6/1/06 - 2nd Letter

2nd letter
ok it's us again. thought i'd write everyone a book again. i guess that it has been about a week since the last one. i'm trying to be good. besides this is kind of like a journal for us, so i thought about just printing them out and putting them with scrapbook stuff too. so let's see- we went to one of bryan's supervisors' house saturday night and got fed a nice meal. they live in one of the new townhomes on the main base and i thought they were very nice. compared to what we were getting at least. but they were cool. anyway, i was pretty jealous of his place after seeing what we were getting. they have a separate room for the washer/dryer and 3 bedrooms upstairs and not only a regular closet in the master but also quite a large walk-in closet as well (which we won't have). but i guess that's what you get when you're an E-6 and we're a lowly E-3.
yesterday (wed.) we went on a tour of the base and to the misawa international center on 2 buses with other new people from 8-12. at the center they went over all of japan and the major cities and attractions. it was cool. there's a lot of cool stuff - buddhist temples and shintu shrines (the 2 religions here), huge ice festivals and stuff, but all not very close to here. traveling is not cheap, and usually driving is not a logical choice (when you think that would be the cheapest) cuz of pricey toll roads. if you have to buy gas off base it's by the liter, and so translates to over $4 per gallon! on base the gas is about $2.50/gal or so. we found out that japan is smaller than california and only about 28% of it is habitable because of all the mountains, yet the population here is half of the united states! sheesh. doesn't feel that crowded here though, misawa's pop. is only about 45,000. the military pop. is 10,000.
the lexus' (or as bryan puts it - lexii - for plural lexus) here have the toyota symbol, just as all acuras just have the honda symbol. many regular cars are 4wd - like most civics we've seen. civics are called civic ferios. a nissan sentra is a nissan primera. anyway, all different names. although we have seen one toyota corolla-all wheel drive.
on the pajero we were looking at the guy came back and told us the naval officer would not accept our offer of $2300 and would only drop to $2700. we put forth our offer later that night for that amount and told him we would get our funds together. this was sunday. then we decided you know what, we don't want to spend that much money. so we retracted our offer wednesday night, and now we're gonna buy a '91 toyota 4runner (surf) for only $1500 (she was asking $1800), so we're pretty excited about saving $1200. plus car ins will be about $75 cheaper for the year and the annual road tax is just $75 instead of $190. it's gray with a perfect gray interior (except for behind the back seat in the trunk space area). pretty nice considering how old it is! but it's got its cd deck (since there's only one halfway decent radio station here), and a/c. it's actually an automatic diesel - there's quite a few of the diesels here but they're not as loud as probably what you're thinking. we were almost gonna get a suzuki escudo (already had a nickname of "scooter" for it) which kinda looks like a honda CRV but one didn't have a/c and the other had no stereo whatsoever. plus we got a better deal on the surf. so now we just gotta think of a new nickname. we are open to suggestions (no "- - dawgs" since that has already been used). i suggested "the smurf" even though it isn't blue.
today the housing lady took us to see the exact unit we'll be living in. so we met the people that are living there currently and saw how their furniture all fit in it and stuff and it looks good. it will all fit. the place looks good and i'm excited. it has a decent backyard (not a postage stamp) and there's a park right by us and we are at the end of a circle (like a cul-de-sac i guess). not sure if i told you but we will be in the north area, which is about 10 min from main base, but bryan's work is in between. living in a hotel isn't horrible, no - we like that we don't have to make our bed - haha.
for jacquie's questions - - if we move in before our stuff gets here they have loaner furniture we're set up with. and we mingle with the japanese a little yes - a lot of them have jobs on base. bryan is frustrated cuz in alterations they don't speak english and he thinks he is being overcharged but he can't talk to them about it. we have tv, just not all your regular options.
ok last thing. bryan will be working in the test cell is what it's called. there are 3 different areas he could have possibly been assigned to: that, backshop, and flight line. in tech school when he found that out and what each did, he wanted test cell.
anyway coming here someone else thought we'd be in backshop (cuz that's where his sponsor - the guy who picked us up) is. we also found out that if you're flight line you are always gone. always being deployed and sent to temporary duty locations and working 12-hr days 6 days a week. we were very afraid when we heard that cuz we didn't know for sure where he'd be at that point. anyway - test cell is apparently the cream of the crop and where everyone in backshop and flight line try to get to. so many people were very very surprised bryan was assigned there, and all told him he was very lucky. so we were pretty excited about that. they also said they're pretty laid back there and have a lot of downtime so that's cool too.
we went to a "beach bash" last saturday at the lake and that was cool. i think we'll feel more adjusted once we actually live somewhere with our stuff. and when we can find where the lds church exactly meets and have a car to drive there too - we really really want to do that. somewhere where it's always the same.
anyway, love you guys
julie and bryan
thurs. 6/1/06 8pm