Tuesday September 21: This was a pretty boring day for me. Brian went to work, and I stayed at the hotel with not a lot to do. When Brian got back to the hotel, we went to the store to pick up a few things, mainly for the next day because we had an orientation to go to.
Wednesday September 22: At 6:45 on Wednesday morning, Brian and I boarded a shuttle bus to go to the “Newcomer’s Orientation.” It only took about 5 minutes to get to the building (which is about how long it takes to get anywhere on base) and when we went inside, we found that we were about the only people in there. The orientation wasn’t set to start until 7:20 though, so we were plenty early. Mostly during the orientation, people talked about the services available on base as well as the locations of the bases on the islands. We found out some cool things to do, like take a ferry out to an island and get an island tour.
There were many safety regulations that had to be read off as well. It is pretty strict on Okinawa and some of the rules make no sense at all. One of which is about driving: There is a concept called “white lining” which is when a motorcycle, moped, or bicycle drives along the white lines on the road between cars. If a car driver switches lanes or opens their door and a white liner gets into a wreck because of it, it is the car drivers fault. Also, if an American gets into an accident with a native, it is always the American’s fault, no matter the circumstances.
Once the orientation was over, we walked down the road to get some lunch, but we had to move quickly because I was going to take my driver’s license test at 2:00. It is a bit weird because I was able to take my test before Brian (who still hasn’t been able to take his yet). Brian says the logic in that is that his higher up’s are putting pressure on him to drive safely and that it is a big deal to have his license, therefore, he puts that pressure on me so I will be a safer driver too. Anyways, I took my test after not studying much at all, and thankfully passed (barely!). We had to walk to another building so I could actually get my license though. After receiving my license, we walked yet again to another building to see about getting our first shipment of belongings delivered since we were moving into our apartment on Friday. We were a bit frustrated with the lady helping us and her attitude towards her job. We were both dripping sweat from walking in 90 degree heat and were not looking for comedy or attitude!
After finishing up that business and getting a delivery date of Saturday, we proceeded on with our errands for the day. Brian had to pick up a few things for his uniform, after which we gave up walking and got a taxi (boy, we couldn’t wait until we had a car). There were a couple more stops, and then we were thankfully done with our errands for the day. I had been enquiring about a car with a lady, and was set to buy it on Wednesday evening. By the time we got back to the hotel though, it was too late to go to the vehicle registration and insurance buildings to make the title changes, so instead she brought the car to the hotel so I could look at it and drive it around. We set up a time to meet the next day to make the changes.
Thursday September 23: Thursday morning started out pretty boring, Brian was at work and I was dilly-dallying on the computer (since we finally got internet in our hotel room). A little before lunch time, Brian came home from work because he had to be with me when we got the car. At 1:00, the lady came to pick me and Brian up to go and make the title changes for the car. We should have guessed it, but there were unforeseen problems ahead for us. When we got to the vehicle registration building, we were informed by a very rude and unhelpful lady that since Brian didn’t have his license yet; he had to have a waiver signed by his Commanding Officer stating that we could buy the car without him having his license. Luckily, this wasn’t too hard a task once we got to his office. Once this was done, things went very smoothly and about 30 minutes later, we had a car!
Friday was the day we were able to move into our apartment, but we had the option to pick our keys up early. Right when we got the car, it was within the time frame to get our keys early, so we decided to do that. I drove (on the opposite side of the road) to get our keys, and then we went to check out our place since we had never seen the inside of it! The military provided furniture for us and they had moved it in that day. We were very pleased with the set up and condition of our apartment! We could tell already that we would have so much more space than we had in our apartment in North Carolina.
Friday September 24: Today was move in day!!! We were both up pretty early because of our excitement! Once we packed everything up into our suitcases and bags (we always accumulate so much stuff) and squeezed it into the car, we were off to our apartment. Moving in today went very quickly because we didn’t have much stuff at all to actually move in. Brian had the day off since we were moving in, so we went shopping around a little and checked some things out. We couldn’t go grocery shopping yet because on Saturday there was a scheduled power outage, so all of our refrigerated items would be ruined; we were just better off not having any food in our place for another day.
While shopping, we went to the Air Force Base, Kadena on the island. This base has the second largest PX in the world. A PX is a store that has basically everything, a Wal-Mart for the military. We were both very fascinated with its enormity. The coolest part of the store was at the beginning. When you walk in, there are a few stores and vendors as well as a food court, but the main store is upstairs. There is an escalator and right beside that, there is a pulley that will bring your shopping cart upstairs! I had never seen anything like this before and thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Saturday September 25: Yet again on Saturday, I woke up pretty early because of my excitement about seeing some of our things for the first time in a month! This was the smaller shipment of things out of the two shipments, but it was mainly my stuff because of the kitchen supplies. There was a large window in which the movers could have come, but luckily they arrived around 8:30. There were about 5 natives unloading our boxes, and I was quite entertained by them. I thought they looked like Samurais because of the way they were jumping on and off the truck bed. They had all of our boxes in the house in 10 minutes and then the fun began.
We started opening boxes and unwrapping all of our things. The packers in NC wrapped every little thing up in paper so it wouldn’t break; therefore we had mountains of paper left when we finished unpacking our things. This kept us both busy for probably three hours, with the unpacking and organizing of our things.
Saturday was a planned power outage day for the area we live in because a new Naval Hospital is being built on the island. The outage began a little after 8 in the morning and unfortunately lasted until 9:30 at night. The power was supposed to come back on at 6 in the evening, but that sure didn’t happen. We weren’t sure what to expect with the power being out and it being so hot here in Okinawa. Much to our surprise, it never got hot in the house. We opened the windows about 5 in the evening, but that was only because it felt so nice outside. We had bought a cooler the day before to put our few refrigerated items in so they wouldn’t get ruined and that worked very nicely. I was glad that we had unpacking to do that day so that we were able to keep busy while the power was out for a while anyways.
Sunday September 26: Sunday was a boring and restful day. Nothing too huge happened on Sunday besides a very large grocery shopping trip. It was time for us to stock up in our pantry and fridge, and stock up we did!! Our place is really starting to feel like home, especially after I made our first home cooked dinner of baked spaghetti! Of course, it won’t REALLY be home for Brian until he has his precious TV back in his possession…
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