Future posts to look forward to...

Ok, so even though I don't have the internet at my house, I braved the crazy Okinawa traffic to come all the way to base (all 4 miles) to write not about fun things, but to write about the fun things I will be writing about... haha. I only have a couple minutes to chill here at the community center because I have to run home and wait for the electric guy to come to our house... again. We are having some major problems with our "american" appliances in our "japanese" house. Apparently our dryer is too beastly for our little circuit box to handle and keeps tripping it out, as does our bathroom fan/vent thingy, and our microwave... yeah, welcome to my hell. Speaking of hell... our oven is spitting out huge flames so that's gonna be addressed today as well. I shall digress and get to my real point of this post!

Fun things to come: Pics of base, the new house, what our "funny money" looks like, the Japanese "squatty potties," chinese gardens, our new big screen, the curtain fiasco and the woman who hide when we come towards them, and my personal favorite... the story of our trip here. Now, the post on our trip here will have to be the short version because if I wrote everything that happened to us on the way here, it would take an entire novel. I will give a brief, yet very funny overview, and if you would like full colorful re-enactment, you'll have to call me :-) I will give you a little teaser... dogs running lose through Keesler, angry skycaps, getting paged in New Orleans airport, 4 hour delay in Texas, plane drama, dog-tipping, losing plane tickets, fighting with a cabbie in seattle at 3am, 2 hours of sleep, making an entire van of people unload from a van so we could fit on with our dogs, leaking water all over the airport, fighting with a foreign bank teller, screaming dogs vs. HUGE hawaiian man, 1st class (woo hoo), potty on the runway, and arrival into Oki! Yeah... i told you it was a lot!

So that's what's to come. I've got a boatload of pics I want to put on here, and possibly some video too from the Flip (which is awesome and everyone needs one), and various other whatnots. I think I am going to start posting as much as I can tomorrow, but the military froms upon us using external hard-drives here on base so it will have to be on the sly, or picture-less. We shall see... but more to come soon!! I finally have a new camera so pics to come too, YAY!

No internet for 2 more weeks... ugh

Ok, for all of you who are just biting their nails and waiting on the edge of their seats for an update to my amazing blog... you're just gonna have to wait a couple more weeks!! Rediculous, I know!! It took a small act of God, three phone calls, 2 voicemails, one Japanese man who could hardly understand me well enough to get my phone number, one blessed English-speaking customer service rep, and one fax to get on the two week waiting list... So, unless I drag my little laptop and fanny to the Community Center... you will all just have to wait a little bit longer for me to be connected to the web. That goes for vonage too... sigh... I will try to get at least a couple posts up soon though, lots to say. And if you just can't bare the thought of waiting that long to hear from me... you can all the "rents" and they'll give you the low-down on how to call my cell phone over here from the states... Just remember, we're 13 hours AHEAD of you!!

Yay for new cars... well, new to us anyway!

Okie dokie... so here are our new cars and you cannot laugh, everything in this country is small from the people, to the cars they drive. It's mostly because the roads are barely big enough to be considered a one-way by US standards, but seem to be big enough to be considered a two-way here!

Mine is the green one. It's called a Helix Surf, which is basically a Toyota 4-runner, and Mike's is the little white thing. It's called a Nissan Cube. They are both really popular on the island. My surf is pretty huge for island standards and cannot really fit into parking spots off base, but we got's two huge poochies that will not fit easily into the cube, and we like camping so we thought it would be a good idea to have at least one bigger vehicle. Plus, if you all come visit us, we need to be able to pick your fannies up at the airport. So feel special... we bought a car just for you guys!

So the big question I get is... what's it like driving on the other side of the road! It's kind of crazy! Not to mention that our steering wheels are on the opposite side too! Actually, everything is opposite! Our wiper blade control is on the left, so every time you go to signal, you end up doing what they call the "Okinawa Wave" with your windshield wipers, haha! Also, the signal is on the right side, and to turn left up go up, and right is down... which is also the opposite! It takes quite a bit to get used to, but we're getting better. Plus, every time you back up, it beeps at you like you've got some wide load coming thru... I don't quite understand that one...

So far, my only driving mishap (knock on wood) was when I was trying to turn onto a major 4-lane divided highway from a side street and almost went down the wrong side of the road! Thank goodness Mike so nicely reminded me that I needed to stop ASAP and get on the left side of the hughway before it was too late. And by nicely, I mean he kinda grabbed the dashboard and screamed, "Wrong side, wrong side!" haha... I'm apparently just as bad of a driver here as in the states!

I'll take pics from the inside of the car so you can see how crazy the steering wheels are too, but I'm having a bit of a camera malfunction at the moment. My brand new camera is broken so no pics for just a little bit till I take care of this little "situation." Until then... Sionara!

Cocok's, you must go-go!!

If you know me at all, you know how much I do not like my toes. I think it comes from years of ridicule from my family about my second toe being longer than my first. Well, after all those years... I can finally say, eat your heart out fam! Look at these fancy feet! No kiddies, those are not stickers on tootsies, that's a customs detailing!

At Cocok's (the "k" is silent), the girls there will trim, buff, scrape, and rub your feet into a state of pure bliss. Combine all of that was some green tee in the tummy, hot towels on the feet, and coconut oil on the legs, and you have found bliss in Okinawa. Now, there are numerous locations I have learned, but the one I went to was outside of Kadena gate @ and the little girl who did this job was amazing.

I kind of chickened out a little on the design and went simple art deco, but there were hundreds of pages of nail designs to choose from ranging from fruits, seasonal, 80's art deco, flowers, etc. The work they can do is AMAZING! They actually use an acrylic paint and a variety of paint brushes to make the designs.

I went with a fellow Lt's wife Sarah, who I have mentioned previously. She has definately taken me under her wing and I LOVE her, she's awesome. She and my husband's boss's wife, Jennifer (hehe, hanging with the Lt. Col.'s wifey) took me for an afternoon of total bliss and I promise if anyone comes here to visit me, I will definately be taking them here as well!! It was 4000 Yen, which is about 40$ and totally worth it.

In short, I love Cocok's! Remember... the "k" is silent

Teeda House, here we come!!

I am proud to annouce that as of today, I am an official resident of Okinawa City, Japan! We're moving into an awesome little place called the Teeda House. It's deceiving from the outside, but it's totally awesome inside. Teeda, I was told, is Japanses for "sunshine," which is appropriate seeing as the house is a pale yellow color. It's got awesome hardwood floors through the entire place, two levels, and a huge shed and yard. It's pretty flippin' sweet! It even comes with Shisa!! I'll post about Shisa later, but trust me, they are cool!

Today we went to the housing agency and signed our lease and handed over a huge wad of cash. For some reason, the Japanese like to deal with cash and not checks. It felt weird handing over like 5 grand in yen, but no worries, I took a pic to commemorate the moment. I looked like a pimp fanning out all the dinero!!

So we got our keys and we're gonna move in on Friday. The place is a total fishbowl and it's gonna cost a fortune to put curtains up... ugh, I sound like such an adult. The kid part of me is totally excited that there is an old toilet down the street that I am gonna steal and put flowers in by the front gate, haha! For our family, having a crapper on our porch is no big thing... you'll have to ask the parents about the comode at the camper, haha!

Anyway, that's all I have to report about the house for now. Once I ask Sarah how the hell I get pics in the middle of my post, I'll include more, but for some reason this blog site hates me and I can't make it do what I want... grrr.

First post... here it goes kiddies...

Ok, so here's the deal... I am sooo not technologically savvy, so please endure as I attempt to master this phenomenon they call "blogging." It's apparently what all the cool kids are doing these days, so here we go...

The boy and I are officialy in Japan and have been here for just over a week. We arrived here in Oki late Friday the 13th... freaky, huh? Well, everything here in Japan is about good luck, so i'm hoping our arrival date will in no way corrupt our time here in Oki! I'll rub some extra Buddha bellies for luck...

A brief overview of the last week and a half... total CHAOS! We left New Orleans at 4pm on Wednesday, March 11th, and didn't arrive in Oki until Friday the 13th at around 9pm their time... which just happens to be about 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time Zone... translation, we were exhausted. Too much happened on the way here for this post... there will be another entire post dedicated to that drama... ugh. Looking back on it all now it was very funny, but not at the time. It's a good story, I will tell ya'll later, I promise.

Anywho... getting here took... 60 hours on the run thru airports, 24 of it on a plane, 15 hours of that flying time in FIRST CLASS (video courtesy of the flip coming soon), 4 hours of delays, and one aborted take-off cruisin' down the runway (very scary)!! We had 2 petrified black labs totally drugged out of their minds, 4 suitcases all weighing about 70lbs, 2 lost plane tickets, one fight with a cabbie, no home, no cars, no jobs, and no clue where we were at what time... total havoc!

Needless to say we made it safe finally! Our AMAZING sponsors had a ride lined up for us and our hotel room full of goodies stocked up for us in the puppies all ready for us... such a relief!! We settled in quickly, took hot showers, and passed the heck out... only to wake up at 4am and stare at the clock! Yay for jetlag!! The whole "TLF" or temporary living facilities, will also have to be saved for another post... way too much bitchin' to be had in this little tiny post. I've been living in one for 3 weeks and I am so ready to get in our new house tomorrow. More on that later too...

So on a lighter note, we are safe and loving it here. Lots to tell but for now it's 10:30pm here and time to try and get some sleep. Jetleg is a total bitch but luckily we have Starbucks and Seattle's Best here, much to my delight, and it's keeping me alive! But will all great coffee, there is a great crash! So... now I must crash... goodnight to you all... or good morning I should say! It's 9am your time!

Keep an eye open on the site... lots to come!