We found a house! We just don't live there yet...

Okay, we've seriously been having some camera technical issues, so we apologize for the infrequent updates. We had our housing appointment the first Friday we were here, and turned in our information sheet. They sent it out to the off base housing agencies, all 40 or so of them, and they started calling. So starting that Saturday, we looked at houses for about 8 hours a day, with some stops to look at cars in between. After looking at 24 places, yeah - 24, we found one! Let's just say the whole experience was interesting (there's that word again.) We saw single family homes, apartments, duplexes, one upstairs from a restaurant and tv repair shop and everything in between. Cars? Pretty much like the house thing, except possibly MORE interesting! Everything we do here is an adventure, and I mean everything. We've been experiencing the food, trying our best guess at the language - at least thank you, excuse me, good morning, please no fish eyes - just the normal stuff. We also found the famous Jusco and then the Monkeyman store. Jusco is a two story monster building that's somewhere between wal-mart and a mall. The monkeyman store is like Home Depot (complete with the road cone orange uniforms). You can buy everything that the locals seem to love - flourescent lights, hello kitty, and $700 heated toilet seats with a gigantic remote control with a lot of buttons and Japanese words on it. Not sure what all it does, but where they have them - you don't need toilet paper. And yesterday we filled the car up with gas and just went driving! We found the sea road which is just that, a road with ocean right off each side, over to Miyagi Island and Ikei Island. The water is the coolest blue-green color and as clear as bath water. The weather was pretty bad so we'll take better pictures when we drive back out there. Oh, and we finally stopped at McDonald's. I know, gross - right? Nope. There were about 20 people working, and I'm talking in heels and dress skirts and perfect professional uniforms. And the food was good! We were pretty far from base, so we got a lot of stares and giggles and girls taking pictures of us with their phones. Again - very interesting! Enjoy!

The view from the first beach place we saw!

But this was the kitchen. And dining room. And living room.

Turn left on WHAT street?

Road construction signs. Why *wouldn't* you have a rabbit/dog cartoon? Duh.

Sunabe seawall!

The amazing Japanese toilet seat

Us at American Village on the seawall. With a GIANT ferris wheel in the background.

Fresh 8-pack of baby squid anyone?

Our living room! (More and better pictures to come)

Probably Ben's favorite place we didn't get. (Too far away)

Another place - yes, the living room is a no kidding bar. AWESOME. (Emily said no.)

Another cool house we looked at

The sea road out to the island

Miyagi Island

McD's in Japan!

4x4 minivans. AWESOME. (Emily said no.)

Our car!

Yes, the steering wheel is on the wrong side.

Okay, blog problems with the pictures. We have more from the first week as soon as we figure out our technical difficulties.

Konnichiwa!

Okay, we made it to Japan, and have been TERRIBLE at taking pictures so far. But, turns out we're going to be here for awhile, so we'll have plenty. We got in on Sunday the 11th, and after we picked up our bags and starting looking for our folks to pick us up - they found us. Half of the squadron guys and wives were ALL at the airport with a big sign with our names and the squadron patch on it waving like lunatics. It was great! The boss and his wife are from Greenville and Montgomery so she and Emily were squealing like school kids when they figured that out (in about 4.4 seconds.) Someone mentioned we should have brought mint juleps if we were going to reenact Steel Magnolias. We got a ride back to base from Naha, our sponsor and his wife had already checked us into our apartment and took our bags up. They had also stocked the kitchen with food and snacks and drinks, welcome packets with all sorts of info/phone numbers/etc, all of Ben's new uniform stuff and a key to the car one of the guys left for us while he and his wife are in Australia for the next three weeks. You might say we were well taken care of! The first week has been madness, we've gotten our Japanese driver license (scary, huh?) and sat through way too many pointless military briefings. Which is ridiculous, because none of them are brief. We've been driven around everywhere off base we wanted to go until a few days later when we ventured off base on our own. There really is no way to explain it, so to those who may come visit, you'll see when you get here. Sitting on the right side to drive - on the left side of the road isn't even the biggest surprise. We had dinner one night at our sponsor's house, walked around downtown one night with friends and just found a random Japanese restaurant to eat at, tried the Chili's on base, and then the flight treated us to a welcome dinner on Thursday night at Yoshi's Sushi - and it was amazing! Emily got her fried rice but tried the sushi too, and Ben had sushi and a bit of sashimi, everything there was great! We also found out though that there is apparently a place here that has fantastic ribs, greens, sweet tea and cornbread, so we're going to try that one too. Naturally. And then the house hunting started. We've been looking at and test driving cars like mad, so we figured we may as well add our name to the "looking for a house off base" list. Before we got home we had ten messages from realtors. These people do not mess around with *anything* they do. Some are quiet, all of them are incredibly nice and polite, and some use very good english and are hysterical! As in absolutely amazed on their first trip to the states recently by our gas stations. "It's like a supermarket in there!" She was very excited about six flags and buying gum at the gas station. Everyone has their thing, I guess. So we had four appointments with realtors on Saturday, another on Sunday, three on Monday, three on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, so far. Add the four page list of things Ben has to do to complete inprocessing before the flying starts. We're a tad busy.

All in all, its very interesting. We are having a blast, have seen some really, uh, "neat" cars and houses and road signs and....well, everything. There are completely random cartoons on everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Just driving around is hilarious and you can never leave home without the camera. We've just been so busy looking that we forget to take pictures, but we'll get better.

Yes, Ben is driving on the wrong side of the car.

Our first trip to a Japanese restaurant!

"American style" cheater seats. It's like sitting on the floor, but your feet fit down in a hole. Much more comfy.

Update

Okay, maybe everyone is smarter than us and already knew this - if you click on the pictures they will open full size. Some of the ones from Hawaii are worth it.

Hawaii!!!

On January 5th we officially shoved off for Japan, with a slight six day detour (Honeymoon!) in Hawaii. Best plan EVER. We left out of Atlanta for a nonstop flight to Honolulu, where even the airport is half open-air and amazingly beautiful. Everything was uneventful, except for the 2 hours it took from landing to arriving at our hotel. 12 miles away. Interesting bus ride. The hotel was great, looking to the right from the balcony was the pacific, to the left were huge mountains! We spent some time the first day on Waikiki beach, and the surfing lesson was too much to pass up, so Ben had to try. Emily sat this one out. It actually went pretty good, though it turns out Waikiki is NOT the place to surf. The waves were actually nice, it was the 500 yard paddle to get there that wasn't so good. But surf he did! Well, the kind of surfing one might do at a tourist beach, on vacation, when you're 32 and have never actually seen anyone surf, much less tried it yourself. The next morning we made the vacation - we shopped around and got a taxi to the airport and picked up the jeep we rented and proceeded to get as far away from downtown Waikiki as we could. What a world of difference, and one of the most amazing things we've ever seen, before we even did anything. In the first week of January, everything looks like its growing in a giant greenhouse. And of course, someone has to water that greenhouse, whether you have the top off the jeep or not. But as long as you have a good laugh at yourself and enjoy it, its not too bad! We drove up a highway that turned into small backroads all the way around the island, and just stopped at random places to take pictures. The North Shore has to be one of the most beautiful places that exist. Whether the sun is shining on the beach or looking the other directions at the mountains disappearing into the clouds where its raining, its just amazing. There are beaches, that continue into rocks, back to beaches where there might be a giant sea turtle lying around then back into sheer cliffs. And EVERYONE from 8 year olds after school to 65 year olds are walking around with surf board in hand. It makes you want to see the other islands and what they have to offer, which the locals will tell you each is very different and has something worth seeing. The following day we did the same, and Ben just couldn't pass up the chance to say he had surfed the North Shore, so surfing he did. Again. (Don't get too excited, we stayed away from the places they have world class surfing competitions, which is how he is still alive in Japan.) The waves are actually bigger than they look in the pictures, but still not what you imagine at the North Shore. Emily found a nice place on the beach with a good book and enjoyed herself just as much, and oddly enough wasn't so sore she couldn't move the next day like someone else we know. Weird. That night we went to a nice dinner, at a place where we found out that they bring your order to you raw, and they have a huge grill with everything you could possibly want to season with and you cook it yourself. Turned out to be great! And of course when they stopped seating for dinner at 10:00, the karaoke started. Two words - train wreck. But good entertainment at others' expense. The last full day on the island we decided to go to Hanauma Bay to snorkle, which is another incredible place on the island that is one the world's best places to dive, snorkle or just hang out and enjoy the scenery. Problem is, everyone else on Oahu decided to go at the same time, and by the time we actually got down to the water we decided that we had seen enough, and went back to the beach on the back step of the hotel and did absolutely nothing. It was perfect! Driving ourselves to the airport turned out to be much better than the bus, and it was off to Japan!

Here we go!

Here we are!

View right...

...view left!

Diamondhead volcano

You want me to stand up on this in the water?

Surfing. Kind of.

We escaped Waikiki!

That's a big turtle. (Not a miniature person.)

That's close enough...

North Shore...

Northeastern Oahu

Hanauma Bay

Us at Hanauma!

BUSTED! Santa Claus on post-Christmas break. In Waikiki.

Christmas 2008 - or, the Family Road Trip of Justice

Merry Christmas! (Yeah, we're late. Hey, we moved to Japan!) Packing, moving, outprocessing Tyndall, and visiting family all over all at the same time made for a memorable Christmas this year! We got to go up to Ben's Dad's for family Christmas number 1 the weekend before, so it was great to see all the brothers and sister and families full of children. The kiddos exchanged names and of course the most popular toys were ones that involved swords or things that made noise. Not real swords, it wasn't *that* much fun. We don't have any pictures from there because Santa hadn't brought Emily her present just yet! We also went to Roger and Linda's house at Smith Lake for a nice visit, and spent some time keeping Jack out of the Christmas tree. From there we were back south to Mobile via Panama City to take care of more outprocessing, and Santa managed to find us all at Emily's parents house! Even though the whole family didn't end up at the pool hall again (long story) we had a wonderful Christmas! Doug, Murey and Colby came down from Birmingham - but left a forwarding note for Santa so don't worry, he found all of us.

Papa has no chance, he doesn't even know how to load it yet...

Murey, Cousin Ashley, Nana and Emily

Oh, we're not done yet. On the 26th it was time for Ben's Mom's family Christmas trip, so we left Mobile and drove up to Tennessee where we had all rented a cabin. Instead of exchanging gifts, we gave each other family time for a long weekend and it was great! A bit of a drive, but definitely worth it! We exchanged gifts with Shelby and Olivia, had a birthday party for them one day, and were basically lazy for 4 days. We'll just say we provided our own entertainment, if you could only see us play charades...

Yay! Another Christmas!

Anna loves her some hot tub!

Everybody loves the hot tub!

Uncle Ben and Emma. Racing Cart. It's go time.

Happy Birthday! Yes, that's a cheeseball birthday cake.

Charades...

...VERY funny!

Merry Christmas!

Still not done. Oh no. We drove back down to Panama City, via Cullman to see Ben's Dad, Brenda and Eli (and Sabrina!), for my final day signing out of the base and then back to Mobile for a bit, then up to Atlanta to visit sister Luci, Mike, Sarah Campbell and Jack. After 2 days there, its time for the honeymoon to Hawaii!