Hooray for America! Among other things...

Hey Kids!

I have to apologize again for the lull in blogging- but the good news is we now have internet at our house so I can blog more frequently! So now for a quick catch up on my activities and so on.

Last weekend was the weekend of BBQs. We bought a grill on Friday, leading to Nick's new favorite hobby. I'm all about it though because it yields less cooking for me and delicious outcomes! And then on Saturday we went to a grill-out that one of Nick's friends was having. On Sunday we looked in to adopting this cat from a lady at church but we would have to get her declawed first so we're looking in to that.

This week was kind of an odd one because of the holiday in the middle of the week. So Nick worked Monday and Tuesday, then had Wednesday and Thursday off, and then worked Friday again, and now it's the weekend! Monday and Tuesday I logged some more hours in the library and at the gym. Working out is a great way to pass the time but now I'm super sore! Hopefully this pastime will whip me into shape though! All the group fitness classes, as well as membership to the gym, are free on base so I've been taking part in several of the fitness classes. On Tuesday I did a boxing class (with gloves and a bag and everything) and got a super B.A. blister on my knuckle that I'm really proud of!

Independence Day itself was pretty odd roundabout these parts though. Usually the American girl celebrates her favorite holiday up at her grandparent's cabin in Wisconsin, with family, grilling, lake/boating activities, and fireworks. This year however, I was here, in Iwakuni, with Nick. We did invite a few friends over and Nick grilled some Baltimore-style pit beef  (told you it was his new hobby and it yields delicious things!) but there were no fireworks! It just didn't seem right to have the fourth of July without fireworks but they didn't launch any from base because it's rainy season and while it wasn't actually raining at dusk, it was cloudy and had been raining earlier in the day and near everyday leading up to the 4th. I guess we just have to hold out a few more weeks because the base has a festival in August, after rainy season is over, and launches fireworks then. Also, there are lots of festivals coming up out in town and in nearby towns that usually end in fireworks so I am really hoping to see some then!

We literally spent the entirety of Thursday shopping around for the best garbage/recycling sorting system for our garbage. Remember how I was telling you about the complexities of the sewage system here? Well until Thursday, we just had bags on the kitchen floor full of various types of waste.

But after 6 stores and several hours we have these:

(Left) is what we have in our kitchen, with no less than 6 bins and then
(Right) is what we have outside for when the inside ones get filled but won't be picked up but for once a month.




It works so far! Once our stuff gets here, I plan to make it a little prettier with color coding and what not but for now, here it is!

Thursday ended with me attending my first Japanese class! I enrolled in a pre-beginners course that meets once per week for 3 months. Time to start memorizing all those Hirigana characters!

Yesterday we got internet! A rather joyful experience actually because even though I had to call technical support to get help, once it came out that I was American (even though we had been speaking English the whole time), I had the best customer service experience of my life! And how many times does that happen, mentioning that you are American and you get better service? It was so cool!

But even with all that help, we still had to call back this afternoon to get help setting up the wireless router. This is what ensued:

  

That's the hubby on the phone with technical support, with 2 computers out, a spiderweb worth of cords, and the router and the modem and their boxes strewn across the floor. Chaos, I tell you! But it's all figured out now :) Well, we still have a .jp IP address so we can't get to webpages like Pandora or Netflix and right now, all the text besides on this draft page, besides my original composition here, is in Japanese characters. Luckily, I'm pretty familiar with the toolbars, etc or this blog would probably not get published. I know you are just so relieved. 

I'll finish by telling you about last night and then you will be all caught up on our Japanese adventures.

So last night, we went to this place called the Beer Garden which is on the top floor of this hotel in downtown Iwakuni. It's an all you can eat/all you can drink Japanese buffet. Delicious! I was excited for the nighttime view of Iwakuni from above, unfortunately I didn't not get to take in the sight because, surprise, surprise, it rained. Well, not only did it rain, but it torrential down-poured, with high winds, and lots of thunder and lighting! (Apologies for the Minnesotan in me coming out here, talking about the weather!) So it actually ended up still being really cool because it felt like we were in the storm cloud!

Afterwards, we went to this teeny tiny bar on the Yellow Brick Road (which is this pedestrian only road in downtown that has yellow bricks for paving) and sang some karaoke! This American girl sang Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" of course!