puts on quite a haunt, though. They open up the gates for the Japanese to come onto base and trick-or-treat throughout the housing areas. Captains' row gets hit pretty hard. I saw an article where Captain Weed (base commander) said that last year he stopped counting after 850 kids!


William's costume this year was Classic Batman. (Note: William's Bag has POW BAM To be Continued... I found the fabric to match the Batman jammies we were given. I had the black sweat suit to go under, but William chose a different one for the day. He was given the shirt last year, and it has October 31 on it, and he insisted on that one!!! The Batman hood was interesting, as I barely had enough fabric. Fabric is EXPENSIVE in Japan. I modified my pattern, and made it work. Then I added the face with fabric paint. I couldn't do eye holes (not enough fabric) and it's a good thing. It is easier to see out of this way! He was a very cute Batman. Tim said a 'LONE Batman.' He wouldn't go to a door with other kids. It had to be just him.)

Last week, William did a base school Halloween party and then the base Halloween carnival with haunted houses, jump houses and a trick-or-treat walk.

We carved the Commissary pumpkins the other day and we were lucky they survived the two days until Halloween. They were shipped from the States and were a bit dry and old by the time they got here. William did the scary face, Caroline did the happy face, and well, the engineer in the family was only mildly creative...


For Halloween day, we went on to base for the Mayhem. We wandered around quite a bit before we kind of got a clue of where best to go. We ended up working our way backwards through the throng to work over some of the residences before heading back home to light our pumpkins and wait to see if anyone knocked at our house. We'd heard rumor that there might be a few, but we didn't get any. Thank goodness for the base putting on such a big Halloween event or we would have really felt in a foreign land. We just wish we had a better idea of where to go and what to do on base. (Note: For anyone learning from this blog... we were told to be on base by 4:30. We left our house at 4:30 and were trick-or-treating by 4:50. We were told (very nicely, I wasn't offended, just embarrassed) at our first house that it started at 6, but they were ready to give out candy already. When relating this story at the commissary to a friend, one of the Captains on base overheard and stopped to say that that information was incorrect... it is 4:30, and the candy is usually gone by 6. It made more sense, as it is dark by 5:00 here. But, on Halloween night, it made me feel like I was 'out of line' and we really do try to do what is correct and proper here. We weren't going to any houses that didn't have lit pumpkins out front. Isn't that the universal code that 'we have candy?' I think part of the problem is that we don't get the American school information, as William goes off-base. Schools are a great source for common information, and we aren't plugged in. William was unphased by his parents tentativeness (at this point) and soldiered on to more houses. And even though we called it quits after about 10 houses, William had enough candy to spread it out on the carpet at home, and be excited about how many skittles and starbursts he had. That's what Halloween is for... to experience the many pleasures of the American sweet tooth, and to find out the candy you like most!


Next year, we'll be a bit smarter on the whole thing and will better know what to do and hopefully won't be so culture shocked over the whole thing.

TEN TEN in China Town

This should have been published 10/10. We went to a parade in Yokohama's China Town! There were politicians...And there were cute little kids playing 'dragons.' I think, from viewing a performance, that the dragon is controlled by a ball. There is a Chinese school there, and all of the kids participated in the parade. I joked that the dragons were 'draggins' when a few of the kids were tired. They'd just drag their pole on the ground.
I had seen the poster for the parade, and wanted to go on my birthday. When we got there, we went onto the school's grounds, where they were setting up for a performance. Two teenaged boys per 'dragon' (looks more like a pug dog to me) and it was phenomenal.

I have been to many China Towns, and since Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan (it feels more like a suburb of Tokyo because of it's location) and we're so close to China, I thought it would be much bigger. I read somewhere that after the 1923 earthquake, many left, and they didn't start coming back until much later.

Here's a short video of some of what we experienced.

Japanese Problem -> Japanese Solution

I know. It's been a while since we've posted and I have such an uninteresting, purely utilitarian, post. But, we were so excited today on this one. It also gives people a quick peek at a part of our house. I know people are asking for pictures of the house, but we're still working on parts of it...

Before we moved into the house, we'd talked with the previous residents and one of the problems with the house was the unsavory smell that occasionally came up from the washing machine drain. OK, it wasn't just unsavory, it was sewer smell! They said it wasn't very often and they said they had some sealing putty (monkey s**t) to seal around the hose to seal out the smell, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. We didn't smell it at the time and I felt that an engineer, like myself, could overcome any piping problem with ease. So, we took the house.

The drain is just a hole in the floor. The base guys that brought in the washer threw the drain hose from the washer down the hole just like the previous renters had. It only took me a couple of days to go in and seal around the hose with the putty. Problem was that the smell still came up. It was coming up the hose and through the washing machine. It only happened occasionally, but it was disturbing, and embarrassing, when it did. I know that 'P' traps are normally used to keep sewer gasses from coming back into the house. I was beginning to think that the builders of the house missed that little part and we were going to call the realtor to ask that it be fixed. We were hemming and hawing on how to do this since the Japanese don't directly say that someone else messed up. You phrase it like you messed it up and need help to resolve it. I also figured that problems with Japanese houses have Japanese solutions, and that we very well might have missed something here.

Today, Caroline brought out a piece of foreign plumbing that had been loose and in her way under the sink and asked if it might be the solution for the smell and whether we should call the realtor guy about it. I looked at it in astonishment before I told her not to bother calling, this was definitely the solution! It was the adapter for that drain in the floor. It snugged itself into the hole with an O-ring seal and has a P trap portion below and a place to hook up the hose above. The hardest part of installing it was getting all the putty off everything. It'll take a few days to ensure that it solves the problem, but we are both just thrilled to have figured it out.

Seika Sports Day

It was a big day! It is Japan's national sports and fitness day and William's school put on their 60th Annual Athletic Meeting. We arrived promptly at 8:30 AM and we spent the next 6 hours sitting in the sun on a dirt field watching a pretty fascinating Japanese sports event. Even for a pre-school/kindergarten event, Japanese sporting events start with all kinds of pomp and circumstance, music, speeches, flowers, bowing, raising flags, and then more music and speeches before you get to the event where you start with the lighting of the cellophane Olympic flame... then the sports!

We started off with Suzuwari (Breaking of the Bell). The ropes that are strung over the top of the field had, what looked like, two beer keg piniatas which were actually two paper mache bells sealed together and the participants threw balls at the bells to break them open. The balls were fluffy balls of cloth, so all they really did was impede the guy that was cutting open the seal between the bells with a knife. But, with a great cheer, they were broken open and all the streamers, paper chains, and flowers on a string came stringing out and they hauled them into the sky like paper jelly fish!

There were all kinds of kid type sports being played (Rolling of the big balls, running, tug-of-war, more music and pageantry...) It was a bit difficult to spot William since he was dressed like all the rest of his classmates in their sports uniforms (summer uniform, by the way, not the winter uniform we'd dressed him in. We're not sure where we missed the message on that one. Winter uniform started the 1st of October. But when Caroline showed up, most everyone else had the summer outfit. If there is a "Uniform of the Day" notification that we got, it was in Kanji and we missed it. I was scrambling to deliver the summer outfit, but the Seika staff are apparently used to people like us and loaned William a summer outfit.) Anyway, with their little hats on, they all look the same, but when they take their hats off, it became pretty easy to spot William. See if you can find him in this picture...



As the day progressed, the nice white uniforms became a dingier and dingier shade of dirt to the point that they blended in to the field. Caroline is presently trying to clean the loaner uniform...

Parents were invited to participate in many of the events along with the staff and special guests. Some of the special guests did a lantern race where they were dressed in neon kimonos and conical hats and they raced to a kit with a paper lantern and matches where they lit the lantern and then carefully carried the lantern to the finish line. There was also a volunteer parent tug-of-war that I participated in. They just threw us into teams as they saw fit. I ended up on the white team which was opposite of Williams, so I may not have tried my hardest... Even so, I thought we were robbed!

We were also called weeks in advance to ensure that I would be present and able to run in the final Medley relay. It was the final sporting event. They had four teams. Each with a student, a faculty member, and two parents in that order that ran the baton around the track. Having seen one of the parents already slip out on the pre-school sized curve, I didn't give it all that I had, but I did make up time to get us to a second place finish. I'll keep my day job.

The day ended with more gymnastics (performed to a medley of Disney tunes with Japanese Lyrics), announcement of the game points (white won), speeches, more flowers, lowering of the flag, songs, closing address, and prizes. Everyone had fun, though it was a long day. Even I was getting tired and whiney. I'm not sure how the kids held up to it all!



In the video, William is in the parade holding hands with another student and looks at the camera. He is later doing warm-up exercises in a less than enthusiastic manner (which doesn't really distinguish him much in this case...) then doing the parachute routine. He is then in the red hat team playing tug-of-war with the teachers. And... I have no idea who that big kid is, out of uniform, coming around the corner...

Being Prepared

One of the things that Karen and I enjoyed doing in Kyoto is staying at a Japanese style Ryokan (Inn). Basically, it is a bed and breakfast. The sinks for getting ready were in a common area, and you had to share toilets (very clean, and they had one for men, one for women). The shower was in a room by itself. It had a little garden area off of it. Taking a camera down to bathe wasn't something I ever did, so there are no shots of that. Our ryokan was run by several generations of women. I believe this picture is 'grandma' and her grand daughter, who do the majority of the work. The youngest was named Karen, and she was only 6.



One thing to be prepared for if you're visiting Japan is the food differences. This breakfast, they tried to do more Western style (eggs, ham slices) for us, as the previous day neither of us touched the natto. It is a rotted bean, and it slime-strings as you pull it out of the bowl. If you can get over the consistency, it does taste good to me. Right up until the after-taste kicks in. And then there's fish for breakfast. Thankfully, Karen loves fish. The first day I did power through the smoked salmon, as it was the only protein along with the cold tofu. Now, I do eat tofu. However, when served a slab of it cold in the morning, I could only get down about a half. It was a big portion.

What I tried a small chunk of, was the Kyoto hata hata fish as seen here. It just wasn't my taste, as the Japanese would say. Every morning does give you miso soup, which I love, and hot tea, so life is good.

Sleeping on a futon on a tatami mat was fun to try. I loved how the covers (which were heavy and quite warm) went into the round hole in the middle, versus being tied or tucked at the end.


The pillows were some sort of heavy commodity in a small pillow. They were heavy, and kind of like sleeping on a sand bag. You had to hollow out (pound down) a spot for your round head, and hope for the best. Karen and I decided that this is the Japanese preparedness program. Since Kyoto is built by a river, and flooding is possible, if it happens in the middle of the night, all Kyoto occupants shall run out and throw down their pillows at the embankment to form a barrier. After sleeping the second night on these, we were sure of it. At least we were doing all we could to save the lives of many in case of a disaster. Even if both of us had stiff necks the following day.

AFN Setup

One of the perks of being a Civil Servant OCONUS (Outside the Continental United States) is that you get free access to the Armed Forces Network (AFN). It is a collection of about 10 channels of programming spanning family programming, sports, movies, and news and a couple radio channels including NPR. The commercials are more military public announcements than anything else. In Japan, they deliver the signal via satellite to individual satellite dishes at your residence.

"Free" never seams to be so. Even though they provide the set-top box, satellite dish and a subscription, you need to provide the mounting for the dish, cable, and installation. They provide a list of installers that charge about $300 to install the system, but we've had varying reports of quality from these companies. Though, we'd also heard many stories of failed DIY attempts at installation. This just challenged us to try, so we set off to install ours and we were eventually successful. Here are some of the details on how to install an AFN dish in Japan.

1) Obtain the Dish and Decoder: You request the AFN system along with all your government provided appliances when you sign your lease for off-base housing. They drop it off at the same time they drop off your fridge, washer, dryer, microwave/convection oven, smoke and CO detectors, and anything else you signed up for. Although they install all the other stuff, they do not install the AFN system.

2) Mount the Dish: Since we are leasing our house in Japan, we were not allowed to drill any holes in the siding or otherwise permanently mount anything to the house. So how do you install a satellite dish? Well, Japanese houses will generally have Japanese solutions to these types of problems. In this case, you can go to a hardware or electronics store and buy several different styles of temporary mounts for satellite dishes. In our case, we got a clamp mount that you clamp over a balcony rail. The clamp cost around $60 and a couple bucks for wood blocks to use as shims and we had a mount for the dish. You need to mount it so it has a clear view of the sky in a southwesterly direction (Azimuth 246.4 to be exact).

3) Setup the Decoder: To aim the dish you need to have the decoder set-up to listen for the satellite and then be able to see what the signal level is like as you tweak on the dish. I had an outlet pretty close to where I was setting up the dish, so I just plugged in the decoder box right close to the dish and then routed the audio and video feed from the box to a portable DVD player so I could see the signal as I had my hands on the dish. After it is up and running, pick menu and then go to item #2 "Preset/LNB" and put the information in as follows:

• Active = 3
• Preset = 3
• Down Link = 12.647
• Symbol Rate = 28.0
• FEC = 3/4
• Polar = V or V-fixed
• NetID = 4
• LNB Power = 13
• Lo1 = 9.75
• Lo2 = 10.6
• Cross Over 11.7
• Lo Select = Xover

4) Aim the Dish: Tip: (I strongly suggest having a video display of the signal level and sound of the tones in sight as you aim the dish. I used a portable DVD player hooked into the decoder right next to me as a aimed the dish. It's tempting to just have your spouse yell up the signal levels, but it is very precise tweaking required to line up the dish that can only be accomplished with quick feedback on the results). Go back to menu and select #3 "Dish Setup" It'll show a bar code for signal strength, a "Lock" indicator, and signal quality. With the dish pointed any old direction, the signal strength will be about 45 to 50. If it is 0, then your satellite cable is not hooked up to the dish LNB (sensor that cable hooks up to on the dish). Aim the dish to start with using a compass to point it at an Azimuth of 246.4 and an elevation of 28.1. From there, I moved the dish slowly back and forth and up and down until I found a strong signal. My Azimuth was off by about 10 degrees and the elevation off by a degree or two. The bar graph and tones tend to be a bit delayed, but with patience and a thorough search pattern, you can find the signal. If the dish is pointed nearly perfectly, the signal may lock and quality bar may start increasing. First tweak the azimuth until the signal is the strongest, then tweak the elevation to do the same. Once you have it pointed in the right direction, tighten down the dish.
Then, loosen the LNB mount and rotate it in 10 degree increments up to a total of 90 degrees in either direction. Find the spot with the highest signal strength and quality and then tighten it down. If you don't get a lock or strong signal, you may need to widen your search, or look to see if there is something in the way. Satellite dishes need a clear line of sight to the satellite to work, so if there is a building, tree, or power pole in the way, it won't work. You'll need to find a different place to mount the dish.

5) Route the Cable Into the House: Once again, we can't drill any holes in the house, but solutions are available. In our case, we bought a ribbon cable ($40) which has a coax connection on each end with a very thin ribbon cable in between. You can route the ribbon cable through a window or sliding glass door and then you can still close and lock the window or door. another option is to route the cable through the holes that the Japanese split air conditioning units route their hoses.

6) Once we had our dish pointed correctly, we got a message that said something along the lines of "Channel Not Authorized". I called the HELP DESK at (951) 413-2339 (manned 24 hours and they really are helpful) and they asked for the UA number off the bottom of the decoder box and within a minute he sent a signal via the satellite that unlocked the box and we were watching TV. Awesome!

During the first attempt at aiming, my set-top box seized up and stopped providing a video and audio signal. I unplugged it for a while before plugging it back in, but it still didn't work. I called the help desk and they said that with that particular model, they didn't have a reboot option, so I had to take it into base to Self Help and trade it in for another.

Update 8/10/09: It seems that the free systems were a temporary promotion and they now charge for AFN, though, I don't think it is too expensive.

Update 1/2/10: Added some emphasis to set up a display you can personally see as you are aiming the dish. Although it was mentioned before, I've had friends try to set up by having the spouse call up the signal levels and suffered much frustration. He just asked that I "Bold" those words...

Kyoto and Osaka

Karen and I had a whirlwind tour of Kyoto and Osaka. We saw so many castles, imperial residences, shrines (Shinto) and temples (Buddhist) that they began to all look alike. Okay, so I guess the tori gates (often painted red) were give-aways, as were the buddha statues. We really liked the golden palace. So did the herd of people who were seeing it with us.
The Heian Shrine.

Osaka castle was a stand out in a modern city.


The history was fascinating. The museum was really well done, and had English to read along with the Japanese. I love to visit castles, so I was in heaven. For Karen, I think she liked the old men fishing in the castle moat to feed kitty the best.

Bernie Explained

As you may have noticed in a previous post, Mummi Kay and Eno Brad gave William a puppy named Bernie. We obviously have some puppy loving readers since we've had requests for more pictures and offers of puppy chow, leashes, and... er... clean-up bags. We're more than happy to provide some more video, but as far as the supplies...



All we really need are batteries. :)

T-Wheel Wean

William has been getting a lot of run time on his bicycle since we've been in Japan. At home, the only convenient place for him to ride was the street, so we weren't very comfortable letting him ride much. Here, we have the walking path that he can ride back and forth on with light supervision. He's learned to slow down when encountering people and he does not attempt crossing a street without a parent there to say "Go!" There are also the parks on the walking path that we take him to and the play grounds on base. He's gotten quite adept at riding the bike and can go quite quickly considering the small wheels that he has (though, I'm sure that is offset by all the flame decals...)

But, it is time to start weaning him from the training wheels. I wasn't looking forward to running after him to just have him fall on to the pavement. But, friends have told us of a method that is a bit more skin friendly. Take the pedals off as well as the training wheels. Let them push themselves around with their feet and they can practice balancing as they support themselves with their feet. Eventually, they can balance just fine, rolling along with their feet up, and the next step is to add the pedals back to the equation.

I finally convinced William that this is a desired step in life, so we set off to take the wheels and pedals off. He didn't care much for it to begin with. We decided that ten minutes of "practice" (without training wheels or pedals) would be followed with twenty minutes of normal bicycling (with pedals and training wheels) which would be followed with ten more minutes of "practice". So, the wrenches got quite a work-out as we took the wheels and pedals off, then back on, back off, then once more back on...

For the second round of riding without the training wheels, he was starting to enjoy it and was actually drifting 10 or so feet with his feet off the ground. We have a ways to go still, but he's starting to learn to ride without the training wheels and the only blood drawn, so far, has been from my knuckle from all the wrench turning! :)

First Visitor

...And the winner is...

Karen! Here she is, being picked up at the airport by me. We made the 3:30 bus, but we had to run. She packed light, so the train would have been a do-able option, as well.
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Karen is quite the shopper. She wore me out. Luckily, the semi-annual Bazaar was being held on base. I hope I'm not giving away any gifts she is going to give by showing this picture!

Then, we drove to Kamakura to visit the Big Buddha. Of course, we shopped along the way on the walk up to it from the parking area.

It was a good first day, we got 2 major things done! WOO HOO!!!

BTW, she says the tatami room with inflatable bed is comfortable. And the shoji screens close if needed, as well.

Choo Choo Bus

Today is the day, and William is so excited!

I am going up to Narita to meet my friend coming in on a flight. So, William gets to ride the choo-choo bus onto base, and go to the child care center until Tim comes and gets him.

I am up early because I'm excited, as well.