Ueno Zoo

Yesterday I took the kids and G's best friend to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo (Otis is on call this week, so he couldn't come). I was Ethan's age when I first visited Ueno Zoo! 35 years ago! It's a great zoo with all the major animals: hippos, giraffes, lions, tigers, plus a few great ones like penguins, polar bears and sea lions! I don't think I've ever actually seen a polar bear before.

>

>

>

Some interesting history of the zoo: Ueno Zoo was opened in 1882! That's 20 yrs younger than the Bronx Zoo, but still pretty impressive! Some stories say that during WWII, the Japanese army ordered that all the "dangerous and wild" animals at the zoo be killed because they were afraid that the zoo would be bombed and animals would escape. I've researched that story a bit and don't happend to believe it. Zoo animals were killed during the war, but it was for other reasons entirely.

>

The kids in front of the pagoda inside the zoo. Check out that hawk I caught flying by!

>

>

The monorail that takes you from one side of the zoo the the other.

>

At the sloth exhibit, the sloths can climb out of their enclosure along a rope to a tree top that's not enclosed. This handy little brochure attached to the tree assures visitors that as the sloths climb overhead along the rope, they won't poop on you, because sloths climb down to the ground once a week to poop.

>

>Cute otter.

This tank sits outside the otter enclosure, connected to the enclosed pool by a long tube which allows the otter to swim back and forth from his cage to the tank.

>

Sadly, Ling Ling the panda died in April of old age, he was 22, so there are no more pandas at Ueno. But Gabi was able to see him last year before he died while on a school field trip. Ling Ling was also the name of the first female panda at the zoo in D.C., she died when she was 23.

>

You can't beat the prices at Ueno either, kids 11 and under are FREE! 13 - 15 only Y200 and adults are only Y600! Compare that to what we were paying for admission at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa: $14.95 for kids 3 - 11, $18.95 for 12 and up!!!!!! That's just ridiculous! I paid about $13, where I would have paid $87 back home. And Ueno has way more animals too!>

>

>

Quick Xmas Summary

Just some Xmas pix:

Our house (we're on the right, with the darkened porch. we decorated with our next door neighbors, the other two units in our bldg are empty)

>

>

Our tree on Xmas eve

>

>

Gabi's loot from Santa

>

>

Meg's Santa pile

>

>

E's stash

(the gray car ramp in the back is from last year)

>

>

Just woke up

>

>

Gabi and the now named "Susie Maria"

>

>

Meg on her new Japanese bike

>

>

Fen opening his prezzie from Momo (grandma)

>

>

A-L-O-N-E

Here I am, all fluffed up in my cozy, comfy, and most importantly, EMPTY bed, ALL ALONE, at the New Sanno hotel! At last!



I had a really nice day, nothing spectacular, but I spent it my way, doing what I wanted to do, when and how I wanted to do it. Then again, it was pretty spectacular!



Post and pics coming soon!

>

>

Chestnut Mojo

Tonight Otis and I went to Member Apprecitation Night at the Officer's Club with our friends Frank and Candy (Frank is an OR nurse too, he just came back last week from 4 months in Afghanistan). The club has a member's night every month with free dinner, games and prizes.

My name got picked for musical chairs, I lost. But to my credit I got down to 4 people out of 10 after I had already had 3 margaritas and was walking round and round a small circle in high heels. My consolaton prize was $5 in "Club Bucks" which will get me 2 margaritas, and my name went back in the pot. Towards the end of the night they pulled Otis' name for a digital camera, called another name for an umbrella, then pulled my name for a micro stereo system!! Woo hoo! I've been begging Otis to go to member's night ever since we got here but it's always in the middle of the week and he hates going out on a school night, but now he's ready to go back again :)

Did I mention that I LOVE TOKYO ?!?!? Day One

Damn good thing we brought a map!!

It was actually a very easy, though expensive drive, straight down the Chuo/Shuto expressway: $13.00 for tolls each way. It only took us an hour to get there!! We couldn't believe it! We only made one wrong turn and just stopped at a convinience store for directions.

We didn't know before, but Hardy Barracks is the headquarters for the Pacific Stars & Stripes, the military newspaper for all of the Pacific area. HB consists of just 2 buildings: the hotel, pictured above, and the S&S building. Our room was great: no frills but it had a queen size bed in the bdrm and a sleeper sofa in the living room with a full bathroom (complete with cadillac potty) in between. We had a fridge, microwave and dvd players, dvd's are available to check out for free in the office. Not too shabby for only $50/night ($35 for the 1st person, $5 for each additional person over 3 years old). The only down side is that there's no food nearby. They offer a free continental b'fast and there's a small convinience store on-site, other than it's a good 20-minute walk to the nearest grub.

Just cause he's so cute! This is Ethan waiting for the subway. We arrived in plenty of time to head for Roppongi for dinner.

It started raining as soon as we got to HB, but I was not about to spend our first night in the hotel! So we grabbed our umbrellas and headed to TGI Friday's. The food was delicious, but not something we'll be doing again any time soon!!! :( The girls both had appetizers as their meals: Gabi had a 3-piece chicken tender plate (just chicken, no fries or anything) and Meg had an order of chili-cheese fries. Otis and I both had bacon cheeseburgers with fries (Ethan just ate off our plates). Add in 3 sodas and 1 pina colada for a grand total of.......$81.00!!!!!!! I knew it'd be pricey, but DAMN!!! When I say we won't be doing it again anytime soon, of course I mean "us" as a family, it won't be nearly as expensive when I go by myself!!! LOL!

Stay Tuned!!

Tomorrow we're heading off for what will be, I'm sad to say, our first real trip to Tokyo. Yes, it's pathetic that we've been here for 7 months (has it really been that long already?) and this will be our first trip to Tokyo. Otis and I went to Ginza for a few hours once, and I did my quick trip to the YOSC conference a few weeks ago, but that was just one day and I didn't make it very far from the hotel. So this will be our first real trip; the first of many, I promise!!

We are staying 2 nights at Hardy Barracks, a tiny Army (or maybe Navy?) post right in the heart of Tokyo, Roppongi to be exact. We've decided to drive so we'd have a bit more flexibility with our schedule. Not sure if that's going to turn out to be a very good idea or not; it's supposed to be a very simple drive, a straight shot down the expressway, but it's not unusual for the 30 mile drive to Tokyo to take 3 + hours! The plan is to go to Akihabara, Tokyo Tower and Odaiba, we'll see how well we stick to the plan. I just have to keep telling myself that I have years to see everything, on most of our outings I'm usually running around in a panic trying to cram in every possible site and activity as if we're leaving next week. I just so don't want to waste a single minute of our time here!!

Looks like Singapore is on the back burner for now. Otis is really swamped at work and they're really short-staffed so he can't get enough time off for an extended trip, we're moving to Plan B with lots of short 2 - 3 day trips instead, easier on the wallet for sure.

Coocoo for CoCo's

Tonight we had dinner at CoCoIchibanya, better known as Coco's, a really popular Japanese curry restaurant. The one we ate at is directly across the street from a McDonald's which has seating and a playplace on the 2nd floor. The kids ate at McD's, the seating and play area are right in front of a huge window and we could see them from our table at Coco's; this is a great way to eat dinner out on our own but with the kids at the same time :)

This Coco's is tiny, only 3 small booths and maybe 7-8 seats at the counter. At Coco's you choose what type of curry you want, they have several different plates with things like chicken, pork, beef, crab cakes, eggplant, fried quail eggs...then you choose your toppings, everything from garlic chips and cheese to fried oysters and natto (fermented soy beans)...then you choose your level of spicyness from 1 - 10. Each level had it's own description/warning, level 1 says something like: For those who enjoy spicy food but also enjoy tasting the flavor of their curry. The menu tells you that only people who have eaten a full plate of 5 spicy are allowed to order 10 spicy! I got level 2, it was spicier than I like but not too bad, O had level 3. It was good, everyone talks about Coco's all the time so I really wanted to try it.

Curry really isn't my thing, but it was good and I'm glad we went. The very best part was topping off the meal with a Choco Bite from McD's!!! So f****** yummy!!

Snow Day, the Trilogy!

Snow again! There were still some patches of snow around from last weekend, but the majority of it was gone. Again the timing is perfect, it started snowing yesterday around 4p and it was still coming down pretty heavily when I went to bed at 11p, so the kids have all day today to enjoy it. We made 'ghetto' snow boots for the kids (taped plastic bags over their shoes), Ethan hated them but they worked great for the girls. Gabi's feet are HUGE, she fit in my size 9 boots! But I was wearing them, so she had to make do with the ghetto boots.

Last night about 9p it was still snowing really hard and it had gotten pretty deep. I had the blinds up on our sliding glass doors so we could watch it and suddenly the 3 year old girl from 2 doors down went running past in her pajamas. I stepped outside to make sure her parents knew she was out and all the families from the 3 buildings (ours and the ones in front and behind us) were coming out in the snow, so of course we all had to suit up and join them. It was a lot of fun, Otis even joined us and even Ethan had fun. We had a huge snowball fight and everybody made a snowman. Gabi and Otis did most of the work on ours. I'm sure Megan will end up sick again, she was just getting over her cough and she got totally soaked in the snowball fight.

Here are all the snow day pictures, the last 10 are from last night.

Confessions of a Daiso Addict

The girls and I took the train to Machida today (Ethan and Otis stayed home, E is still recuperating from his cold). It was Megan's first train ride, she really loved it. The main purpose of our trip was to hit the Daiso, or 100 Yen store. Machida is also the closest place to us with a TGI Fridays, and it's a fun place to just wander around soaking up all that is Japan.

Daiso is so AWESOME! They're all over the place, we have at least 10 just around the base, but the one in Machida is the biggest in Japan, 5 floors! Daiso is like our Dollar Tree in the states, only WAY better! They have tons of great stuff, not the typical you-get-what-you-pay-for junk in U.S. stores, they have everything from snacks to motor oil, lots of great dishes, a huge selection of really cute stationary/office supplies, it's a fantastic place for sourveneirs and just about anything else you can think of. Not to mention the fact that on a good day, 100Y is actually only about $0.88! The only problem is that you very quickly end up with 50 things in your basket, things you didn't even know you needed until you saw them for only 100Y, at which time they become something you absolutely have to have, and suddenly 5000Y doesn't sound like quite the great deal that 100Y was! I did okay today though, we only spent 1100Y.

We left from Higashi Fussa station, it's a smaller station a little closer to the base than the station most people use (Fussa). It's such a smaller station, there are no station attendants, only one ticket-purchasing machine and no ticket-taking machines (normally to get down to the train platform you have to insert your ticket in a machine, pass thru and get your ticket out on the other end. When you reach your destination you put your ticket in the machine as you exit, an alarm sounds if you pass thru without inserting a ticket). Anyway, Higashi Fussa is too small for any of that stuff and when we got there the ticket machine was turned off and had a sign on it, all in Japanese of course! Since you don't need a ticket to get to the platform at this station we were able to get on the train without them, but I knew we wouldn't be able to leave the station in Machida without tickets. There are Fare Adjustment windows in the bigger stations where you can pay the difference or get refunds in the event you purchase a ticket for the wrong amount, so I took a picture of the sign and when we got to Machida I showed the pic to the lady at the Fare Adjustment window and paid our fare. As it turns out the picture was totally unecessary because the attendant spoke perfect English, but I was pretty proud of my ingenuity! My creative communication skills have improved dramatically since moving here.

At the train station Megan tried out a "squatty potty", a Japanese style toilet. Suffice it to say her squatting technique needs quite a bit of work! Luckily we were only 4 stops from home.

Not Your Grandma's School Bus

Ethan has been home sick all week, he finally went back to school today!His bus ride to and from school is about an hour each way, even though the school is only about 15 miles away (traffic in Japan is absurd!). The school bus is so cute, it's a little mini-bus with little pre-school sized seats covered in a kitty-cat print vinyl, very Japanese. When Ethan got on the school bus this morning we saw that they had installed a DVD player and 10" monitors on the bus so the kids can watch TV on the long ride!

Fussa

It was a beautiful, sunny day on Saturday, a little windy, but not too cold, so we decided to walk around Fussa for a while. For those of you who don't know, Fussa-shi is where our base is located. If we drive around to the north/west side of the base we can walk to the Fussa train station about 6-7 blocks away; also in that area are Seiyu, McDonald's, KFC and our ultimate favorite: a hundred-yen store! The Tama River is about 2 miles away, I think, we've walked there a bunch of times, but have never taken a direct route and never driven it, so I'm not sure exactly how far it is.

In the photo: The blue, wavy line at the top of the map is the Tama River, the airplane at the bottom (just above the row of photos) is the base, the red box in the center is where we were, at the train station.

My Bold Step into the 21st Century!

I guess I should start with some sort of introduction just in case I'm lucky enough to have some lurkers! I'm a 30-something stay-at-home-mom (I'm sure some clueless husband must have come up with this label; as any mom can attest, I'm never actually at home) and proud military wife. My family and I are new residents of Yokota AB, Japan, having arrived here in Aug 07 from Tampa, FL (Riverview to be exact). Yokota is located in the Kanto Plain region, in Fussa-shi, about 25 miles northwest of Tokyo.

I grew up on Yokota, my dad did two tours here when I was a kid. Needless to say I was ECSTATIC to be returning with my own kids!! Lots of things have changed, as you would expect, but suprisingly a lot has also stayed the same in the 27 years since I lived here. Unbelieveably, we live on the same street that I grew up on! I can actually see my old house from my new backporch; my youngest daughter is attending my old elementary school and my oldest will be attending her aunts' alma mater. Another cool twist, my daughter's first and now best friend here (who was also born on the exact same day!!) lives in my old building!! Is that weird, or what?

I have hopes to make this blog a regular update of our lives in Japan, both for us and for our families and friends. I'll have learn how to post pictures and all that jazz. My techie skills are ridiculously outdated. We'll see how it goes....