we made it! (1st letter)
ok so sorry we didn't write yesterday when we got here but the timeframe didn't work out. we got picked up from the base airport and then they got us a room at the misawa inn and then we went and took our time and took a shower and stuff and then we got picked back up and we went to dinner at a mexican restaurant on base right on the beach of lake ogiwara or whatever it's called, and right past the lake is the ocean i think. crazy. anyway don't get cheese quesadillas there. but they took us to the commissary (grocery store) and we picked up some food for us to eat while staying in the hotel and they showed us around the base a bit, and then after dinner dropped us back off and bryan had to iron his bdu's (fatigues/camo's) and shine his boots cuz he had to do stuff the next morning (this morning). anyway, there's what happened last night, not necessarily in the order written. we dropped into bed at 10:30pm, which is like us staying awake til 7:30 in the morning. bryan went this morning at 8:45 to the shop (workshop) to meet the the other shop members and his bosses and stuff. you know, i was gonna get up and get ready after he left, but fell back asleep. he showed back up at the hotel at 10 to wake me up and i had to hurry and get ready and i went with him to do some in-processing stuff. at 11 we went to lunch with his fellow shop members and i met them and his bosses - crappily we ate at the same restaurant we had just eaten at the night before. oh well - it was paid for this time by one of the sup's and we shared fajitas which were much better than the quesadillas and chimichangas we had gotten the night before. we got chauffered around after that by another one of the shop members from about 1-3:30 to get some other stuff done and he took us to one of the car dealerships right off base (we won't buy one from there-too expensive) and he drove around the town off base and it was very interesting. looks like everyone is selling junk and it's very very cramped....especially road-wise. sheesh. i think we'll park our car right inside the main gate on base and just walk over there. the base is pretty, the view from our hotel window is kind of cool with big tall trees and stuff. the flight we were on to get here was military. you wouldn't really know it except that our flight wasn't listed on any of the computer terminals for departures at the seattle airport and it was all military on the plane and we landed in just base airports. so we flew first to yokota air base in tokyo which is an air force base and that took about 10 hrs to get there. they played 3 popular movies on the plane but we couldn't stay awake through any of them after keeping ourselves awake til 4:30am to get on the plane. they fed us our breakfast (nasty french toast) and we were pretty much out (they fed us a lunch before we got off the plane too - also not good). we took games and sudoku's with us to do and everything and never got any of it out. we were layed over for about and hour and a half in tokyo – yokota air base - i say that because we never really saw tokyo flying in or elsewise cuz the base is far enough away from it. they drive up the stairs to the plane w/the little truck and that's how you get off planes at base airports even though the plane we were in was huge w/3 engines (L1011), cuz it's not like they have a big terminal or anything. then we flew an hour to iwakuni ab, japan, which is a marine corp base, and was layed over there for 3 hrs which felt like forever. we were all stuffed into their "terminal." but we talked to another couple there the whole time - a 24-yr old E-5 and his 20-yr old wife, that we actually first talked to while we were behind them in line waiting to check in in seattle, and they ended up having a seat right behind us in the plane. cuz we stayed on the same plane and same seats thru all legs of the flight, we just dropped off and picked up people along the way. anyway then we finally made the last hour or so flight to misawa ab (iwakuni ab was kinda just straight across the country from yokota ab), and we got here at 2:30pm japan time. and his sponsor picked us up. today after we got dropped back off at the hotel from everything we looked at cars on base. they have what they call "lemon lots" where people on base are selling their cars, which is just the 2 parking lots next to the buildings of the misawa inn. we have pretty much decided on a car already. one of the last ones we looked at had pretty much everything we were looking for. i have to tell you when i got there my expectations on car quality dropped quite a bit. we looked at a lot of toyota 4-runners which are called "surfs" here, but we're talking years '89-'92 on all the cars you're looking at. mileage is never very high though - i mean we're talking a 1990 car with 50,000 miles on it. the big concern over here is jci (japanese compulsory insurance) which you pay every 2 yrs and it stays with the car, and is like the safety and emission inspection we do every year but pricey, and more strict. plus you have a road tax you pay every year, plus your regular insurance that you have to buy from a japanese carrier. jci is probably $5-800 if there's nothing wrong with your car. anyway we wanted a 4wd 4dr that was decent i guess and i was leaning definitely more towards an automatic. i think it's gonna take me awhile to get used to this driving on the left side of the road thing. we have pretty much decided on a black (w/a little bit of a silverish/tannish lining) '90 Mitsubishi Pajero. yes i know you've never heard of a pajero. i'm not sure what the comparable model would be over there - maybe a montero. hands down the nicest suv we've seen so far for the price. asking $2800 but i already know he'll go down to at least $2500. and that jci crap isn't due until dec. of '07 so that's very good. and the $190 road tax has already been paid for this year as well. it has a freakin nice stereo complete with amp and sub and all. tires in good condition, tinted windows, a/c (something that will be nice to have since we won't have it in our apartment!), a rack for our snowboards on top - even though it wouldn't have been necessary - this is a bigger suv - a good size bigger than the older 4-runners. it has a tan interior which isn't my favorite but the outside looks good which is more than you can say for what we've seen. everything here is still in dang good condition when you consider how old they are though. i think this suv has only 25,000 miles on it. BUT we can't buy a car until we get our japanese driver's licenses, which they usually hold the class on mondays but with the holiday everything's closed on monday so that's another week we'll have to wait before we have transportation. sucks. cars are not as cheap here as the sponsor's wife made it out to be. from the get go we could see we were looking at around at least $2000 for something that really was actually decent. after seeing the dealer's prices i thought we'd be paying that for something on base that we didn't even really like how it looked, so i'm really surprised we've found this one. the guy selling it is actually selling it for his friend who left last week (a naval officer). we saw one of bryan's bosses at the bx tonight and when we told him we found a black 4-dr pajero for $2800 right away he said take it. body damage is minimal with the only paint problems on the hood, no rust. bryan looked under the car and there was no rust or cracks and all looked good w/no leaks. we test drove it around the parking lot and that was good too. tomorrow that same boss is going to take us to the ins agent off base and we'll get a quote (it's based off your rank!), and we will test drive the car again at higher speeds in an out-of-the-way place. i'm afraid to drive a car that's not mine on these roads quite yet. but the highest speed you'll get off base even is 40mph, and that's even on the toll roads. we went to the housing office today and talked to the lady that i've emailed a couple of times already and only 2 h-style housing units (fourplex) are coming available even somewhat soon. last night i was scared because bryan's sponsor aaron told us that they just give you 2 choices of 2 apartments and you just have to choose one whether you like them or not and that they're jerks here about it. but this lady was nice. she said the one coming avail. first was the upstairs unit which we don't want but that's the one she would have to offer us but she's going to have us come back in and try to fill that one so then we can get the other downstairs unit, which is actually the one she lives in. so she must like us because she told us that the people in her building told us she better fill their friend's spot with someone good. no one smokes in the building - that makes me very happy. the thing is, it's not available til july 7th!!! so we'll be living in a hotel for a month and a half. a lot of good that 30-day shipment did us. oh well, i guess we'll get to move in with all of our own stuff. plus everyone told us to stay in billeting (hotel) as long as we could cuz you make a lot of money that way getting reimbursed for food and the cost of the nights, and you still are making a housing allowance. only problem is the hotel told us they only had room for us until june 9th. so we'll have to see how that goes. we looked at an empty housing unit today and holy cow it looks very small. the counters are metal. interesting. anyway, bryan's bugging me to do something else now. we're in this mukoteki community center thing that's open 24/7 and there's pool and ping pong and stuff. plus i think this is detailed and long enough. you're probably bored to death right now. oh by the way, the way this base works is tomorrow is also a holiday for everyone cuz they give a lot of "family days" in conjunction with holidays. i'll write more another time so bryan doesn't shoot me in the head - cuz i haven't even written about his job yet. love you guys. i'll add some email addresses to this besides you parents in case anyone else wants to read this book, but cathy and dennis can you forward this to grandma cuz we don't have her address. thanks. love you guys. we're in japan- CRAZY. it's 9:03pm right now. the end of thursday and you haven't even got up for it yet. k bye
julie and bryan
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
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