Home Sweet Home - Moving in, Again

Well, it's been 2 months since we have arrived in Japan, and it has flown by in record time.  Since we've been here for so long, I thought it was about time to share with you our house hunting experience.

The following pictures are a mixture of photos taken during our initial walk through before we accepted the house and the day we moved into the house and got our HHG shipment.

The Tuesday after we arrived (We arrived Friday) we stood in line at the housing office to get into their first meeting.  What we weren't told is that it's a group meeting held at 8:30am, so really, no need to rush.  At this meeting we were given a copy of our application (we had applied for housing before we arrived even though it didn't go into effect until the day we LEFT our last duty station - this is good to know since housing is on a first come first serve basis).  We also found out during this meeting that we were NOT authorized to live on base.  Major bummer here folks.  We were trying not to get our hopes up even though we had been hearing for months that the base housing is full and everyone who has wanted to has been able to live off base.  Housing is provided based on rank, dependent status, and when you filled out your application.  Single military members are required to live off base here - basically why have one person utilize and ENTIRE house.  According to a procedure they put in place the prior week, if our base OR a base next to us is under 95% capacity, we are required to live on base.  At the time of our meeting, our base was 99% full and our neighboring base was 93% full, requiring us to live on base.

GODDAMMIT.  

People who arrived the week prior and the week after us were able to live off base.  

We asked the people at housing a couple of times to explain it to us, and we realized there was no use in arguing, it's just the way it worked out.

We really, REALLY can't complain though. We have a really large house (which is actually my biggest complaint, and yes, I know how strange that sounds), it's in a nice neighborhood, convenient for work, and it's new and modern and clean.

After our Tuesday meeting we were told they would review our application and give us a call in a few days.  We were called that afternoon and given 2 houses to look at as soon as possible.  We hassled some folks for rides again (still didn't/couldn't have a car at this point) and took a look at both locations. The first one was actually neighboring our friends house, was really nice, big, and close by everything (the commissary, work, the exchange, etc..).  We checked it our and headed over to our other option.

The second house was almost the same exact house as the first one, but every room was about 2 feet smaller.  It was still huge compared to what we are use to.  The major selling points to this house was how out of the way it was.  The only cars that drive through this neighborhood are those people who live here.  It's up on a hill, so we have a little view of the town off base and some view from our bedroom of mountains and such.  There aren't many playgrounds around, and just some elementary schools off in the distance.  Our backyard in this house is actually elevated from the neighboring buildings, so pesky little bastards children won't trespass wander into our property.  The first neighborhood was really busy, with lots of school zones, and high school and middle school kids wandering about, and you could see the house from the main road.  We really liked the privacy of the second location - for being off base, it's sort of off the beaten path, which we really enjoy.  It's also pretty quiet, bonus!

So we called in the morning to accept the 2nd house.  It was either that day or the next that we were able to meet with our housing counselor and sign everything that needed to be signed.  We picked up our keys are were allowed to move in Friday morning.  Since our HHG (Household Goods) arrived about a month before we did, all we had to do was schedule a delivery date.  Our counselor was kind enough to do that for us, which was awesome cause she got on the phone, spoke a ton of Japanese, and scheduled delivery for the morning we moved in. AWESOME!  Asides from having all our stuff, it meant that we didn't have to deal with government furniture, which is furniture the government loans and delivers you until your stuff arrives.  It's a great free service they offer, and would have been glad to take it if needed, but it was nice not to have to bother with extra deliveries and pickups.  It also meant that after 7 months, we were able to sleep in our own bed.....holy shit....that thing felt like a fucking cloud that day....

The movers were awesome. They showed up during their scheduled arrival 'window', and were in and out of there in an hour, and asked me numerous times if I wanted them to unpack everything for us.  

The moving company was a local one, and I got my first experience of how polite the locals are when they enter your home.  We had 3,774 lbs of stuff shipped over (total of HHG and UB), which sounds like a lot of weight, but really isn't, we were authorized over 12,000 lbs.  I can't even imagine owning that much stuff!!!!  Anyway, 3 guys carried my 3,774 lbs of boxes out of our 4 crates, to our door, unwrapped anything that was wrapped, carried it all inside to the room I directed them.  As they did this, I had my handy dandy copy of inventory, and checked off each and every box number that came in. Even though everything was in crates, I did this.  One of our crates had been opened and inspected (I know this because the seal was broken).  It was also easier to tell what was in the boxes by looking at the inventory.

Each and every time one of the workers came into my home, they removed their shoes.  I actually didn't even notice it at first, because they were so quick about it, never missing a step.  They literally got to the door, and stepped right out of them.  On their way back out, stepped right back in.  Communicating with them wasn't difficult at all.  The guy in charge spoke English pretty well, and the other 2 guys seemed to understand me most times.  If they didn't, they just went to work unloading the truck until they could verify with their boss what it was I wanted.  Never once did they stop to chat, rest, or take a break.  I was pretty impressed by how strong these guys were, for being smaller then me....they were carrying stacks of boxes in and up the stairs, dressers over their shoulders, mattresses like they were pillows.

We even thought we were missing a box at the end labeled 'parts'.  It was on the inventory, but I didn't recall having a parts box.  The guys went through the entire house twice, looking at each and every box to make sure we didn't miss it.  We filed some paperwork to say it was missing, but I came to realize that it never existed.  Most people probably have one, our initial packers probably just wrote it first on the inventory sheet, and I just overlooked it, since it was waaaay at the top of the page.

I gave the guys some Coke, which they seemed to really appreciate, signed a bunch of stuff, and they were gone.  *POOF* Not one scrap of paper or garbage remaining.  Like I said, they seemed to really want to unpack me, but I've never had movers do that, and I don't think I will, even though it is part of their job.  Yes, it would be really nice to be rid of all the boxes and packing paper, but I couldn't live with piles of shit just laying all over the house.  I need to put stuff away (even if temporarily) while I unpack.

As you can see, we have tons of storage space in this house.  Including that giant ass closet right in the middle of our living room.  Also, we have a little "Harry Potter" room/closet under our stairs, directly in front of the bathroom.

My favorite part is how clean it is, and how many windows there are.  In our living room, we have an absurdly large sliding glass door to the back yard. Yay!

Is it even right of me to complain about too much space and too much storage?  I know, first world problems for sure.  It just seemed so empty, and neither one of us really wants to own more stuff...so the challenge is to make it cozy without filling it up with crap.

These houses were really built with families with kids in mind, which then, the size would make sense.  The 8 closets plus 2 outside storage rooms would make sense. 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms would make sense.  It just happens this is what we were authorized also, and it was available.  It's really nice, and for having to live on base, I'm so glad we were able to secure a home on our base, our neighborhood, and how clean it is.  It almost seems like we are the only people who have lived here, I can't even imagine how hard the cleaning crews work.

Since taking these pictures, we have acquired some more furniture.  A king size bed for one, which is awesome.  We have been talking about getting one for a while, but with moving around and hoping on getting off base, we weren't sure if we could fit one anywhere.  We put our queen in the spare room, which will be awesome now for guests...no more air mattresses or couch sleeping.  Damn...we are like real live grownups now!

We also ended up....oh shit....here's another grown up thing we got.......we bought a sectional.  For real.  I actually have always hated sectionals, but saw this one at the Foster (a Marine base nearby) furniture store and fell in love.  I'll show you some pictures another time.  It's a monster, but it comes all apart, and has one of those giant ottomans (with storage inside) that everyone can put their feet on.  It's big and gray and has metallic pillows(!!!) and we love it.  I really like how big it is, that you can fit a whole bunch of adults on it and no one feels cramped or right up next to each other.

We were temporarily missing 2 things when we got our stuff.  We couldn't for the life of us find our bed frame screws.  I know I put them somewhere safe that I wouldn't forget.  We picked up 2 screws for free at Eagle Hardware (a free self-help store on base that supplies you with things like screws, air filters, light bulbs  etc. Things needed for base housing that residents can do themselves instead of calling maintenance).  The next day, I found the screws.  They were with our tools.  The same tools we'd need to use to tighten the screws.  Derp-Derp.  The other thing that we didn't find for almost 2 months was our darts.

We had them in Altus, and packed them last...so that narrowed down where they were significantly, but we still couldn't find them.  It was driving me INSANE that I couldn't remember there these were. I bought some more at the Exchange just to hold us over, and then one day not too long ago I was sitting on the couch and it dawned on me.  I blurted out "THEY'RE IN THE GUITAR CASES!!!"  Sure enough, in the pocket of the guitar case were both sets of darts.  Phew!  Crises solved.

We moved our love seat up into the office, and still have our red couch in the living room.  I'd love to show you, but asides from being completely unpacked in 2 days and buying a bed and couch...our home hasn't gotten much better looking.  I shop either on base, in town, or online nearly everyday but still can't even agree with myself what kind of curtains to buy for the office, never mind decorate anything else.  We haven't hung pictures on the wall yet because at first we thought we'd paint a wall or two, then nixed that idea, then brought it back and nixed it again, and we don't know if we are going to do shelves over the couch or just hang the frames.  Should I re-order photos larger. I don't know.  Do you think John & Sherry from Young House Love will made a trip to Okinawa to help me out?  After all, I did support them on their book tour by purchasing their $15 book.  It's only fair, right?  Maybe I should at least present them with the invitation here.

As you can see, Sammy enjoyed exploring all our stuff.  She was all 'mind blown' when we put here in the spare room while the movers were here, and when she comes out it's like Cat-Disneyworld with all the boxes.  I enjoyed unpacking, and putting stuff away (most of it is staying where it was first put which is always awesome).  It's funny when you live without your stuff for half a year and finally see it, you don't even want half of it.  We did without all this fine...so now what should we do with it all?  Yikes!  I wanted to start downgrading after the first box was opened!

Anywho...I've been thinking a lot about this blog, and how frequently/infrequently I have been posting lately. I have lots of photos of things we've been doing here, and things I think you'll find interesting, I've just been busy going out and exploring and taking those photos, that I haven't spent much time blogging about it.  I am though, going to put in a little more effort to blog on a more regular basis...hopefully enough to keep you all here and entertained.

One thing I'd like to ask from you is....what are you interested to know about our life in Japan???  Are you curious about food? The 'military life'? Do you want photos of poorly translated signs and menus?  Explorations and activities? Really....I would love to know what you want to know!  Leave me a comment below.


If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

Have something to say? Leave a comment below!

Japan: The First Days, Part 2

Back to our first weekend on the island.  We had to start things off right by trying out these way too cute eggs from Japan.  Slightly smaller, sold in packs of 10, and delicious!!! 

The yolks are so much brighter than US eggs.

The Okinawa marathon was being held on base, so we walked around cheering runners on, and exploring a little of the base by foot.

We were so excited to be able to go to a sushi-go-round within the first few days of being here.  Our sponsors wife took us out one night to one of her favorite go-to spots.

If you're not familiar with sushi go rounds, it works like this.  You sit at a table or booth that has a little conveyor belt going past it.  The sushi chefs work in the middle preparing awesome stuff, and they put it right on the conveyor belt.  The dishes are color coded based on price.  I think here the prices ran from 100 yen to 580 yen, or something like that.  What else was cool about this place was you could also order off the menu if you don't see something coming around that you want.  Here they provide you with a menu and a little slip of paper and pencil.  You have to write down what you want in Kanji and the waitress will take your slip and place your order.

*GULP*

At least I only had to copy it from the menu.  There were a few very complicated Kanji combinations that I didn't try writing, but I would really like to try those dishes, so we'll have to go back.  That won't be a problem for us. We loved this place.

Another cook thing was they had a hot water faucet at each booth.  See that little black round thing on the 'wall' of the booth?  You pressed your mug against that and steaming hot water came out.  They had a container of green tea powder there for you also.

One of my favorite! Hotate aka scallop. I had to really resist not just ordering a ton of these and nothing else.

Here were our stack of plates for 3 people.  I think it cost around $50 for all of us.  We were stuffed, but it would have been so easy to do a lot more damage.  Each plate has a 'chip' in it, and when you are done, the waitress will come over to the table and scan the stack of plates and the computer automatically calculates it!

We walked around town, checking out a little mall, our first 100 yen store (basically a dollar store on crack), and headed down to Comprehensive park where we fed the carp!  Those bastards are aggressive!!!  By the time we did that, it was dark, so I don't have any pictures, but we liked it there so I'm sure we'll be going back soon.

Here's a little shot of the arcades.  They have a shit ton of arcades and pachinko parlors!  We've been to the arcades and peeked into a pachinko parlor, but maybe one day we'll get brave enough to go partake.

And the required kitty update.  Sammy was able to stay with us the first few nights because we had a pet friendly room, but we had to kennel her after day 4 since we had to switch rooms.  She was still doing great, just tired of moving and traveling.  Here's her cuddled up with Aarons sweatshirt.  And I don't know why she looks cross eyed sometimes...it's just how she is.  But only sometimes.

If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

Have something to say? Leave a comment below!

Japan: The First Days, Part I

Our first few days on the island were HECTIC!!! We decided to start things off right by waking up early that first morning and going with our friend KayCee to watch her coach youth softball.  It was nice to get outside and relax. 

We walked around a bit during the game and found our first humorous sign...Turkey Leg Dog!!!  Poor guy, first he's born with a turkey leg, and then he's not even allowed to hobble on the track! Sheesh!

We watched the game for a little longer, and headed off with Jake (KayCee's husband) to go get us cell phones.  Conveniently 2 of our best options had a kiosk/store in the Exchange1 mall, so we got to check that out, and compare plans (both companies had the same exact plan), phones, and service quality.

 We easily made up our minds when I questioned one of the sales people about their service having dead zones on base.  She shrugged and agreed that yes, there are dead zones.  Dead zones aren't cool, and if your sales person agrees with the complaints...it's time to move on, so we did just that, and moved on to the original company.  We had heard people complaining about the prices, but for 2 smart phones and comparable plans that we were use to, it wasn't much more a month than we were use to.  Having the convenience of maps, email, and apps to communicate back home with, it was definitely worth it to us.

KayCee met back up with all of us, and we all headed out to lunch.  By now we were starved.  So we all went off base to Taj Okinawa, a place none of us had been to yet!

I think we all ended up getting a lunch special, but with a different type of curry each.  This giant feast you see below cost 900yen which was about $9.89 that day.  It also came with a brothy soup with pasta and veggies in it, and a drink of your choice.  I chose lassi, which is a yogurt type beverage. It went really well with the spice level of curry I chose.  Check out that nan! It was HUGE!!!

We headed back to base where we picked up our cell phones and met some more folks from the squadron at a BBQ/kids birthday party.  We may have done some other things, but KayCee knew I'd love to check out one of the produce markets off base, so we went there next.  I loved it, and it turns out to be even more awesome because it is only a few minutes right outside the gate we live near.  I've already been shopping here a few times.

Still being my first real day in Japan, I couldn't resist buying one of my favorite Asian snacks.  Steamed buns!!!  Right in front of the market are a handful of vendors making food right there and selling it.  I got a spicy pork steamed bun.  I LOVE THESE THINGS!  I think this cost me 100 yen ($1.09) and was worth every penny/yen.

Before I show you what else I got, thought you might be interested in a receipt.  Or not.  It's the little things here that I notice and enjoy.

Another favorite snack/side is seaweed salad.  There are tons of different variations of this, and I don't know what this was called, but it was seaweed with a soy sauce based dressing and sesame seeds.  I planned on mixing it with some other veggies, like cucumbers and peppers, but we ended up just eating it like it was in our hotel room.  This was from an additional stand at the market, and I think it cost somewhere around $3-$4.

Okay, I don't know what's up with their carrots here, but they are HUGE.  That is a normal sized DINNER fork right next to it.  You could seriously damage someone with this.  I also thing you'd have to alter recipes that call for 'one carrot'.

Another favorite Japanese snack is onigiri.  I could eat this for every meal.  I'd love to blog about onigiri over at Kacey's Kitchen, but they are basically a snack made of rice and seasonings, sometimes fillings. The rice is mixed with herbs or veggies and rolled into typically a triangle shape by a salted hand.  I've never had one I didn't like, and I particularly like the salmon filled ones.

Later that evening we had dinner at KayCee & Jakes.  It was nice to help KayCee in the kitchen again (we'd often have each other over for meals while we were in Oklahoma together), and we had some time to catch up while the boys entertained the baby (their baby - not that you needed me to clarify) and catch up themselves.  The night was awesome, they had another couple over for dinner, which was awesome to be able to meet and hang out in a low-key setting.  We met so many people in 24 hours I barely remembered where we went, never mind names and faces!

Don't worry, I don't plan on writing our entire 3 years in such detail, I just really want to share our first few experiences on the island, and then I'll be more selective on what I bore you all with!

'til next time!!!

¹Exchange
I describe this as the military department store.  It's THE place to buy stuff you need.  Depending on the size of your Exchange, you can get cloths, furniture, household supplies, gifts, tvs, etc.  I think ours here is one of the largest Exchanges in the world. Don't quote me on that though.

If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

Have something to say? Leave a comment below!

Getting to Japan

The big day was finally here.  FINALLY.  FINALLY!

Unfortunately we had to leave our fancy-pants suite waaaay too early in the morning, with our alarms going off at 2am.  I started to get nervous belly at this point.  Not because we were moving to Japan, but I was terrified that I forgot something.  Like I forgot our passports (nope, I checked for those consistently), I forgot to reserve space for the cat (nope, that was done and verified.  Wait! Did I verify it?), what if I'm missing paperwork for the cat (THAT was my main concern).  I have spent MONTHS and MONTHS preparing for this and making sure all our documents were in order.  The thing was, I did some of it so long ago, that I started thinking....did I do it? Or did I THINK I did it?  Too late now, I guess we'll find out.

There was so much fucking paperwork and running around for last minute vet visits for the cat (we had to make a 4 hour round trip to a military vet a few days before we left for Seattle to get one of her required visits done), I was terrified something was overlooked and I'd show up at the airport and they'd say, sorry she can't board the plane and I would be in the terminal balling my eyes out not knowing what to do with the cat who can't get on the plane that I am boarding.

Nevermind all that though, the paperwork was fine (of course), and she boarded the plane.  They even made an announcement when we were on the plane that all the pets had been loaded up! Yay!

Since we were flying a military contracted flight, our check-ins and procedures were just a little different than normal.  Our flight was scheduled to depart around 7:30am, and we had to check in as early as 1am but absolutely no later than 4am.  Since we were already guaranteed a seat, as long as we were there before 4am, we were going to be fine.  The folks flying Space-A (Space Available) need to be there ASAP because those seats are handed out on a first come first serve basis.  Little did we know that since we had the cat, we'd be bumped to the front of the line.  Sweet!  Well...sort of.  You'll see why at the end.

We grabbed 2 luggage carts.  Again...we brought way too much luggage, but in my defense, we were living out of these bags for 3 months while our stuff was already shipped to Japan.  I thought I had narrowed down our belongings, but I guess all those little things spread out over the apartment really added up.  Now I know better.  Next time, I am only allowing 1 bag each, plus Aaron's uniform/equipment bag.  Plus the cat.  Next time...

We lined the pets up, and started their check-ins, which consisted of handing over lots of paperwork, answering some questions, and paying $112 for her.  Look at her...she looks so tiny next to those dogs!  She was definitely the most calm out of the animals that we saw, she just sort of sat there and looked around, I'm sure wondering why those dogs were making so much noise.  

 

If you're curious how we handled her eating/drinking/bathroom situations, I'll briefly go over it.  Vets will tell you to freeze water in their bowls, so it'll defrost over the length of the flight.  That wasn't going to work for us. She was put into the kennel a 2:45ish am, and wasn't even going to be put on the plane until 7am.  Our total travel time from hotel to hotel was going to be around 26 hours.  A small ice bowl wasn't going to cut it, and I thought she would be worse off if she was soaking wet for the whole trip.  Some folks suggested using a hamster/rabbit style water bottle, which was a great idea, but we tried getting her to use it the weekend before we left, and she wasn't having it.  I didn't want her dehydrated BEFORE our flights, so I let her eat and drink up to the night before.  When I went to bed, I took her food away and when we woke up before the flights, we took her water away.  We also make her use the litter box by picking her up and putting her in it over and over and over again until she gets the idea.  This works every time (if she has to go) and takes anywhere from 1-15 minutes.  But it works.  We lined her travel kennel with animal training pads, and put her bed and her favorite toys in with her.  We were able to see her during both stops in Japan, so we gave her a little food soaked with water, although it didn't surprise us that she didn't eat it until after we picked her up at our destination.

It's a hard call what to do with animals being transported that long, because other people have very strong opinions on what you should be doing.  I believe (and I'm obviously no expert here) that if you talk to your vet, and your pet is healthy, you'll know what the best situation is for him/her.  I've traveled a lot with Sammy, and I've used these procedures every time, and she's been fine every time.  I knew she would be okay without food and water for 1 day, and if for some reason we got 'stuck' somewhere, there was food taped to the top of her kennel and she had food and water bowls attached.  She did amazing.  She held her bladder the entire time, and when we got to the hotel room in Japan, she ran out of her kennel and right up to her litter box.  Yay Sammy!

Okay...back to our flight.  After dropping off the kitty, we headed up to the USO for someplace comfy to sit.  It was crowded, but not too bad, and we were able to grab some juice and relax for a few.  Around the time they were going to take Sammy to the plane, we headed down to check on her one last time, then headed through security and to our gate.  We boarded around 6:45am.

I was actually surprised that the plane wasn't nicer with more modern amenities, but then I remembered I didn't have to pay for it and it's a contracted flight to shuttle people back and forth across the world as efficiently as possible.  But just because the actual plane wasn't all spiffed up, doesn't mean the service wasn't awesome.  The flight attendants were super awesome and friendly for the entire trip.

Hot towels before every meal and snack? Yes please.  Hot towels before meals are very common here in Japan and I LOVE IT.  It's so hot that at first you feel like your skin is going to melt off, but then you just realize it's just the germs melting off.  I've also been to a restaurant here that has a sink & soap in the entry way.  How nice!

After a couple of hours in the air, we were served a hot breakfast.  By now I think most of us were starving so whatever they wanted to give us was fine.  I think we had the option of an omelet or pancakes.  Both came with a ton of food though...Sausage, hashbrown, bagel, fruit cup, and yogurt (which I noticed was non-dairy.....can someone explain how that works?).

After breakfast, everyone started to wind down and get comfy.  They played movies and tv shows throughout the entire flight.  It was our goal NOT to sleep through the flight.  We agreed that taking a small nap here or there would be okay, especially since we had been awake so early, but the more we stayed awake, the easier we would be able to deal with the time difference.  This was especially difficult for me since I just pass out whenever I sit in a plane.  Maybe it's habit to make the time go faster, I don't know, but I can sleep on a plane like no ones business.  My head might feel like it's going to snap off and I might drool all over the person next to me, but I'm asleep!

It was probably around this time that I realized we were sitting within a few rows of THE EXORCIST CHILD.  Aaron's probably not going to appreciate me talking about this here because THE EXORCISTS parents might stumble upon my blog one day...but seriously....your kid was a fucking nightmare and you know it.  Let's be honest here.  Most of you know I feel about kids.  But I REALLY hate kids in confined spaces.  When I board a plane and watch a child come in I am filled with emotion.  Hatred is one of them, but so is disappointment,  panic, and sorrow.  I'm that person on the plane that sits down and watches you struggle with your 10 carry-on bags (because you feel like it's your right to ignore the rules since you have proven to the world you are capable of reproducing).  I don't offer to help, not because you have kids, I don't help because you brought 10 bags and your husband is right next to you and not helping because he already told you not to bring 10 bags.  You don't need 10 bags to entertain a 1 year old.  You need 10 bags to piss everyone else off.  I'm the person on the plane that hated you and your family before you've even boarded.  I don't think it's cute when you let your kid run up and down the aisle tripping people and then screaming when the beverage cart runs her over.  I don't think it's cute or funny that you are brilliant at ignoring your child as he/she screams for 7 out of 9 hours of the.first.leg of an international flight. 

Back to the EXORCIST. I hate when your EXORCIST child pukes all over the fucking place and I hate it when I overhear you telling EVERYONE that she's has gotten motion sick since she was born, and no, you didn't bring a change of cloths on board.  Because that wouldn't make any sense, would it.

I should say that there were a TON of kids and babies on our flight, and not ALL of them were bad.  There were actually a few that I had no idea were sitting right around us.  Awesome!  And thank you to those parents who actually acknowledged they had a kid with them and took care of them!!!  But...for those evil children, most of the time it wasn't the kids fault.  Even I will acknowledge that.  The parents let them run wild and didn't do a thing to calm them or comfort them. Nothing.  And trust me...I watched you all with an evil eye. I really felt like the mentality of a lot of these families was, "I'm military and it's oh-so-gosh-darn hard to move across the world with a child, we are exempt from acting like civilized human beings."

That gets a big thumbs down from me.  And a bitching rant on my blog.

Also...while we have a 2 hour layover somewhere...please please PLEASE wake your kid up and make them run around like crazy, so when we board the plane again you can just strap them down and let them sleep.  Because 35,000 feet is not where I want your kid bouncing off walls.

I'm sure I have no more readers with children at this point, they've either stopped reading, unsubscribed, or probably have some mean and nasty things to say to me.  That's fine.  It's not going to make me like your evil child any more.

Not all was bad.  MAJOR props to my friend Jenni who provided us with earplugs before our flight.  Yes, I had all those strong feelings above while wearing earplugs the entire time.  I don't know how people handled it without them...although I did see a few guys who were close to breaking down.  The earplugs saved our sanity, incredibly.  Thank you Jenni!

Okay. Phew. I got that outta my system.  AND I've had 2 weeks to chill out about it.  It's a good thing I held off writing this post.

Moving on....

The ice was really pretty. I had never flown north enough before to see the ocean frozen over...

A few movies later (I lost all sense of time during this flight), we received a hot lunch.  I chose the chicken.

Aaron chose the Pot Roast.  Both were edible and appreciated.  Enough said.

I'm not really sure what I did the whole flight to entertain myself.  I read almost an entire book, watched some movies, and stared out the window whenever we had a view.  Once we got into the Japan area, there were some great views of the outlying islands.  It sort of reminded me of Hawaii.

This was us coming into our first stop, Yokota AB (outside of Tokyo).  I'm not sure if they refueled here, but we needed to drop some folks off and pick others up.  We all got off the plane and corralled into a room to wait, and those of us with pets got to go outside on the runway and check on them and walk them.  We took Sammy out of her cage and just carried her around, just to give her a different view.  There was one couple who took there cat out and just let him walk around. It was really amazing.  This cat just followed his owners around as they walked, not going anywhere else.  After the second stop, we learned that the cat was blind!  The lesson I learned from that was in order to have a loyal cat, you must blind it.

So they re-boarded everyone onto the same plane and headed off to our next stop of Iwakuni AB, about 1.5 hours away on the main island of Japan.  The same procedures took place, de-board, check on Sammy cat, re-board, and another 1.5ish hour flight to Kadena AB on Okinawa!!! Yay!!!

The sun had set and it started to rain by the time we were able to see Okinawa, but we were able to check out the coastline and the city lights!  It seemed like FOREVER before we landed.

We flew right into base, where they have a small terminal for baggage and customs.  We got off our plane and took a bus to the terminal and waited in line for someone to check our passports and orders, then went downstairs to gather our bags.

This is where it did NOT pay off to be the first ones in Seattle.  First bags on, last ones off.  We were able to get Sammy right away, but waited probably close to 45 minutes for all of our bags.  After all of our traveling, and seeing our friends beyond the exit doors waiting to welcome us....it seemed like HOURS.  The Kadena USO was there handing out water and pet treats!!!  How awesome is that!  While waiting, we were also greeted by someone from the Vets office to hand us a packet of paperwork and tell us what procedures we needed to follow with the cat in the next 72 hours.

We finally got our bags, went through customs, and some guy with a microphone asked if anyone was here to great us.  Being that we were one of only a handful of travelers left in the building, it was easy to find our welcoming group.  Plus, there were about 10 of them standing right at the door waiting for us with a big 'Welcome Aaron & Kacey' sign.  That was pretty awesome considering we only knew 2 people (and a baby) here, and didn't think our sponsor would be there.  There were a bunch of folks from the squadron including the commander of the squadron.  I thought that was pretty cool, because I'm sure the last thing the commander of the squadron wants to do after a week of commanding the squadron is stand around at the on-base terminal waiting around to say 'hi' for 2 minutes to a couple who just spent 26 hours traveling and isn't going to remember a thing about the introduction.

So we shook hands with everyone, their names went straight through my brain, we were handed some welcoming gifts of beer and wine, and everyone help load our bags into our sponsors wifes car, who then brought us to our lodging (on base).  She was awesome enough to have filled our room an fridge with food, so we wouldn't have to worry about the essentials right off.

There were a few Japanese treats thrown into the mix! Yay!

Oh! And our friends KayCee and Jake here gave us the best welcome gift ever.  Nice shampoos, soaps, lotions, and poofs.  I definitely have to remember this when we become sponsors. It was so nice to be able to shower that first night without having to dig through our bags for our stuff.  And this stuff was WAAAY better than the hotel soap.

And more food and Japanese snacks.  Very much appreciated!!!

We postponed going out to eat with our sponsor since we were so freaking tired.  That's what you get for not sleeping the whole flight! It worked out well, because by the time we actually got our bags into the room, it was probably around 9:30/10.  Sammy was relieved (in more than one way) to be let out of her kennel, and finally got to stretch her little legs, and then we crashed and we crashed hard, but we woke up at a decent hour to start our first day on the island.

Next up I'll actually share with you guys what you've actually been waiting to see.  Photos of Japan!!!! Yay!!!  Now that we've been in our house for a week, I've had some time to do cooking, so I plan on updating Kacey's Kitchen here soon also!  I apologize for not updating sooner, it's been really hard to sit in front of the computer when I just want to be out exploring and setting up our house!

If you enjoyed this post, and would like to follow 'Where in the World is Kacey?', please subscribe here so you don't miss anything! Also, be sure to check out Kacey's Kitchen for my food blog!

Have something to say? Leave a comment below!