SNACKIES!!!

First things first how the hell did I get moved to a place where it rarely snows yet I had a snow all weekend, a snow day monday, snow while walking the dogs and a prediction of snow ALL WEEKEND!!! WTF?!!!

Ok now for my own lil Konbini Life. Konbini is Japanese for Convienence Store. And I live right by one of the millions of 7-11s.
We find interesting things there so I took the lead from one of my favorite blogs, Konbini Life, and took a huge variety of food, fixins for Udon, bento boxes of tempura or sushi, sweets, whatever you desire the Konbini has it.
This is my first Konbini goody. I bought it 'cos I wanted Chocolate AND I LOVE the name. There are also Crunky ice cream bars. It is a lot like a Crunch bar but different.
Kit Kat is something special here. Lots of flavors. Too bad I can't seem to find the pic of the one from Super Bowl Monday. This one was Green Tea flavored and it was yummy. It is a normal Kit Kat with Green Tea in the filling.
This is a Choco bun as I call them. The Choco is right and I do not know the name for it. They sell all sorts of these but in the evening you can get Choco in all its gooey yumminess. It is a steamed bun, served hot and damn good. I think the outside is more of a rice than a bread but I really do not know. I also had one the morning we moved in because we had no heat and I was waiting for the rental agent. It was hot and steamy and I think had pork in it, like a giant dumpling. Choco is much better though :D

When there are no Konbini or you just want something to drink, there is always a vending machine about. This is a mecca for vending machines. We saw this group of them in an alley, the glow was angelic and I swear I heard angels.
Here's to a hopefully snow-less weekend

Super Bowl Monday

Since I had a snow day, I was home to watch the game. I was bummed the Giants won not because I am a Patriots fan but because I am a Chargers fan and wanted Junior Seau to get a ring and I wanted to see Eli "I'm a whiny bitch and too good to play for the Chargers" get stomped. But hey it was a fun game to watch.

I woke up early to get the trash out and then cozied up to watch the game. It started at 8:30am here. It was on Japanese TV and it took until halfway through the first quarter for me to remember to hit the button on the remote that makes it English if available. Since it was Japanese TV and I think a public station there were no commercials. Instead we just saw replays, the crowd, the players milling about, great plays in history and heard the announcer talk about halftime. It was different, that is for sure. There was also no halftime talking heads so I got to watch the whole halftime show which was neat. I bet my neighbors thought I was crazy because the houses are close together and I yelled at the TV more than once in the 4th quarter. At halftime I headed down to the konbini (7-11) to get some snackies. I had a digiorno in the microwave but I needed caffeine so off I went. I got a Coke zero, a funky kit kat (don't ask me the flavor) and some potato chips (I am amazed I managed to grab normal flavor because they all looked flavored).

Today there is still snow on the ground. You can barely tell it snowed on base but the closer you get to our house the more you get. There are still snowmen around and kids having snow fights. I did take the pups on their walk, we did not go far before Elsa started shivering pretty bad and they had road sludge on them, I am not looking forward to the mud from the thaw. It is slowly melting though because it is not very warm. I was told that was the most snow the area had gotten in about 7 years.

Yesterday I did get some cabin fever yesterday and headed out. I went to AVE, which is in many ways like walmart. I found some cheap expandable shelves for the linen closet. They don't bolt in you just adjust them to the right size and wedge them in. So far so good and it made a huge difference in the closet. I will definitely be getting more. We are lucky because our closets are considered Western, which means the ones in the bedrooms have a clothes bar. Otherwise they are deeper than American closets and have a shelf in them up high or in the middle. This makes them very versatile but also means we need to add shelving to keep them organized. We came with some small bookshelves which I have put in closets but I am looking for what works best for each closet and utilizing the space to make it the most efficient. The real fun will be this weekend. I am getting my first full check and a girlfriend and I are going shopping. I have not really done any real just for fun shopping since we got here. I have lots of normal things to get, like a radio and a clock because ours don't work here, but I am looking forward to just a fun day out.

Since yesterday the game has been on at least 2 more times, once late yesterday and once in late afternoon today. I guess it was on at a good time no matter who you are or when you work. :)

Snow Day

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Monday and my first ever Snow Day. We got quite a bit and there are pictures to follow. We had to go out to base and my feet got soaked and frozen because I did not have proper shoes. Thankfully we were not out long. It was also hubbs first experience with snow, beyond going and visiting snow. The pupps enjoyed it. I figure this one is best told in pics and video so here it goes...

One of the hills on base today

Below is our neighborhood and hubbs lookin like a dork, always throwing up the horns

My trash is cleaner than my house

1-27-2008 4:24PM

To put trash in the trash it must be clean and dry. It must also be sorted into burnables, nonburnables, Recyclables (PET plastic, cans and glass), plastic packaging (yes that is 2 different kinds of plastic) and then Group Collection. Plastic packaging is ramen cups, chip bags, plastic bags and other generic plastic, it must all be wiped or washed clean and dry. Recyclables is what is called PET plastic, plastic bottles and items with the recycle logo and Pet under it, aluminum cans and glass containers, again it must be clean. Group Collection is your paper recyclables, boxes from cereal and a variety of other things too numerous to mention. Burnables is your food trash and items that can burn but not clean paper. Non-burnables are items that do not fall into all the other categories. Of course I consider anything burnable you just have to find the right temperature. They each go in a specific kind of bag and if you get it wrong they will tag the bag and leave it. I am happy to say that in the last week (different trash everyday) I have not gotten a tagged bag. Of course hubbs has not had time to read all the info so I keep having to pull trash out and putting it in the right bag.

Why is there a hole in my floor?

1-27-2008 3:33PM

Actually why are there 2 holes in my floor. There is one in the kitchen and one in the laundry room. They are good sized squares. I assumed the one in the kitchen was a hatch to get under the hatch and never opened it well it has a plastic insert but it is not down in the ground so it isn't exactly cool, well it is but that is because it is cold here. Hubbs says it is to hide from the Nazis. I had to point out that the dog would not fit. I asked one of my coworkers and he told me the real story. Kitchen hole is for dry storage like onions and tomatoes. Laundry room one is for cleaning stuff. I like it because the dogs cannot get into it so I don't have to worry about them breaking into something they shouldn't. He also said they should pull out so you can access under the house and he stores typhoon supplies down there. Of course our talking about it made him wish he had, had them put in the house he just built so he is going to ask his carpenter except he wants one with hydraulics so the laundry supplies pop up out of the floor. Other nice touches are that ever room has a ent for when the summer humidity and more importantly mildew starts. We have an AC/heater in every room. And wonderfully enough on a cold cold morning, heated toilet seats. There is also a bide (however you spell it) but the water is not heated so yeah I would not even try it until summer.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping and life without a car

1-26-2008

So we are car less and were going to try to remain that way except that hubbs time to report is too early most of the time and he sleeps on the ship. Hopefully by the time I get to posting this I will have fixed that and gotten us a car. My boss does not care when I work and the school cares less as long as the work gets done. So I will go in early and get home earlier and at best that is three less bus fares and at worst it is 4. The bus is 240Yen each way so that for the both of us is close to $10 a day.

So I had to do some grocery shopping and decided to take a cab home. It went off without a hitch, thankfully my cab driver knew where my neighborhood is and spoke decent English. It cost me 2500Yen (about $25) but they take credit cards which is good because I had less Yen on me than I thought. It was not too bad and I can generally buy a little at a time but I needed the basic stock up supplies. The day before I carried a 20lb bag of dog food on the bus. We went looking for a car too. There are some for sale on base but they are over 10 years old and cost $2-3000. I was told where the used car district is in town so we went looking. My coworker had said it was too far to walk so we took the train and walked the rest of the way. It turned out it was halfway between the station and our house so we walked the whole way home, couldnt even catch a bus once we were headed back. We saw a lot of cars but none of them were what we really want. There is a Nissan Cube and Suzuki Wide kei-car for sale on base. I plan on calling the owners tomorrow. It looks like we will finally be getting the money owed us BUT it looks like we have not received any OHA and we are on month 2. Thankfully I can cover the rent from my job so I am getting us a vehicle, it sucks having hubbs sleep on the ship.

Last week we took the train to HOMES which is like a Home Depot/Sears/Target and bought things we need for the house and hoofed it all back on the train. We also ate at Denny's It was quite yummy. We have one near the house and I don't doubt we will visit it. I had the best BLT I had ever had and I am not normally a fan of BLTs of course I really wanted a sandwich and it was toasted and warm, it was very cold outside.

When we have a car we still won't be using it much. Just trips to places where we know we can park. Home, Base and the shopping around HOMES. I actually enjoy the train and the bus it is quite relaxing.

I hate Setellite

1-17-2008 9:00pm

Whoever thought up satellite dishes needs to be shot. First off once again a "free" perk of the military is more trouble than it is worth. Last week I received a satellite dish (in pieces), decoder and whatever else I need sans cable to get AFN, EXCEPT INSTRUCTIONS!!!!! Or at least coherent ones. I just spent 90 minutes just assembling the damn thing. The instructions look like they are from a rejected writer for Ikea. SO now I am ready to mount it but need another set of hands. So ok complaint one you know what Satellite dish means? It means when the bolt slips it will slide across the dish and shoot across the room. No instructions means every piece you put on is upside down, backwards or needed to be added after another piece. I love that there is a help phone line and email and website EXCEPT that the links on the site are impossible to find, no one tells you what band your rig is AND it is pretty damn conceivable that if I am setting up AFN, I just moved and have neither a phone nor internet oh yeah AND the tech support is stateside. That is really helpful because stateside service members do not get AFN which means if I had a phone I would be paying long distance charges to talk to them. There is also no bracket, I had to go out in a foreign country where I have no car, no language skills and find a store, the department and then the right product. Thankfully for that I had a coworker take me who has been here almost as long as I have been on the planet so that was great. BTW he also hates satellite. Did I mention that I have to have a cable running from the dish to the decoder to my TV? Yeah I am not happy about that at all. I do not know how that will work or how long it will last. I may only end up using it to hear about Typhoons and then unhooking it.

All of this for like 8 channels, one of which is the Pentagon channel so it does not count. The other channels show the same stuff over and over and over and when they aren't repeating they are showing miltary propaganda. Kids you need atleast a 2.0 to graduate a DODDS high school, don't shake your baby, Sexual harassment is wrong, make sure you have your paperwork on those war trophies and Joe lost his chair in the move Thank God for full replacement insurance. I honestly think once again that some person living on a hill thought of an idea and the concept is great but they obviously do not use the service because the execution sucks buttocks!!

I honestly would not be going through all of this if the Japanese did not have such wacky ways of doing things. Today is Friday, I started trying to get cable and internet on Monday. Phone call one they said go to the website or agent and get the contract. Tuesday go to the website and there is no contract so I fill out a request for service. Wait fo a call......... Tuesday afternoon get the call and am told I have to go to the agent. After work I do that and am told I have to wait for them to call again. Waiting........ Thursday afternoon I finally get the call. We discuss options and I tell him what I want, get the prices, we should be ready to go right? WRONG!!! setup appointment for Saturday the 26th (yes a week later) I work for a living so yeah saturday is the only option. Will I have service then?? NO! That is for me to sign the contract and for them to find out what they need to do to get me service. Then on February 2nd (my best friends wedding day) I will FINALLY get service. If I do I have a blog post just for her :) SO yeah until then it will be email from work and MASH reruns or whatever else I want to watch on DVD.

I did get the dish into the room where it will be going on the balcony finally. I set it down and Elsa (the smart one) bolted for the opposite end of the room whereas Gaven tried to turn it into a fort. Oh I love my puppies but I have to agree with Elsa, run, run, run away very fast. AFN is evil. I am to the part where I need an extra person so I may call in some friends or I may wait for the husband to return from being seasick.