December 18

For those of you who have seen Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, this sound clip should be familiar. All I can say is welcome to our world. Our world is one in which Ls are pronounced as Rs and Hs and the TH sound in Theurer does not exist! Most of the time when signing our last name to something (most recently the travel papers for our trip to Kyoto) the person behind the desk or counter looks at our name and then looks up to us in bewilderment. More often than not the person smiles because we both know what is about to come next. They cock their head to the side like they’re about learn something fascinating and ask us, “please say”. After slowly saying a truncated ‘Thor’ two or three times to the individual they try to say it back. Their tongue doesn’t allow the gaffe so the sound comes out like a S. Sheepishly they apologize for decimating the name. It’s a learning experience for everyone.

Deck da halls ...

Maybe We Packed a Little too Lite

The gas is turned on and the heaters fired up. The pillows and blankets are on the bed, the clothes are washed and in the dressers, the washer and dryer are hooked up, the bike is assembled, the fridge and freezer are installed and we've discovered we can 'borrow' wireless from a nice neighbor's connection. Ah, just like home. Well, almost. In our effort to simplify and downsize I think we went a little too far. As the movers brought our things and unpacked the boxes I was reminded of our overzealous let's pack lite strategy. Here is a video of Mark and I getting creative again in the kitchen. The pictures are from a stroll through the neighborhood of Ikedacho, our new home town. We ended the night back in Yokosuka with some friends from the Cowpens. They introduced us to the great Japanese art of Karaoke. The gentleman singing his heart out was the star of the night. He must have sung 4 or 5 songs while we were there. Not a bad way to practice your EngRish i guess.

This weekend has been relatively low key. Mr. Mark is not feeling well and has had a low grade fever, sneezing, coughing and an upset tummy. But he is a trooper. Last night the Cowpens had a Hail and Farewell for those who are new to the ship and those who are leaving. I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable affairs I've attended with the Navy to date. The wardroom is very friendly, jovial and close knit. I'm thankful that Mark is having a good experience on the Mighty Moo (Cowpens is the Thundering Herd). Hopefully this week is not too ardiuous and Mark can transition into two weeks of leave smoothly. We're headed to Kyoto for some sightseeing and mischief making. Surely some great stories to come.

WWHPD?

I'm no where close to being homeless. Sure, I've worked with my fair share, I've given change to some and food to others and at Saint Joe's we'd go around Philly telling the ones on the street where the shelters were, but thank the Lord, I've never been homeless. Why would I be thinking about the homeless now? We just moved into our new pad for pete's sake! But we have no heat yet and it is cold and raining outside. Japanese houses are known for their poor insulation and their meat locker-esque temperatures in the winter times. This is no joke. At one point i was huddled in a ball on a military issued couch with only enough flesh exposed to jot down my thoughts on paper. The kerosene heaters the military delivered to us this morning have no kerosene in them, go figure. And our blankets and winter coats from home will not be delivered until tomorrow. Bullocks. I am wearing a wool hat, two fleece jackets, a sweatshirt, sweatpants under jeans, and two pairs of ski socks and I'm still chilly. That's got me thinking---WWHPD? What would a homeless person do? Too bad I threw away the newspapers this morning when cleaning out our room at the lodge. They keep in the heat I hear. I could never be homeless, I don't have the stamina for the cold. A lot of people knock the homeless for being this or being that, but i can't do what they're doing and i bet you can't either. So what would a homeless person do? Nothing, I guess just sit it out and wait to thaw in Spring. And then it hit me. Aha, the heated toilet seat! It's like a homeless person's city steam vent. With much excitement I dashed into the bathroom and opened the door to the toilet. The bathroom is actually broken up into three spaces. There is a door to the potty, a shower door that leads to a huge shower and soaking tub, and a space with the sink and medicine cabinet that connects the two. So there I was staring at the buttons next to the toilet-- too many button and all in Japanese. So I just started pushing them and watched what would happen. First button, nothing. Second button, a light came on but nothing else. Third button, a soft errrrr erupted from the back of the seat. Uh oh I thought. Before I knew it a small nozzle swung down from underneath the rear of the seat and squirted out a strong stream of water. No way! I just found the bidet. It caught me off guard and because I was standing in front of the toilet when it went off I was hit with the stream of water right in the thigh! I didn't know how to turn it off so I just put my hand over it until the thing stopped. So much for getting warm. At least I had a good laugh. I guess I too will just have to sit it out and wait to thaw. At least I have a home.

The city's abuzz with the sounds of Christmas

More specifically, it was Jingle Bells over and over and over again. In the train stations, on the escalators, outside of small shops and inside department stores. Throughout our adventures in Akihabara and Shibuya Mark and my ears were harangued by familiar tunes of cheer but with indistinguishable lyrics. "No way, is that 12 Days of Christmas playing?" Mark stopped dead in his tracks just to make sure he wasn't hearing things. It was quite comical, trying to pair up the words we know to the words we were hearing. The crowds were dizzying-comparable to New York City with the hustle and bustle but without the move it or lose it aggression. So no matter what corner of the planet you live (granted I've never been in a Muslim country during Christmas) the holidays are the holidays are the holidays.

Here's a fun fact. According to the CIA World Fact Book, only .7% of the Japanese people are actually Christian (about 900,000 people give or take a few) so you'd think that festivities would be a little more subdued or at least a little more diverse with 84% claiming to be Shinto or Buddhist. To a degree, it's unfortunate. I guess if gift buying/giving is done in a way that shows appreciation and value for the human spirit it's not so bad. It's the buying for the sake of buying because it's that time of year again that drives me crazy. So the culture of consumerism hasn't suffocated just the United States. Japan's cities' billboards and newspaper ads show what is hip in the in crowd and given the young and trendy outfits we saw (yes rainbow bright standing next to the Mark City pic is a common style) it looks like many people try to be in that crowd. But with the Japanese economy in a recession and the commercialization of the holidays, I guess retailers are capitalizing on whatever pushes the products. And right now it happens to be jingle bells.

Apparently our first stop of the day is crazy with electronics whether it's the holidays or not. Even the exit sign from the train pointed to 'Electric Town'. Akihabara, bring it on. Block after block, high rise after high rise this area was a big kid's dream. This section of Tokyo is Best Buy, Lowes, and Home Depot on steroids. Every alleyway had a theme and every store was floor after floor of things to make your electric bill soar/sore. And if you didn't want to purchase a new state of the art computer, vacuum, rice cooker or camera, you could just wander around until you found the individual parts to put one together yourself.

We finished our day in Shibuya, the NYC could be if there were more horns, smog and people yelling, 'Yo, foggettaboutit!'. Mark had some ipod issues so we hit up the Apple store and came out with a brand new one. Ah, thank goodness the world is flat.

Sushi and a Cell Phone

MTV Cribs in Japan

Here is a glimpse of the house and yard. Just the right size.

Dinner in Yokosuka

a recap of our day

Dynamic Duo Reunite

Japan just got exponentially better, Mark is here! We went to Yokohama the day after the COWPENS pulled into port. We didn't waste anytime in finding cool sights and picture opportunities. I had a blast just watching Mark's reactions to all the new things. More to come later after I take a nap.

Kamakura- the best adventure yet

As part of orientation it is required to get acquainted with the train system, so today I ventured out and did some more sightseeing. This time around I actually had some buddies to hang with- much better than doing things on my own. So off we went- myself, Adam, Dan and Travis to be awed by one of the old capitals of Japan, Kamakura.

With the sea on one side and densely wooded hills on the other, Kamakura was originally used as base by the Minamoto clan back in the 1180s. Now check this out, the Minamoto clan and the Taira clan were great warrior families with a lot of beef. When the Minamoto clan defeated the Taira clan in 1192 their leader, Yoritomo, was appointed shogun and ruled from Kamakura. But when he kicked it his wife's family could only defend the area until 1333 before it was taken over by Emperor Go-Daigo and the capital moved back to Kyoto.

Nonetheless, there is a great deal of history left in this community. One of the most impressive sights is the Daibutsu, other known as the Great Buddha. Its construction was said to have been inspired by Yoritomo's visit to Nara (where the biggest Buddha stands..well, sits).

The Shinto shrine that we visited is the main one in Kamakura. There were so many things going on at once. Kids in their school uniforms chasing pigeons, elderly paying their respects in the shrine (bow bow, clap, clap, bow), and couples getting married.

We then headed to another temple, but this one was a little scarey. It was the Enno-ji temple, which is distinguished primarily by its collection of statues depicting the judges of hell. Check out the video. The big one in the middle is noted for it's fierce gaze and is the ruler of the hell's 10 kings.

Our eyes, ears, and noses had some great treats throughout the day, so we couldn't let our tastebuds be left out. We stopped in this extremely busy street at an icecream shop and had some sweet potato and vanilla icecream. It really was good. I also tried this jello-y thing that i thought was going to be sweet but it was NASTY! It's all in a days adventure.