"That's Unheard Of!"

I wanted to originally post a video clip from a recent commercial in which a couple is sitting in their car of a Lowe's parking lot, rehearsing how they are going to get the best deal. I thought the actors were cute and funny, but apparently Lowe's doesn't allow their commercials on YouTube on such. Kinda' weird, but whatever.

I thought it would have been an appropriate video to share since Erik and I went through the same machinations this past weekend when we were on the prowl for a washer, dryer and a refrigerator. Armed with our Consumer Reports data and our sale prices from all local competitors, we were ready to deal. But our friend Mo at Lowe's made it so slap happy easy to purchase everything at a great price and for free delivery, our other trips to Sears and Home Depot (just to make sure) were half-assed in effort.

Free pitch for Lowe's - complete!

I Gots Some New Wheelz, Yo!

After an unsuccessful attempt at getting the Honda guy in town to give us a new 2010 CRV for $5k under asking price (enter: stare down), we walked away from the dealership. In my past car purchasing experience, they followed me. Here, they did not.

Soooo we decided to check out some other cars for the heck of it. We stopped by the Toyota lot under the impression they would give us a Highlander or 4 Runner for $10k under asking price ("umm, don't you want to like give these things away?"), but that didn't go as expected either. So we were then onto the Ford dealer to check out Hybrid Escapes.

And what do we see on the certified used lot next door? A 2007 Honda CRV with 18,000 miles.


Sold. Tag it. Done! Meanwhile, this car looks like a peanut compared to the trucks that people drive down here.

Don't Need to Do That Again

For our flight out of Japan, we were assigned the good ol' "Freedom Flight" out of Yokota air base, about a couple hours north of Atsugi. This is the same flight folks take when they want to fly free as "Space Available" back to the States. I never took advantage of Space A despite best intentions, but I know now I wasn't missing out on anything. After getting a 4 am shuttle to Yokota, waiting for 6 hours there, flying 1.5 hours to Misawa, waiting in another lounge for 4 hours, and then a 8 hour flight to Seattle (we were spared the stop in Anchorage), I can safely say I rather just throw down some dolla' bills for a direct flight.

At the least the girl next to me on the plane was enjoying Ice Age 3 as much as I was. It's always nice to have a giggle buddy in crime, even if they are a complete stranger. Oh Sid, you offer such comical relief.

On Base Living

This past week, we moved out of our Japanese home and onto base temporarily before we fly out next week. And I have to say, base living has a couple things going for it!

1) I don't wake up to a 30 degree room. Seriously. The lack of central heating in our off base home was probably the worst thing about living off base. But that's our bad - we really should have had a Japanese friend teach us how to use the timers on our kerosene heaters. Anyways, on base you can use as much heat as you want. It is ridiculously comfortable to walk around and not have to preplan every move.

2) Cable. Well primarily HGTV. I've watched about a dozen episodes of House Hunters over the weekend to make up for years of its absence. Also, commercials - real commercials. Off base, our AFN satellite only offered military propoganda and information spots. Its nice to watch a show without intermittently being informed about the capital of Kansas (Topeka!) and told not to shake my baby.

Other than that, it is a tad claustrophobic to be in this single room for a week and a half. Erik is in Guam for the week to round it his time here with his buddies as they enjoy the lovely shows that Guam has to offer. I have basically just been hanging out and meeting up with dear friends for random lunches and dinners... and running back to my hot box room to catch the next round of Curb Appeal.

From Sand to Snow

After arriving back from the beaches of Thailand, we repacked our bags and headed to the mountains of Nagano, Japan for a ski weekend with friends. Erik and I actually never made it up there before so we were excited to check that box before we leave Japan.

We stopped off on Friday evening for a fire festival. Pure craziness. Every year on Jan 15, the village of Nozawa Onsen holds the Dosojin Fire Festival. The 42 year old males of the village construct a wooden shrine and sit on top and drink all evening in the snow. The 25 year old men protect the shrine at the base while other villages light torches and rush forward to try to burn the whole thing down. Lots of free sake flows around for all. One of the craziest things I've seen in Japan.



The actual fall of the shrine is a bit more controlled; they first let the 45 year old men get down first. In this video, one of the ceremonial sake stands is being fed to the fire. Don't worry - they extract the vat of sake first and continue handing that out - no alcohol was injured in the making of this video. You can also see how fast the snow was coming down - probably about 6 inches in 3 hours.



As for the ski weekend itself, I surprisingly had a good time. I'd never been skiing before and hadn't so much enjoyed earlier attempts with snowboarding over 10 years ago. But Erik was a great teacher and very very patient. After a couple hours, I finally made it down some beginner slopes, fall free. After lunch, though, I quit while I was ahead and Erik went to join friends on the more advanced slopes.

Also, a shout-out ("hey oh!") to Atsugi base's Outdoor Recreation department - we rented all of our skis and snow gear for 3 days for about a $120. I will miss these little MWR perks!

Thailand Adventures

Wow, what a great trip we had to Thailand! I'm so glad we snuck it in before we leave Japan. The first 2-3 days were spent in and around Bangkok and then flew down south to the beaches of Phuket. Everyday offered a new adventure!

Our first night was a leisurely hang out at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar. They had a nice food and beer garden in the middle of it all. This is where Erik tried his first Thai food and thankfully he really liked it! But who doesn't like pad thai? Seriously, its good stuff. This is also where we taste tested the local beer offerings and made personal allegiances. I preferred Tiger ("Its like the Miller Lite of Southeast Asia!") but Erik seemed to order the Chang a lot. I think that's just because he liked saying it.

From Thailand January 2010

The next day was spent visiting some floating markets and a tiger temple in which the monks care for orphaned tigers. They are very docile in the afternoon heat and after a nice hearty lunch - in combination with being raised by humans, this means you can pet them:

From Thailand January 2010

The rest of our days were spent on the beaches of Phuket. Our resort had a private beach which was very key - this means no one bothered us and it wasn't overcrowded. It was a nice constant rotation of read, nap, swim and repeat. Our hotel even had a baby elephant that came down to the beach in the afternoons to say hello!

From Thailand January 2010

One day we did venture out to go on a kayak adventure - also a great day, of course! We had wonderful food on the boat, saw lots of neat caves and lagoons and then ended our night with creating a "kratong" and setting our wishes to sea.

From Thailand January 2010

From Thailand January 2010

If we were ever stationed again in Japan, I would be excited to create another Thailand journey. There are so many other beaches and areas - I would love to see more!

Happy Kate Goes Nuts

Erik arrived home from his last deployment of 2009 on November 18th - woohoo! He officially took all his stuff off the USS George Washington and he isn't going to be carrier-based for a couple years, at least. This means we don't have to buy two of everything now (i.e. boat socks vs real socks, boat towels vs real towels, boat toiletries vs home toiletries, etc). Even better, it means that we are back together again.

I wasn't here for the homecoming since I was in the States for the Thanksgiving holiday, but eventually we got back to being our cozy little family on Dec 4th. If I was cute and furry and had a tail, it could have gone a little something like this:

Halloween in Hong Kong

Over the Halloween holiday weekend, I had the fabulous opportunity to visit Erik in Hong Kong. What a great city! I have to admit that prior to moving to Japan, I thought that Hong Kong was the capital of China. I guess I didn't pay too much attention in AP history. If they use the background to make a Showtime series with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, I may be able to catch up (as I now know all about Europe in the 1500s and boy oh boy, me likey).

Anyhooooo... Hong Kong is its own kind of republic/island. After being inhabited by the British for some time, the city is a great blend of asian business with western structure. Like the street names are all in English, for example. Brilliant!

Erik being Jackie Chan for a moment (the moment thereafter involved Purell):

From Hong Kong October 2009

Me and Hong Kong skyline, from the Kowloon side:

From Hong Kong October 2009

Looking out from Victoria Peak at night:

From Hong Kong October 2009

The city is filled with tons of hills and stairs, so that was the only uncomfortable part of the trip (considering it does have the climate of Mexico!). Some parts of the city, however, have covered escalators to help you navigate through the streets a tad less sweaty.

Overall, it was a great time! Now Erik is back on the boat for a few more weeks and I am off to the States to work and consume mass amounts of potatoes and gravy!

Big Men in Thongs

We wanted to put another check on our "Japan Bucket List" so this weekend we finally went to a sumo tournament. There are 5 tournaments a year in Japan, 2 of which are held in Tokyo.

My first impression: Its so quick! Most of the guys were able to push the other out of the ring (or have them fall over) within 30 seconds. And that's it. That's all their work for the day. The get their respective checks in the win or loss column and they come back the next day. A tournament lasts about 15 days.

Other fun facts:

• Each guy has a personal hairdresser to create and attend to the "top knot" hairdo
• Their ceremonial aprons they originally walk out in (like in the photo above) can run about $20,000 each - they were very beautiful but that's a lot of money for a glorified loin cloth!
• For some of the bigger matches, sponsors will walk around the ring with banners before the match starts as an offering for bonus money. Each banner is worth about $600, so if 5 advertisers walk around the ring for a match, the winner will pocket an extra $3000. Not bad for 30 seconds of work.
• The referee (dressed in kimono) only refs for 2 matches a day. And yes, the wrestlers can "challenge" any ref or judging calls.
• ...and much more. Talk to us about it sometime :)
  

Below is a video of one of the more "higher up" matches of the day. The wrestlers can step out of the ring a couple times before the match begins to get more salt, pump themselves up, etc. Kind of like stepping away from the plate in baseball, I suppose! The salt is used to "purify" the ring (the platform itself is made of packed dirt with sand spread on top).



We had a great time and had way more fun than we expected. I think this is because we started some friendly betting on the matches. It turns out my plan to consistently pick the smaller guys and older guys worked out well as I won in the end versus Erik! No wager, though. Darn.

Visiting Taiwan

While Erik was home between his summer and fall deployments, we visited Taiwan for 5 days in early September. Admittedly, our first choice was to visit Beijing and The Great Wall but we had some visa obstacles with that plan. So! How about Taiwan? It has Chinese culture and is a 3 hour flight from Tokyo - fits the bill!

It ended up being a lovely place and the people were very friendly. The country has a really interesting history - a neat blend of Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, aborginal, etc kind of thing going on. It became clear there are different opinions surrounding this (as with most pages of history) and has essentially left me with the question who does like China? Besides Mother Russia, of course. Moving on from awkward political thoughts...

Our journeys were mainly based around Taipei and a couple days in the central counties of the sub tropic country. The south of the island offers many beaches and resorts, however they are still dealing with the effects of the devastating Typhoon Morokat last month.

Here is a slideshow with some pictures set to music from our adventure!

If you'd like to view it in a larger format, click on the arrows on the lower right corner of the video. Once the screen expands, click on the upper right hand corner where it says "scaling is on" to change it to "scaling is off" to make it a reasonable, clearer size.