Week 2

How have we only been here for 2 weeks? We have been so busy and doing so much that it honestly feels like its been months already! I've learned that while your husbands are home and not deployed, its best you try to travel and go places together while you can. Since Will and I knew a few couples before getting here, we have been spoiled with them taking us to cool cities and showing us all the good restaurants already!

Will has started to fly more and is usually gone the full day. I forgot that the real Navy means he works normal work hours…still getting used to that. So this week I walked around base some more and got a feel for where everything is like the commissary (grocery store), the NEX (navy exchange), the post office and the gym. 

My friend Liz took me to the Japanese market which has amazing produce and insane bakery items. My personal favorite fruit I have found out here is called a Nashi Pear. It is the texture of an apple but has the taste of a pear and is SO good. 

Also my friend Cait took me to the 100 yen store (dollar store) which is dangerous with all the fun and random things you can find! We are both pretty tall so as we walked around we had lots of stares and pictures taken of us. It happens pretty often too so now I have just learned to smile at the camera. 

Friday night a bunch of us went to the movie theatre on base to go see American Sniper. Something I can definitely get used to about living on base is that the movie tickets are only 3 dollars. The movie is amazing by the way if you haven't seen it yet. Highly recommend! 

Saturday morning was exciting because we went to something called a Shrine sale in the town of Yamato. It is like a flea market and only comes on the 3rd Saturday of the month. We had the best time walking around and trying to bargain…much harder to do when you don't speak japanese but we managed. We ended up buying an Obi, which is a japanese table runner, a japanese fruit bowl and some mini sake jars. I'm already waiting for next months Shrine sale because I'm addicted!

After the Shrine sale we went to eat at a fried rice place. It was so good and we knew it was only a matter of time until we had to sit on the floor mats instead of chairs. 

Fried rice with egg on the bottom that you mix all together

Saturday night we took the train to the town of Yokohama to eat at a BBQ place. We also heard they had really good craft beer so of course the boys were excited. Since there were 14 of us they put us in a room upstairs away from everyone else. The food was really good and its always fun finding new restaurants with different menus! 

Since we had a busy weekend, Sunday was pretty laid back. Will and I road our bikes off base to a nearby car lot to get an idea of which car we are going to buy once we get our license in a few weeks. We also road down the street and found a thrift store which ended up being a gold mine! We all know any child of Liz Branch is a thrift store pro, so I was in heaven. Our friends down the street ended the day with a cook out and bon fire which is just what we needed because we were exhausted. 

If these last 2 weeks are any indication of how busy we are going to be until Will deploys…we better get ready. There is SO much we have planned in January alone and we are so excited. Some of these include a Sumo wrestling tournament, a Squadron ski trip and a cabin weekend in the town of Yokota. Stay tuned…so much more to come! 

Love you all,

Caroline and Will