Japan - Day 1 & 2

DAY 1 - Thursday: Yokosuka (yo-kos-ka)

Thursday morning Auntie Christine and I chatted over a great American style breakfast. She cooked me toast, eggs - over easy, and bacon, served with a glass of oj.

She went into work for a couple of hours, so I watched some tv and went on a run. Tv here on base is limited to a couple of channels and a lot of the commercials are about the military, it's pretty funny when you're watching "Ace of Cakes" and the commercial all of a sudden has someone in camo talking to you about the military happenings of the world. hahaha! Anyway...the "track" is about a mile away from our housing, so I ventured over and found it. It's not necessarily a track, like a college or high school track, it's more like a paved path around a football feild, tennis walls and courts, a skate park, a street hockey rink and I don't know what else in between. I tried to ask someone standing around what the distance was around but he seemed to have no clue. He said maybe 1/4 mile, but with all that stuff in between, I knew it HAD to be longer. So, I decided to do 4 laps around and time myself. I know I usually run at about 12 min miles, so 4 laps around was equivalent to about 2.5 miles. I knew I wanted to do 5 miles, so it was perfect...I did another 4 laps and walked back home. I got in a total of about 7 miles.

When Auntie Christine got home, I got ready and we ventured about town. We walked along the streets and went to More's, a shopping center. I bought a couple things here and there, of course some Hello Kitty items for myself. And, we ate at a Ramen spot in the mall. THE BEST ramen I've ever had in my life. But, I think I was most amused with the system for ordering/purchasing the food. Right in front of the hostess stand, there's a machine, where you choose what you want. (Thankfully, there's buttons below the pictures, b/c I'm told other places simply have the charaters and neither of us reads Japanese.) So, you press the button with the food you want and put your money in the machine. A ticket comes out and you give that the hostess who then seats you. Talk about efficient and clean (no one handles the money)!

DAY 2 Friday: Kamakura

Friday morning, Auntie Christine and I chatted away again over breakfast. I had some left over mac and cheese she whipped up for us the night before, she made some fried rice for herself. When Uncle DeWayne came home for lunch, we got ready for our day. We dropped him off to his ship and said our good byes, he's off to sea for 2 months. I was sad he was leaving, but at least he was here for a couple of days and I got to see him.

We ventured by "train" (it's actually like Bart) to Kamakura and visited 3 beautiful temples. I can't even begin to explain. (I'll post pictures later.)

And then we rushed home to have dinner with a Japanese family that Auntie Christine is close with. Noriko, along with her daughter, Yukari took us to a Yakitori style Japanese restaurant. She was so apologetic for not bringing us to a nicer restaurant, as everything was booked for some sort of celebration for the beginning of April. We thought the restaurant she did bring us to was wonderful. The food was delicious! We let Noriko and Yukari order for us, and everything they chose was great. Yakitori style is small portions served on short skewers. We had pork, chicken skins, ground chicken...and I can't even remember what else. We also had, tempura, some sashimi, 3 different types of tuna. The sashimi was so fresh and tasty not to mention the wasabi was sooo good too. And we also had kamameshi style rice. It's rice that cooks right in front of you, it's in a little latern looking pot and they light it during the beginning of your meal. Like Chinese restaurants, rice is last, so once you are done with everything else, the rice should be done. And it's comparable to paella, but Japanese style. They use Japanese rice and ours included shrimp, squid, crab, bamboo and some other ingredients, but you can choose different types of kamameshi. Filled with food and a whole lot of sake, Auntie Christine and I ventured home to get a good night's rest. Tomorrow (which is now today) we have a big day! We are going to the taiko drum festival!