Yokota Air Base

So I know I've been slacking in the blog department, I love looking at everyone Else's! Here are some last pictures that took while in Yokota.

A picture from inside the plane. I had to sneak it because they count it as an electronic device that sends signals, so the lady was telling me to turn it off.

The first time I went to Yokota, they give you a small map of the base and a list of stuff. There was a list of restaurants and one said The Outback. I was SSSOOO excited, I called Ryan and was rubbing it in his face, I went there that night! This is what I found.....

The sign isn't the Outback sign, but I thought well maybe...

This is the whole building, but I didn't get a picture of the inside, needless to say IT'S NOT the Outback. It's just the "out back" of the Officers club right next to it, you don't even have waitress there! I was so made, but they are building a Chillis that will be done next spring, so I need to find a reason to go there!

Here is the bank, I was on the second floor, that is where the training that goes on for all of mainland Japan. It's nice because they fly you up there :)

This is the Community Center, all Air Force Bases are going to this, the first level is the Commisary and fast food places, the second is the BX (PX, NEX, MCX, whatever you want to call it), then the third floor was the new car sales and parking.

I went to the Sunrise bakery the last day I was there and I didn't realize how close you are to the air field, there is no fence you could just run out there and touch the planes!

Here is the outside of my hotel, it's not the nice one where you check in at, no they put you in the old barracks that we renovated, lucky us!

This is what you see when you walk in. Kitchen to the left, bathroom to the right, bedroom to the right and living area to the left.



Yes, that's right, they used to have a stove there but they took it out and left the hood!

The lovely bathroom that when you were taking a shower it would constantly change from cold to scalding hot!



The bed was not bad, but some really hard pillows



This is where I spent a lot of my time at night because they have regular t.v.!!!!!!! It was so amazing to watch real commercials! One day I'll tape the AFN commercials here, AFN is the Armed Forces Network, so you get all the stupid commerical and propaganda and the stupid ones the base makes.

I know it's hard to see, but this is the big van I drove around.

And this is the BEST Italian food I have ever had, it's at a place called Un Quinto I think, just right off base, it's better not to drive because it's hard to find a parking place. I went there ALL the time! They had some really great Callimari there too!

Yokota Air Base, Tokyo JP Movie overload!

So here I am again at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, Japan. I was here at the begining of Sept. for two weeks for teller training and then I spent two weeks at home, then I came back this past Tuesday and I'll be here for two weeks again for CSR (personal banker) training. Since I'm the Banking Center Service Manager (asst. manager) I have to know everyone's jobs just in case I have to be back up. I am the 2nd person to be CSR since my CSR is only part time. When I get back from training my manager and CSR will be overlapping their vacations. So I'm going to be doing both of their jobs. Which will be good because we get so awefully slow that it will be nice to be busy, hopefully!!!

So last time I was here I didn't take any pictures because I didn't think there was anything interesting to show you. So I took tons of videos on my way from the airport to the base. Here is right outside the terminal, I was waiting to catch my bus to the base.

This is part of downtown Tokyo, I think it is more of the outskirts.

Notice that we are driving on the other side of the road! It's so weird to watch American movies now and see the people driving on the other side of the car and street. Especially when they are making turns, I'm thinking in my head "Oh no! Their going to run head on with a car!"

Here you can see some of the Japanese housing. That blue sign that says Lawson, that is a convienence store. It's really popular. That place, Family Mart and TONS of 7/11's. At 7/11 you can pay your phone bill, leave your emergency contact information, and buy tickets to a lot of entertainment events.



Here you can see a little of the Japanese housing.

The McDonalds is just the same here. Except there are some shrimp burgers and there is a Mega Mac, it has even more patties and another bun in the middle. It's really big and the food is just as great. Ryan and I were at McDonalds a little south of where we live, not too many Americans down there I'm guessing because we were sitting in McDonalds, eating our food, and there were these two teenage girls that just sat there staring at us! It was really awkward!

So there is this store that I absolutely love here in Japan. It is like an Old Navy and they have the most American style clothes you can find. It's called UniQlo. So I had my hair back and I was trying on clothes, first you take your shoes off before you go in the dressing room and the attendant gave me this thing to wear on my head, I'm guessing to keep my hair looking nice! It didn't really work but oh well. Also what's great about this store is that if you buy something that needs to be a little altered, they will do it there and for free!!

I will take more pictures of the actual base and my room. So more to come!

Birthday weekend!

So this past weekend was my 24th Birthday, I know I'm getting old! :( But Friday night we went out to eat to a place called Shirokiya in downtown Iwakuni, we've walked past it a lot of times so we thought we'd try it out, plus we had Ryan's marines with us so we thought they'd like it.





This is right inside the doorway, it was a really nice place but still inexpensive.



A lot of food is served like this, meat on a stick. It think this is all pork, or so they say, It was pretty good except for the skin on a stick, I didn't try it because Ryan already said it was gross.



Not a good picture of this, but it was little pieces of beef, all fried up in some tasty kind of spices.



Most of the restaurants have menus outside to look at, so Ryan saw this on the menu but it looked even grosser. This is a 32" sausage, he loved how it got serviced with scissors, he even ate it with chop sticks! When he orders french fries out in town he'll also eat those with chopsticks too, just because we're in Japan.




Him eating a cut of it!



Then on Saturday night, we went out to dinner with our friends Ben and Tish to this Italian place we've seen when we are on the way to Chicken Shack. It's called Campagne, but I think it's supposed to be campaign. They spell a lot of things wrong here. It was great food and I'm trying new stuff out, I have basil pasta with scallops, they were pretty good.




A cute little decoration in the doorway



Ryan looking Japanese.



Us outside after dinner.



Then on Sunday we went bowling and Ryan made me a cake. He was starting night crew so he works Sunday-Thursday 4pm-Midnight(or sooner). But he wouldn't make the cake how I like it chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, because he wanted to eat some too.




And this was my birthday present, and for those who can't read the bear box, it says "A Brand New Baby", he said he was giving me a baby for my birthday, so here it is! The onesies even comes off!

New House!

So after living in a hotel for the past 3 months, we finally got our housing! It took so long because we wanted to live on base. The place we live in is called Yuri tower, they are like apartments, we call them mid rises here. It's so nice to have our stuff, I didn't think we'd ever see it again!


And this is the mid rise we live in. I'll have to take a new picture, I think Ryan took this because it's the wrong side, but if you look 4 floors up that's how far up we are! They have this netting also on the balconies, I don't know if it's for safety or to keep the birds off of it.




The movers. They are cute little Japanese guys who can barely carry our stuff and when they come in the house they take of their shoes!





A view from our balcony down to see the movers get all of our stuff out of the crates.









This is the view from our living room balcony. The building on the left is the commissary, then on the other side of the road is the crossroads, where there is a food court, Community Bank (where I work), and a few other offices. So I can just walk across the street to work. We are getting a second car though, because it was free and when it's nasty like it has been, it can suck walking in the rain. The building on the right that is cut off is the exchange.





This is the whole view of the exchange/seven day store. So we just have to walk across the street to go shopping and do our grocery shopping and we can bring the cart up to our place. We live on the 4th floor we it's nice being up hi enough to have some privacy.



And here is to the side. We are right along the sea wall. The base is actually on an island so part of the base has water on the side of it. And from our bedroom balcony you can see the water. There is a bridge that goes across it and there is a little bit of housing there. But it's kind of the ghetto over there, they don't even have bus service there.





Our new couch and love seat. The only thing that happened to our stuff was that they lost one of our legs to the love seat. But I don't see how because I saw them take the legs off, put them in the couch and then in the couch box, but oh well, we have something to hold it.







The second bedroom that is a mess. There is a bazaar here at the end of October that I'll have to go to so I can get an office desk and bookshelf.









A picture of the bedroom, we don't have a bathroom connected but at least I have a balcony.







Our new washer and dryer that we bought before we got here.








Here is a video of right before our stuff was brought in.

And here is a video after it was brought in, almost a week later.

Finally!

I know, I know! I'm finally posting something new! I think everyone hates that 2% milk blog by now. Well this past week Ryan and I went to a restaurant called Jan Jaka's, it's actually a Chinese place, but the food is so great! You order raw meat and you cook it on a grill at your table. It can get pretty pricey if you pick the pricey things but we usually only spend about 40-50 yen. Here are some picture of it. I always seem to think about taking pictures after we have already started to eat. I think the most adventurous thing I've eaten so far is cow tongue. Which really isn't that bad, you just can't stare at it for awhile because it has that tongue look. But sorry, no

pictures of that. There is a place called Homareza, that's right outside the Otake train station(between here and Hiroshima), the food is really great there too and I think I'm going to try blow fish next.

The yummy food you get to cook right in front of you!