Go Green Party

Tim loves corned beef and a whiskey sauce that I make. So, even though we aren't Irish, for St. Patrick's Day, we're the O'Putaansuu's.This is Caitlin and Dwayne (not a couple). Our house was so crowded, that you got cozy with all your new 'friends.' BTW, William was talking this morning about 'somebody even had a button that said 'beer is food!'" I think Wm might be headed to WSU in 12 years.

I was needing a sous-chef to make the sauce, and Kasey O'Wagoner stepped up and made delicious sauce for everyone! Darn! Wish the camera had been out sooner. They are the fun couple who invited us to the sake seminar (blog to come).
I am so sad I was busy and didn't get all of Hallie's children. This is Stefan, and he's 'in the green.' Dougie had a huge green glitter tie, and even the baby wore green!
Olivia, Claire and William are upstairs playing alligator bite. You take turns pushing down a tooth, and at random, one of the teeth makes it chomp. William even made a new sign on his door. It said 'Kids Room,' but it was all in greens! He likes helping set up for these parties. Hallie did me a solid, and had him over for a play-date, so I could cook and clean the afternoon away.
If you look into the kitchen, you will see me and William. I just loved everyone who got into the green spirit. The only one to show up without green on? Tim. So, he had to hold a green beer at all times!
Yep, he's got that green beer in his hand!
Tim, Dwayne, Mary, Allie (Dwayne's wife, and a person who knows how to have a fun time... she put St. Pat stickers on everyone, kept the games and conversations going... AWESOME friend) and Don.
Emily and Mark. She had a green Irish rugby club shirt on when she came in. But with 4 crock pots and 3 burners going on the stove, it was hot in the house, so she ditched it. Her kids were well dressed, too! Fun to go green!
Hallie had the best get-up and is my 'has your back friend.' Although, she'll go back home this summer. She also pours a mean 'black and tan.' She says she's putting her engineering masters degree into good use... the laws of fluid dynamics, etc. I agree! Good job!
Sorry it's a bit blurry. Erin (there's a real Irish name for you) and Hallie. Erin is our babysitter who braves hoards of children and watches them a bit, so the parents can relax. Erin go braugh!
Eventually, some real poker actually got played. Oops! Almost caught Tim without his green beer in his hand! Pinch!

The guy in the green Hawaiian shirt is Ken Khan. We love them as friends because they always show up with goodies and have a lot of fun.

And Ken is sitting on our "Patio Funiture" (old Irish joke.)
The Wii game was hilarious. 4 drivers competing. It was so fun. Erin, do you know where the children are?
I was sorry not to get pictures of the Connors and Murphys. They are truly Irish, and legitimized our event. Dona contributed crock-pots, and as the closest (to walk to) neighbor, is AWESOME. Sean was sick, so she had to go home. Tom made his soda bread. It's an old Connor family recipe. He asked his mom for the recipe, and she said she'd never seen it written down, she just makes it. So, she told him what it was, he wrote it down, and now makes it for St. Pat's and other Connor Family events. I think that is so cool! They bring it every year, and I slather it with butter, and.... Irish heaven!

It's good to have good friends.

This was the invitation. It's all about being eco-friendly around here!
The sauce is a cream sauce, where you use whiskey to deglaze the shallot. Then you cook it off, and add cream and dijon mustard. Very nice with corned beef.

Mustache Contest and Museum Video

We're catching up on a couple of things around here. One is sifting through the video from our new camera. Seeing as how it takes high definition video, the raw video tends to take up some serious space on the hard drive. It also only loads up into iMovie, so it seems natural to edit together the final video of whatever particular experience inspired us to take video footage and then discard all the raw footage.

So, first off, the Mustache contest. The crew from work has a tradition that they have a mustache growing contest at some point during off station projects. It's a little odd for me since I already have a mustache and Japan is home for me. To meet the requirements to be clean shaven at the beginning of the contest, I have to shave my mustache. The only two times I have done this since I started growing it in '87 was last year for this contest and this year. William finds it fascinating to see this annual transformation of Dad's face that he wanted to video tape it.



Next up, video from the Hamagin Space Science Center. Caroline wrote about our visit a week or so ago But here is the video:

Safety Day

There is a very kind gentleman, who lives in our neighborhood, Osami-san. He speaks wonderful English, and stops by to drop off flyers for events in the neighborhood such as Bon Odori festivals and the like. A week ago, he stopped off to give us a flyer for "Safety Day". I'd heard great tales of this from some other neighbors about bucket brigades and fire extinguisher exercises, so we made sure to attend. The weather didn't cooperate for the really interesting stuff, but we still were fascinated with the Japanese drive to teach everyone about safety and first aid. You can tell that they are a country that is used to natural disasters and is dedicated to being prepared for them. They explained fire and earthquake safety and provided training on Automatic Defibrillators and CPR and then showed a video on the Kobe earthquake and preparations and actions that help people survive and recover from such events. I half expected to see a training session on Godzilla safety...
They handed out triangular bandage cloths and trained everyone to make pressure bandages out of them and slings.


william says : as you can se in the person taking in the microphone is a fire fighter he is teling us how to be safe in case of fire and earth qwake



This is Caroline adding: They count people here, (we had to sign in), and if you need to evacuate, you go to a nearby junior high school that is about 1/2 km away, and on higher ground. I left when Wm was too bored. Tim and Osami-san arrived at our house with delicious bowls of soup. He was determined that we partake with everyone. I know you're not supposed to say a direct 'no' in Japanese, but I was surprised that they won't take 'no' for an answer, either! The soup had carrot, onion, cabbage, daikon, konyaku, and freshly-made flour dumplings.

October & December CAR WOES

Okay, I was trying to make a spoof of 'Star Wars' as 'Car Wars.' Lame, I know.

Here's my story: The evening before heading to Tokyo Disney and Tokyo for a few days, I was going on base. As I was rolling up to the check-point at Womble gate, I leaned over to get my ID out of my wallet. It wasn't where I normally put it, and I had to dig a bit deeper and WHAM!

I had hit one of the small, rounded barriers at Womble Gate. It startled me. The air bag did not deploy. William was fine. They put the barrier down, and I drove to the side to wait for the cops to come write me a ticket.

I was surprisingly calm. You couldn't tell where I'd hit the barrier (I had to show the police where the scrape was). Thankfully, I was on government property, so the base police (2 nice young Americans) were writing my ticket.

It was explained to me that I would have a point taken off my license, I had to have it reported to my command... etc. I signed the paper, and proceeded on. The woman security officer at the gate said I needed to get my car checked out. As I drove, it pulled severely to the left. I drove directly to the autoport (the car shop on base) and left my keys.

They ended up not being able to fix it. We asked Denise, a friend here who had needed a car worked on, where to go. She told me about Bubba's son, Andy. Bubba is the proprietor of a bar here, and sold us the kegerator. Andy's friend fixed it for ¥70000. That was roughly $800 American at the time.
If you look closely, you notice the wheel is slightly farther back than it should be.
This is the strut underneath. Bent badly.
This is the strut on the other side. It looks straight and fine.

We ended up getting a white (not crimson) Nissan Presage. While I still had the Mercedes, I showed how much longer the Presage is than the Mercedes 160. Here, they are equal.
Yes, I can put in 3 more people. But the new car won't let you take out the seats. So, when we really need a cargo carrier, I think it's less effective.

We sold the Mercedes to a really nice couple. We paid far too much for a car with way too many miles. The deal here is: You pay in advance for someone to go to a Japanese car auction and get you the car you want. Well, I knew what I wanted. The designated buyer did not listen to me. Then, he contacted Tim at work and said he had to have a decision NOW on a car, and Tim said 'okay.' Any guesses to see if I got what I wanted in a car?

We wanted a car with AWD. The Mercedes sucked on snow, and we needed a ski car. A little extra room would be great. We got that... BUT... It took an extra week to get the paperwork on the car. Then, it took 2 more weeks to get it properly licensed.

The order of licensing a car in Japan:

1. Buy the car (make it a caveat that it will pass inspection).

2. Have the car inspected (on-base is cheapest and reliable...our guy used someone off-base), and obtain the documentation of this.

3. Get the car's papers with VIN number, bill of sale, and passed inspection certificate.

4. Have the papers with you to get insurance (on-base is easiest).

5. Go to Yokosuka City Hall for temporary plates (you need the VIN and paperwork, pay money to get use of them for 5 days, you'll have to bring them back before you can register your car for permanent on-base access).

6. Apply for a temporary pass to get on base at the Vehicle Registration Office.

7. Pick up the car, put on the temporary plates, and put the temporary pass/registration/cars papers/bill of sale/record of insurance in the glovebox.

8. Go to the city office nearest you to apply for a parking permit (not city hall). You will need the car's papers and your house rental agreement with the dimensions of your parking space(s), and one water, power or gas bill showing you actually live there. This costs a minimal fee and 5 days before you can go pick up your parking permit/decal at the same place.

9. Go back to VRO and have them fill out the paperwork to have the car permanently licensed at the LTO in Yokohama.

10. Go to the LTO Licensing office in Yokohama. Wait in line for one piece of paper, then go to different building to change address, etc. Go back to first line to pay a lot of money for licensing of car, depending on newness of car, weight of car, and engine size of car.

11. Get the permanent license plates from them, and put them on.

12. Return temporary plates to City Hall and get the receipt for them.

13. Do final VRO visit to have them finalize all your records, and give you a decal so you can get on base (BTW, if you aren't the sponsor, they will make a copy of your Power of Attorney, so have it ready.)

Unfortunately, our new car wasn't ready when they said, so I missed getting the parking request done that day, so I had to go extend the temporary plate at city hall. Then, VRO made a mistake. Then, the seller didn't want me doing the LTO run (I imagine he didn't want me knowing how much he paid for the car that he sold to us at a steep profit), so I had to extend again. Finally the stars aligned, and we were in business.

Until Tuesday, when the radiator spewed, and white smoke engulfed the car. I was blessed to be near 5 big American guys in a Jeep who came and helped me out. They told me what was wrong, and said to let the engine cool for 10-15 minutes, drive a minute (never let it go above the too hot line), sit and let it cool... and get it to the autoport. It took forever, but now we're waiting for the new radiator (2 weeks). Plus, there were a few other issues. Oh joy.

So, why are we having our car fixed instead of junked and buying a new one for the price of the fixing? Because the memory scars from the agonizing and long-extended licensing process on this car are too fresh. I just can't go through that again right now.

October Family Vacation Shibuya

The New Sanno Hotel is a wonderful place to stay. Subsidized by your (and our) tax dollars, so all the people stationed on bases here in Japan can afford to stay a night or two in Tokyo, it is equivalent to the cost of Holiday Inn Xpress. I'd gauge it as a Marriott/Holiday Inn mix.

The nice thing, is there's a pool for the kids in this round part, and all the staff speak excellent English, and you can order American food.

We stayed there instead at the pricey hotels at Disneyland Tokyo. The drive was relatively short and easy, and food in the evening was great.
This was in Kikuya, their Japanese restaurant. The tuna steak grilled in front of us in garlic butter was amazing. It's nice because the waitress explains exactly what everything is. No big guesses what things are (and it was easy to get reservations).
On the Saturday we decided to go to Shibuya, a popular place to go, since it has TOWER records, the busiest street crossing in the world, and lots of young people. Easy to catch the bus to Shibuya from the New Sanno (it's the terminus), and easily back (same bus line, stop across the street).
Hachiko's statue is here. This is the dog that was so loyal to his owner, he waited for him here, even after the owner died. Richard Gere was in a movie about this recently.
This looks like a Captain Nemo building. There were some pretty cool places here.
We ended up at the Tepco (our electric company) Museum. It was neat. And it was free. I believe William is standing by a turbine.
I don't know much about these things, but I think this is a scale model of a reactor plant.
I think these are rods.
This was a tiny scale model of what a nuclear plant looks like in Japan. The'll give you a book with the English translations for the different floors of the museum. I think this museum might have been more interesting for 8 years and above. They had a few things for older kids to do on computers.
Since it was October, and Halloween was coming up, we thought it interesting to see some of the decorations. Halloween is an American holiday (they don't trick-or-treat), but I thought their decorations were awesome!

1-27 Yunessan Spa Day

We drove the 2 hours along Sagami Bay over to Odawara, and then up towards Hakone and ended up at Yunessan Hot Springs. I can only show and tell you part of the day, as my camera battery died.

Yunessan has traditional onsen on one level (no clothes allowed) and swimsuits on this second level area, and the outside.
It's kind of like a Disneyland for hot tubbers. Here there were large pools that we started out soaking in. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.We got there in time for lunch, so we ate at 'Auntie's.' I posed with her. What are those things in her basket?
This was Diane's lunch. It was pasta carbonara. I love the poached egg in the middle of it. What kills me over here with their pasta dishes, is often the garnish is seaweed. Ewww!
In the largest jacuzzi, there were different parts to it, with different jets. Pretty nice for getting the dead skin loosened up.
This is in another part of the large jacuzzi pool. Upstairs there was a grecian cool pool, and chocolate pool, and some others we didn't go up to.
Diane decided not to do this one, but I thought it would be fun. These are sucker type fish that eat the dead skin off of you. You have to dip your feet before and after, presumably to disinfect you.
The fish cannot eat all day long, so they only open it every few hours for groups to go in 5 minutes at a time. The water was cool. Obviously you can't cook the fish and expect them to eat, too.

It was the oddest sensation to have them sucking on your skin. It was like light tickling. Of course, I got in, and my camera battery died. I tried re-starting it up. It opened up again, but fizzle. I then took out the battery and rubbed it on my upper dry-part of my swimsuit. I re-inserted them and was able to get off this shot:
This doesn't do the scene justice, as when you move (getting a camera battery in, etc.) it disturbs the fish. There are only about 1/4 the fish that were eating on my legs. In a group of about 20 people, only 2 others had about this many fish. Everyone else must loofa every day, because they hardly had any fish on them. Me? I looked like I was wearing wookie boots. TONS of fish on me! It was comical. I tried to explain in my broken Japanese to the person next to me that white rice tastes better than brown.

Diane and I went upstairs and outside. The first one had coffee brewed in it. It smelled like Japanese coffee. If the brown color didn't put you off, the near drip-heat of the water made us shy away. There are also pools with curry, tea and wine.

Instead, we found a lovely shallow pool with a nice woodland waterfall backdrop, and finished our soaking there. We joked that it was because of Diane's word of wisdom issues (it's a Mormon thing). Curry isn't a taboo for Mormons, but I'm beginning to dislike curry after being in Japan this long. I used to like curry, but you get it so often here... but that's a different rant for a different day.

The reality is, we were as limp as al dente noodles, and hiking up even more steps just wasn't in us.

They give you a plastic band that kind of looks like a watch, but you can charge things you need, like food, along the way. At the end, you place your 'magic watch' in a machine that reads it and gives you a ticket. You then pay the fees. Then, you get a card to leave the area. The Japanese are really into 'exit tickets.'

The next day, Diane and I went to the airport, and had our last little dinner together before she headed out. I was so sad to see her leave. What a lifting of spirits to see her and laugh with her.

1-26 Better Than Buddha

Okay, the video is better, but if I wait to learn how to convert the video, and put it up, you'll never see any of my adventures. Please bear with me as I try to explain.

We went to town, and I parked under the park. You go down, and they have about 3 people guiding you to the correct place. This platform can go side to side, and be lifted up. So, 6 cars can easily park and get out where normally only 3 cars could park. We watched as they put others up and over. Diane in the white trash moment of the day said (as we watched, enthralled), "Better than Buddha!"

When we came back, my car was in a different place, and too close to the car next to it for me to get in. The guy motioned for me to wait, and he moved it to the side with a touch of a button. Cool! BTB!
Then I took Diane to my favorite ramen shop. Ramen (noodle) is a Chinese invention that the Japanese perfected to Noodles in a Cup. This place's ramen was a thicker noodle, and very good.
They cook the ramen in strainers, so they just pull it out, and put it in. Then, they add the other ingredients. Pork, salt flavor, or miso flavor.
It's a small place, and you have to wait for a seat. The floor feels greasy. But, it's BTB!
Notice the little hard boiled quail egg in with the pork slices. I like the shio or salt flavor. They have some spinach and nori pieces as well. Diane said they even ladle a bit of fat on at the end. BLB! Bu77 like Buddha!

1-25 Two Titas in Tokyo

The Nippori District in Tokyo is pretty small. It's just one long street. There are many places where you go in and can pick the fabric, and they'll make you an outfit.
Diane loves to quilt, so I thought it would be fun to go. We got the equivalent of some fat quarters in fun Japanese-style fabrics.
Not only are there fabric stores, but buttons and patches and beads. Need it for sewing? They've got it!
We hopped a taxi to go to the Kappabasi area, or the kitchen wares.
Diane thought it funny that they were advertising Burn Notice, the TV show, in the cab.
The stores had everything if you were opening a restaurant. Display cases, neon, chairs, tables... One place had nothing but chopsticks.
A robot made out of pots.
Another robot. I thought they were cute.
This sample shop isn't food. It's food made from plastics that resemble foods served at restaurants. They put these non-perishable foods in their display windows to show what the restaurant serves. You can buy whatever food you want to show here!
I thought this was funny. It's a plastic broken plate with food on it, with 'the scream.'
I need to get a shot here of a lady with 2 kids on a bike. This is only parked. It's pretty impressive to see.
We were tired from so much walking, so we didn't go into Asakusa. This is the Kaminarimon outer gate with its giant chochin (lantern).