Bon Odori, Part 1: Yamato Odori Awa Festival

This weekend was the Yamato Odori Awa Festival! Bon Odori falls in July/August in Japan every year; it's a festival comprised mostly of dances to honor ancestors and welcome their spirits back.
Since I arrived, I've been taking dance lessons with a group of women from the base, taught by Japanese women. We have three festivals, the next two fall in August. This one was a parade festival where groups of women, men and children danced in parade form, us in the middle of it!

It was really, really fun and an amazing experience. It was also about a million degrees...here's hoping it's cooler for our next performances!

Bathroom selfie!

 Pre-parade!

The Smile Dance

Saberladies!

HSM-77 Saberhawk wives!

Here are a few videos of the other dancers! (PS they are a bit loud!)

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These next 2 go together...this little old lady was SO funny, hitting this guy with her fan. I'm glad I got it on camera!

Chinatown in Japan

I went to Chinatown in Yokohama today with two friends of mine to go get a fish pedicure! I'd never been to Chinatown and it was a ton of fun! We wandered around, ate some food, braved the fish pedicure, went to the Trick Art museum and shared a bottle of wine! 

We spent probably half the time squealing and holding our legs out of the water. It is a very, very weird feeling!!

There were SO many fish. I had a really hard time letting my toes go into the water; it completely freaked me out.

Marilyn, Allison and I

I had so much fun and it was a great day!


I've been able to talk to Alex most days online which has been really wonderful. I got to talk to him on the phone as well last week. He's doing well and though deployment is not much fun, he's actually enjoying getting to do his real job for the first time since he started training. I forgot to post his pictures of his time in Busan, so here you are! He put most of these on Facebook also. When he first left for deployment, he flew to South Korea and got to spend a few days there. He did a lot of exploring and went on this hike:

Exciting things this weekend: pictures to come!!

Yokohama and Ikea

We went to Yokohama one day to explore a little and then to Ikea to get stuff for the house! 

There was this giant pirate ship! We want to go back at night to ride that enormous Ferris wheel and go up to the top of the Landmark Tower too!

 

 After Yokohama we took the train closer to Ikea and decided to have a trek to Ikea....through farmland! It's lucky I trust Alex with directions otherwise I would have been positive he was going the wrong way. But...

He wasn't! See it off in the distance? Good thing it's so tall.

We spent a veryyyyyyyyyyy long day at Ikea and didn't come out with half the stuff we needed. So we took a bus back to the train and then got some Thai food. We definitely needed a large beer after that. 

After Alex left on Saturday, our Ikea stuff arrived on Monday and I got to do some building! 

before!

A BED! 

It's been hard work watching me build all this stuff. 

Love from Japan!!

Nakamura House

Yahoo!! New computer! Finally I can update the blog with pictures! First: OUR HOUSE!! It has a name, it's called Nakamura House. We absolutely LOVE it. I took some pictures when we first got here, before anything went into it. As I finish getting settled in, (IE adding furniture, rugs, things on the wall, etc) I'll add some new pictures :)

This is the front of the house from the street. We have a garage AND a storage room! It's really excellent, and very rare in Japan!

The site of my future garden! This is on the South side of the house. So far I've planted broccoli, brussel sprouts, a lime tree, basil and I'm starting more herbs and spinach inside while it's still a million degrees. 

Sam is THOROUGHLY enjoying being home with us!

The view from the front door

The reverse view; back to the front door. No shoes allowed in the house! 

My very small, very Japanese kitchen. I have 3 burners and a fish oven!

The dining room on the left and the living room is behind Alex and Sam. 

The front, living room windows 

Past the kitchen and dining room, there's a door and some stairs! The bathroom is directly forward and to the right is a room.

Our fancy Japanese Toto Toilet

Guest room/Office (where we slept the first week here)

The bathroom! That empty place to the left there is where the washer/dryer stands. To the left behind the door is where the shower/bath room is (Below)

Stairs! VERY steep!

Sam wanted to help give the tour. 

At the top of the stairs is a sink (very odd) to the right is a closet and the master bedroom (where Sam is)

Our room! There's a balcony and a sliding glass door there.

The right side of our room.

Balcony! We get a lovely view of the mountains out here. I can't wait to get some patio furniture!

The upstairs guest room.

At the top of the stairs there's a storage room to the left as well as a toilet.

This is our new car! It's a 2001 (2002? I don't remember) Toyota Altezza hatchback. Also known as Tessa!

The sticker you see on the front (there's one on the back) that notify other drivers of my "new driver" status (ie please give me space I'm not good at this!)

We're having a funny adventure in the insane amount of cash that we have to get out! Japan primarily uses yen for everything, rather than debit or credit cards. We paid for the car in all cash, which wasn't too bad (that's the picture with me holding all the money.) And we ALSO paid for our move in fees, first months rent and security deposit (roughly $9200) in cash too. Those are the ones with Alex feeling like a big money baller. We were very tempted to make it rain and throw it all over the place. Instead we just posed for pictures.