Quote of the Month: July 2015

Our July started out as a long day--a very long day.  Exactly three years to the date, we left Japan.  Our journey started out at 8:00 am July 1 (Japan) which was actually 7:00 pm June 30 (EDT).  We arrived, in our hotel, in Clearwater (FL) at 10:00 pm July 1 (EDT) which was actually 11:00 am July 2 (Japan), for an elapsed time of 27 hours.  It made me think of the following quote, which I recently heard.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. - Lao Tzu

While we took very few steps relative to our distance traveled, we did travel more than a thousand miles.  We traveled over 8,000, to be exact.

Step 1: Blue Bus from Sasebo to Fukuoka International Airport.

Step 2: Flying from Fukuoka to Tokyo

Step 3: Flying from Tokyo to Washington, D.C.

Step: 4 Flying from Washington, D.C. to Tampa, FL.

Step 5 was driving the rental car from the airport to the hotel, but it took so ridiculously long to rent the car in Tampa, I forgot all about taking a picture.  I can't sleep on airplanes so I had effectively been up over 24 hours at that part and was just glad I wasn't drowsy driving to the hotel.  I think fear and adrenaline kicked in as this was the first time in three years that I had to drive on the right side of the road versus the left like I did in Japan.  Unfortunately, I think the long time at the rental counter at TIA gave the kids a second wind and they were pretty amped up and giggly by the time we got checked into our hotel.  I, on the other hand, was quite the opposite and this led to all of us being unhappy by the time we went to bed.

Overall, I can't complain.  All the flights were on time and without incident.  They couldn't give me my boarding tickets to all my flights in the beginning so I had to get them at each leg.  That, coupled with long lines through Customs & Immigration and security led for very short waits in each airport.  In fact, we barely made our Tokyo-to-Washington flight.  We were running to the gate and were some of the last passengers who boarded the plane.  The kids, with the exception of the end of the trip that I mentioned above, were awesome.  They are such good air travelers.  Goodness knows they've had enough practice--and have traveled many thousands of miles!

Kicking the Bucket (In a Good Way)

So, with a little less than two and a half weeks left in Japan, I sat the kids down and had them write out a "bucket list" of places they wanted to go/things they wanted to do before we left Japan.  I had to limit them to things on Kyushu, which took Tokyo Disneyland off the table (much to their dismay).  They came up with a well-balanced list, I thought.

All of the things they chose were within 30 minutes of us with the exception of Uminonakamichi Seaside Park, which is in Fukuoka (about 1.5 hours away).  The biggest wildcard in completing the list was the weather.  The month of June is the rainy season here in southern Japan so the many parks on the list posed a challenge.  We often had to do our schedule on the fly depending on weather.  We did, however, successfully complete our list although we had to swap out the park in Fukuoka for Saikai Park, which is located about 15 minutes way.  We have a few more days here, but each day brings more appointments, errands and chores so I'm glad we knocked out the list.  Now anything else we do is a bonus.

June 15: Peacock Park

June 16:  $1 Movies (Tomorrowland)

June 17:  Dinner at Hamakatsu

June 18:  Relaxing at the onsen.

June 18:  Eating yakiniku for lunch at Jyu-Jyu Karubi.

June 20:  Petting Aaron's favorite animals, capybaras, at Bio Park.

June 21:  Movies - Inside Out

June 23:  Forest Park in Arita.

June 24: Saikai Park

June 24:  Lunch at Sushiro (sushi-go-round).

And speaking of bonuses, one night I had our babysitter, Abby, watch the kids and I went out to dinner with my friends Michelle, Kathy & Lisa to one of my favorite places to eat.  And the weather didn't even matter.

June 23:  Okonomiyaki for dinner at Dohton Bori with friends.

Quote of the Month: June 2015

In preparation for leaving Japan (for good) next week, I sold the Blueberry (our blue Toyota) today.  I sold it to a nice person called Nicole, who has a three-year-old daughter and a husband who is currently deployed.  While we were in the Vehicle Registration Office (VRO) this morning, completing the paperwork to transfer the title and the JCI (Japanese Compulsory Insurance), the man working at the VRO asked Nicole for her husband's date of birth.  When she replied and I heard that the year was the same as the year I graduated high school, I felt really old.  Ack!  This guy who was born while I was graduating high school is married with a kid.  How did this happen?  I haven't felt like I've been in the proper demographic group for quite some time but maybe I have been.

You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old. - George Burns

Looking at the bright side, I took some solace at the fact that while playing pick-up basketball tonight with a mixture of women on my intramural team and high school girls, someone told me I was fast.  I've always been a pretty good athlete, but I've never been fast, even when I was in good shape.  I didn't argue with her, however.  I just said thanks and called it a day.

Watch Out, Colonel Sanders

About 5-10 minutes from our apartment is a restaurant called Hamakatsu.  It is another favorite of my friend, Kathy, that she has introduced me to, which I then introduced to Matt & the kids.  Hamakatsu is part of a chain of restaurants and it specializes in tonkatsu, or pork cutlet.  They also serve fish and chicken cutlets and it is the chicken katsu that we hold in high regard.  Matt says it's the best fried chicken he's had here in Japan.  I really like it because it is boneless, skinless white meat chicken.  While I took that for granted in the U.S., that is not the norm for chicken dishes/sandwiches/nuggets in Asia.

The interior of Hamakatsu is nothing special--it's like any affordable, casual family restaurant you would find in America with booths and tables.  It's the experience that separates the Japanese restaurants from the American.  It seems that even with the simplest meals there are many moving parts.  All meals at Hamakatsu come refillable rice (white or with barley), miso soup (red or white), cabbage (shredded or chopped) and pickles (nothing that would resemble pickles in America).  There is a pitcher of hot tea on the table and you get a toddler-sized glass of mizu (water).  After you order your katsu and select your preferences for the side dishes, a server comes out and fills your table with a bunch of stuff:  wet wipes for washing your hands, chop sticks, a bowl of sesame seeds, salt & pepper, a tiny glass decanter filled with some type of oil/sauce to use with the pickles, a bowl and a thick, wooden dowel to use as a mortar & pestle and two types of salad dressing.

After ordering, before the meal arrives.

The sesame seeds, bowl and dowel are used to make katsu sauce.  I think I may have mentioned before that Japanese are all about condiments and sauces with their food.  You scoop some sesame seeds into the bowl (I like one spoonful; Kathy likes four) and then you grind them with the dowel or pestle.  Once the seeds are to your desired consistency, then you can pour your desired amount of prepared sauce(s) into the bowl.  On the table, along with the pitcher of tea and napkins the size of a toilet paper square, there are two smaller pitchers each filled with a sauce--one sweet and one savory.  (I like to use one part sweet to three parts savory.)  You mix it all together with your chopsticks.  By the time you finish this, they are usually coming out with your meal (unless it's really busy and even then it doesn't take too long).

Grinding sesame seeds to make the katsu sauce.

Chicken katsu with shredded cabbage salad, rice with barley,
pickles and white miso soup (not pictured).

When Hamakatsu is busy sometimes servers will walk around every now and then with a bowl full of cabbage offering refills, but mostly you just ring the bell that's on your table and a server will immediately come over and you can request your refill of anything except more katsu.

Most of the time we go there or any Japanese restaurant Aaron, the food racist, usually refuses to eat anything other than what we have brought for him from home.

Aaron likes sandwiches.

He is convinced that Japanese food, even things like french fries and chicken nuggets, are different and he won't like them.  He doesn't even want to try them.  However, when we went for dinner earlier this week, Matt somehow convinced him to try the chicken and he liked it.  He even ate a little rice...and then he ate the peanut butter sandwich I had packed for him.  It was like Sam-I-Am but with chopsticks.

Aaron eating chicken katsu with chopsticks.

Leah ate two bowls of rice!

It would be nice to think that with two and a half months left Aaron would now be open to trying other Japanese foods/restaurants but I'm not holding my breath.  Matt's just happy that Aaron now has a favorite Japanese restaurant and it is the same as his.

The Last Homecoming?

Daddy's home!

Yesterday (April 10), Matt came home from what was probably his last deployment ever.  The thing that made this homecoming day special (in addition to the thought of it being the last one) is the BHR hosted a "Dependents Day Cruise."  This is where sailors could have family and guests (8 years & older) come onto the ship and sail the last little bit home together.

Since Leah was old enough but Aaron was not, I let Leah decide if she wanted to go by herself and have a daddy-daughter day or whether she wanted me to get someone to watch Aaron while we both went together.  She chose the first option, going by herself.

I made arrangements with the CO's wife, Heather, to escort Leah to the ship.  Everyone going on the cruise had to meet at Port Ops so they could ride in a LCU for about an hour from the base to the BHR.  Once they reached the ship then Matt would meet Leah and take her off Heather's hands.  That was the plan and it went fairly smoothly.  However, the muster time (when Leah had to check in and be at the dock) became earlier and earlier and the time when they were scheduled to leave wasn't the time they really left.  Factor in that it was cold and rainy and it did not make for a good beginning of the day.  I had to wake the kids up at 5:00 am so we could check-in Leah at 6:00 am and meet Heather.  The LCU trip was supposed to begin at 7:00 am but it wasn't until almost 7:30 am before they started lining people up, giving them life preservers and going over safety instructions.  Leah was wet and frozen and just miserable.  I almost thought she might give up but she soldiered through.  She just kept asking me when could she get to daddy's ship.  Aaron and I left her when they were lining up for their safety instructions, and Matt called me when she arrived to the ship.  He received good reports from both the CO's and the XO's wives that Leah was a trooper and did well.  While Leah was riding the LCU, I took Aaron to breakfast at the McDonald's on base.  I suspect he was having a better time at that moment.

Leah:  cold, wet, tired and miserable.

Aaron loves McDonald's hotcakes and hash browns.

A much happier Leah on the ship with her dad.

Since the weather was lousy, there was no "steel beach picnic" on the ship as originally planned.  (A steel beach picnic is a cookout on the deck.  Sometimes this happens underway as a special treat for the sailors.) Instead, there was lunch in the mess decks as usual.  Apparently, Leah ate a hamburger and (multiple) chocolate chip cookies while the Lego Movie played.  In addition, there were static displays where they could look at different equipment and Matt took Leah on a tour of the ship.  She seemed to enjoy it.  Best of all, the Dramamine worked and she did not get seasick!

Leah posing with a helicopter on the deck of the ship.

Leah tries on some gear.  "Don't worry Mom,
the gun wasn't loaded," she told me later.

At 2:30 pm, Aaron and I returned to base right as the ship was coming in to port.  We could see Matt and Leah on the top deck.  They look so tiny because Matt's ship is huge.

Leah is in the pink jacket and Matt is waving.

Even though the ship came in on time, as scheduled, at 2:30 pm, it was another hour and a half before the lines were tied up, the gang plank was set up and Matt and Leah got off the ship.  This ship always takes a long time, it seems, from the time it pulls into port to the time the sailors can leave the ship.  That is one thing I will definitely not miss about the deployments here in Japan.  And hopefully, I won't ever have to miss Matt for months at a time again either!

Okonomi-yaki

On Wednesday, February 25, my friend Kathy took me to lunch at a restaurant in town called Donton Bori. It is an okonomi-yaki restaurant, which means "as you like it" pancakes. I'm not talking buttermilk pancakes you would get at IHOP, but rather Japanese savory pancakes. Most have cabbage and Chinese yam in it along with the special ingredient: hakurikiko flour, which is a low-gluten Japanese flour. Since "yaki" means to cook or grill, you get to mix the batter and cook the pancake at the table.

The restaurant was pretty cool. It has traditional Japanese elements like removing your shoes at the entryway. There were lockers for your shoes except instead of a metal key, there was a thin,wood block with grooves cut into it that worked like a key.

Shoe lockers with wooden keys.

The tables appeared to be traditional seating as well, with no chairs but underneath there was an area cut out so your legs could drop as if you were seated in a chair.

Table with flat-top grill built into it.

Hidden leg room under the table.

The table had a flattop grill built into it, like a tiny teppan-yaki table.We both ordered cheese and mochi (rice cakes made from pounding rice into a paste) pancakes.  Japan is very big on lunch "sets" (think combo meal) so for an extra Y100 we got the set that included a side dish of yakisoba (which we also got to cook ourselves).  Our lunch set also featured ice cream for dessert. They had the traditional vanilla and chocolate as well as banana, but there were also sweet potato and Okinawan sweets flavors.  The lunch set did not include a drink (they rarely do) but we lucked out because apparently every Wednesday at that restaurant is Ladies Day so the drink bar (fountain drinks, tea and coffee) was free.  Woo hoo!

So, after ordering, the waitress brings out a wet wipe for your hands and face before eating, a big, metal spatula for cooking and a daikon radish salad.

Ready to get started.

Daikon radish salad.

Next, your batter ingredients, all in one bowl, to be mixed by you, the consumer.  (Kathy joked how it was funny that all her favorite restaurants require her to do all the cooking.)

Cheese and mochi batter, as it arrives to the table.

After mixing, you pour a little cooking oil on the grill top and then pour the (lumpy) batter, as thinly as possible (which is not as easy as it sounds).

Batter mixed and ready to be cooked.

Trying to pour the batter into a thin circle.

It's not as easy to see when to flip it like a buttermilk pancake so you have to keep checking on it.  Once it's all cooked, you can eat it as-is, but traditionally, it is eaten with Japanese mayonnaise (tastes different from American mayonnaise) and some kind of dark brown sauce.  (Japanese people are very big on condiments and sauces, I've found.)

Okonomi-yaki, with condiments, ready to be eaten.

After eating our okonomi-yaki, it was time for our side order of yakisoba.  That was easier to cook.  Just dump it on the grill, pour some water on and around it for steam, and keep it moving.

Yakisoba, anyone?

After the yakisoba, we really didn't have room for ice cream, but I had to try it.  The sweet potato flavored ice cream, which I ordered, was lavender colored and slightly sweet.

Vegetable-flavored ice cream was a new experience for me.

It was OK but not a flavor I would order again.  The Okinawan Sweets flavored ice cream that Kathy ordered was white and almost tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough, sans chocolate chips.  I only had a couple bites, but it was good.  I would order that flavor again.

Overall, it was a fun and tasty experience and more importantly, it was something I would have never experienced back in the US (or probably even here if Kathy hadn't enlightened me).  We'll see what Matt and the kids think when I take them.

I Am Leah, Military Child

April is the Month of the Military Child.  Stars and Stripes have requested kids in Europe and the Pacific regions tell their stories.  Leah's class wrote poems and they were published online on the Stars and Stripes website.  Leah's teacher told me Leah wrote a good poem, but I never saw it until now.  I try not to brag about Leah (or Aaron) too much, but this blew me away.  I have it pasted below but if you want to read any of the other stories or poems, you can see them here:  http://stripesrewards.com/militarychild/.

I Am Leah, Military Child

Leah Rich
Sasebo, Japan

I am Leah, military child
I have to lose my friends.

I am Leah, military child
My heart breaks when Dad leaves.

I am Leah, military child
Strong in faith, strong in heart.

I am Leah, military child
I hold my tongue and hide my tears.

I am Leah, military child
Even though times are tough, I play my part.

Quote of the Month: March 2015

Matt and I were married 11 years ago today.  It's hard to believe.  While it doesn't seem like "just yesterday," it certainly doesn't feel like 11 years.  Matt estimates in "real time," meaning the time we've actually been together, it's more like 7.5 years.  That's probably pretty accurate.  Some people have a hard time dealing with extended separations from their spouse, but I always joke with Matt that I don't know what's going to happen once he retires and we'll always be together.  Maybe I'll have to get a job involving travel. (Ha, ha!)  In all seriousness, I think we have had a successful relationship because since we started out doing the long-distance thing, we developed good communication skills.  

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Matt, naturally, is away so we will celebrate together when he returns.  He was, however, able to call me tonight from the ship.  It's always nice to be able to converse, even if it's not in person.