Spring in Japan
Okay it’s been awhile since I last posted, but that is because I am now pregnant. We now have a digital camera so I took some pictures of the scenery on base.
These are mostly pictures of various different trees in Japan.
The Cherry Blossoms were at there best two days ago but it had been raining for the past three days and I was unable to get a good picture.
Going to Tama Hills
For Thanksgiving we decided to dine at Tama Hills, the Yokota AB Annex also know as the country club. We had quite an adventure to get there. We left at 12:30 armed with a lousy map and a quarter of tank of gas (and the only onbase gas station was closed!). Click on the Start below to view our trip (that is our lousy map).
[Map no longer available]
You can see that we got lost a lot. It’s a 45 minute drive and it took us two hours to get there and two hours back! Luckily our reservation was for 4 because even tough we left at 12:30 we didn’t get there until 2:30. Then we left there about 5 and got home around 7:30 (we did go to rent a movie on base).
As for the dinner… we both agreed that our moms’ are much better cooks. The turkey was dry, the stuffing over spiced, the gravey too thick, and the pumpkin pie tasted like the dough of ginger bread cookies. Okay may our expectations were too high. Sam did clear his plate.
While we were waiting for our reservation we did explore the annex. We went to the stables and I found out about horse riding lessons. I have decided to give riding a try, but I’m going to wait until spring. Then we decided to try our hands at archery. Both of use haven’t had archery in several years and we did horribly. We ended up returning the bows and arrows after 15 minutes because it wasn’t very much fun.
We are thinking about staying at Tama for our first date anniversary (March 5), but we will have to see if Sam can get time off.
Yokota AFB
The base is set up in organized chaos, especially now that they are working on the steam pipes along Airlift Ave (the main road through the base). The base is divided into four parts: North, South, East, and West. North and South are where most of the military buildings are located. The East and West ends are mainly housing.
EAST SIDE HOUSING
This is where we live. There are several towers and many garden houses. We live in a tower on the first floor right near the entrance. So our balconies are more like terraces. We have in the east side a fire station, shopette, East Side Elementary School, Tayio Recreation center (which has the thrift shop, music/dance rooms, and where the Yokota Players perform), a teen center, an outdoor pool, AMC (Army Mobile Command or the terminal for flights), a dry cleaner, the only gas station, Popeyes, Auto Care Center and the Four Seasons (a sporting goods/toy/hardware store). We also have a Japanese train track that goes through this section. A train goes by every ten minutes and no matter what we are required to stop at the train tracks before crossing. Also to get to the East Side we have to cross a Japanese highway. Meaning we have to go off and then on base to get home. They don’t have to check our ideas if we are coming from straight across the highway (there is a light).
NORTH END
This is where part of the flight line and its required buildings are located along with the Kanto Lodge (billeting), the BX, Yujo Recreation Center (computer lab, travel agents, tours sign-up, the biggest movie rental place in base), Skills Development, University of Maryland Asian Division, Family Support, the bowling alley, the East Chapel, the post office, law office, the fitness center, Burger King, Officer’s Club, library and some garden housing.
SOUTH END
There is more garden housing, towers, the middle and high school, the housing office, a bunch of warehouses, the rest of the flightline, the Enlisted Club, and it is also where Sam works.
WEST SIDE HOUSING
You have to cross the flight line to get here. There is only two routes to do so. One on the north end and the other on the south. They have the hospital, East Side Elementary School, the indoor swimming pool, a shopette, fire station, and the teen center. I usually only go that way to go to the hospital which also contains the pharmacy and Life Skills, which is where I am to go in a little over an hour. Life Skills is the counseling center. They already had me see a psychiatrist which said I needed to take anit-depressants. I said no. He asked why and I told him the truth. I don’t want to be chemically altered and I have a phobia of new medications (don’t know why).
Well I have to finish getting ready to go today. Have lots to do including food shopping.
Tachikawa
Today Sam and I decided to go to Tachikawa which is about a 25 minute train ride from here. We went to go drive to the Fussa Gate which is the footpath gate so that we could walk to the train station. Our car wouldn’t start. We had to get a new battery. So several hours later we have a battery. It is now 3:00pm and we go to the Fussa Gate. We walk to the train station with no problems except for the sidewalks being too narrow or non-existant. We buy our tickets from a machine. We already knew what the characters for Tachikawa look like (A shake and 3 fries 
as the people at Yokota call it.) and we get on the correct train. Yeah!
We arrive at Tachikawa and get off at the correct stop. We then can’t find the exit. So we look for the green exit sign. We do eventually find an exit. We can go either left or right. We go left and find our way outside to find out we needed to go right to get where we wanted to get to. So we go back through the train station. It felt like playing a video game: Get through the train station as fast as you can without hitting any of the multitude of obstacles (people). Well I made it through. Then we had to find the Bic Camera Building. Well it happened to be the building at the end of the escalator we had to take to get to the street so that was easy. Then we had to go to the 7 and 8 floor… They don’t have elevators. But they do have escalators. So up 7 floors of escalators. We than finally arrived at the biggest craft store I had ever stepped foot in. We I didn’t find any supplies to make Dream Catchers but I did find a kit to make a potted flower out of beads and I decided to try it out. The directions are in Japanese. I will let you know how it turns out.
By this time I feel light headed, dizzy and my legs feel weak. I thought for sure I was about to pass out. When we arrived at the train station we didn’t know which terminals we were suppose to buy our tickets. Then we found the characters for Tachikawa but what did Fussa look like? Well we knew it was 7 stops so we counted and found Fussa (
). We bought our tickets. But what train is that? And in which direction? Well we knew we needed to go on the Ome line. Well we finally found a train, actually two trains. We weren’t sure which on to go on so we just got on one. It turned out they had several trains going where we wanted to go, they just left at designated times. We had to wait 12 minuted for out train to leave. Luckily we made it to the train and got a seat before I passed out.
Once we arrived in Fussa Sam then got us lost on the way back to the base and I had to get us unloss by ignoring his protests that the way I said to go was the wrong way. I guess in Japan I have a better direction sense or something. Well actually I couldn’t figure out which direct Tokyo was in but I did know what direct the base was. I thought Tokyo was between us and Mt. Fuji but we are closer to Fuji. I have a feeling I won’t be visiting Tokyo. It’s even more crowded there. I would much rather visit the temples in Kyoto or Nikko. Especially during Cherry Blossom season.
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Shodo
I’m taking a class in Shodo (Japanese Calligraphy). This is my first character. It means “A”. This is the best rendition I have done.
This is the calligraphy done by my teacher Kato San (Mr. Kato). His is alot better than mine, but then again his works are shown in art musuems.
This calligraphy character means “night”.
This is the same character done by Kato San. I wish I can do shodo as good as he.
Kato San did this one at the craft fair for Sam. It says “samu”. The first character “sa” means “spiritered” and the second character “mu” means “samuria”.
103¥� 21°�C/71°�F Partly Cloudy
Our Move to Japan
3 Hours at Logon Airport (October 5)
5.5 Hours flying to LAX
7 Hours at LAX (October 6)
2.5 Hours flying to Seattle
1.5 Hour at Seattle
9 Hour flight to Yokota AB (October 7)
1 Hour of going through security
Total hours of travel = 29.5 Hour
For our first week we lived in Billeting. It’s like a hotel suite. We had a living room, kitchen, dining room (all in one room) and a bedroom. We of course had a bathroom. I guess it was more like a college apartment than a hotel suite. Suites are larger. Anyway we got to move into our apartment on October 15. Furniture was provided (very minimal but good quality).
We haven’t had much chance to go off base. We have been busy every weekend since we’ve got a car (bought Oct 25). Our first weekend after we got a car we had a Halloween party on Saturday and an Annual Fall Picinic, hosted by the Tama Base (Japanese) Meteorology Squadron.
Our next weekend we received our unaccompanied baggage on that friday (Nov 5) and we spent the weekend unpacking and building furniture. We had to buy an entertainment center and a computer desk. The instructions were clear but when you only have the set of screwdrivers you bought at the 100Yen store it is very hard work. Both Sam and I have blisters on our hands. We ended up buying an electric screwdriver on the second day of building.
One thing I did do was attend a demonstration on how to make dream catchers on Saturday. I even brought the dream catchers I made. I had hoped to learn something from the expert. Well it turned out that the “expert” was someone who volunteered to do the demo which consisted of a kit with horribly written instructions that the lady was trying to follow. Needless to say, I ended up doing the demo. I had to teach the lady who was suppose to be teaching everyone else. I plan on teaching a class on how to make a dream catcher at Skills Development.
I am also taking a class in Shodo, a Japanese/Chinese calligraphy. I’ve had one class and it’s very hard. I will scan in some of my work at a later date and add it to this journal.
That is all for today. I hope to add more photos, art, etc at a future date.
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Moving to Japan
Sometime during the first week of October I will be flying to Japan to live there for three years. It’s scary. Different culture. Different side of the planet. Just moving can be scary. Especially when you don’t know when you are leaving or where you are living or when your belongings will be arriving.
It’s exciting too. I think of all the wonderful photos I can capture now. All the history and culture I will learn. I hope to learn more about Japanese art and performing art.
I’m going to miss my small town New Hampshire life. Now I will be living on large Air Force base on outskirts of extremely large and crammed packed populated city of Tokyo.
