Got to see new house-1st time!

As you know, we have had a house on reserve for us the past 3 weeks. We reserved with only seeing the outside, couldn't go inside because people were still living there. We loved the location and just took a chance since there is shortage of housing. I got the call yesterday that it was ready for us! We will move in on Monday :) So, I got Berto out of work and we went and got a lot of things done. We went and reserved furniture until we get ours in the second shipment. So, we will get a loaner bed, dresser, kitchen table, sofa, lamps, fridge, stove etc. The appliances we can keep until we leave. Then we got the 5 copies of a lease that we needed to fill out with our landlord. We then went to find out when they can deliver our express shipment (the first round of packing that was about 800 lbs of our stuff. Lots of kitchen stuff) and they will deliver on Tuesday. Then we went to appointment with landlord, Ms. Moishi. We filled out lease, got our keys, she answered questions. And we paid our deposits and 15 days of rent. Whhewww. Getting excited at this point.

Then we went to look at the house. There were some workers in it. But we LOVE it!!! It is a very good size. There are lots of hall closets and the inside looks brand new. (I'm guessing the house is only a few years old) Hardwood floor throughout!! I need to get some rugs ASAP!! When you walk in there is a long hallway, first door on right is garage. Then there is 2 bedrooms on the right. Master bedroom in far back. It has double closets. Every room has a ceiling fan and a/c heating unit with a remote on every rooms wall. There is a full bathroom connected to our room. This will end up being Berto's shower. On the left to our room is the 4th bedroom, this will end up being my closet/makeup desk area. Next to the room is my shower and sink. In a seperate small room there is a toilet with a small sink. Then theres the kitchen with dining area open on other side. Kitchen has stainless steel counters. (Seems like all houses here are like that) To the back of the kitchen is the laundry room. I didn't get a pic, there was a guy working in there. Then the living room. Sliding glass doors to the small porch. We have a small front yard, there is no backyard.

Our shipment of all the rest of our stuff will be here sometime in Sept., not sure when. We have ordered fiber optic for internet but that will take a couple weeks. Hopefully I can pick up Wifi from someone else!! Otherwise stuck with out internet. We need to look into cable. We definitely want to be able to get American channels. There is a satellite we can get for free through military. But it only has about 10 channels. And we just pay for installation. No monthly fees.

After Tuesday we will see about getting Zeus and Zorro. CROSS YOUR FINGERS!!!



Master Bedroom


Berto's shower


Bathroom connected to room

Remote on the wall

One of these in EVERY SINGLE room


This is the view looking directly out our bedroom window.


Same window looking left, building on the left is the Pachinko Casino.

Second room (my room)
My shower
This is next to my shower
Bathroom with small sink
Kitchen


Living Room
Small porch
View from porch
Hallway as soon as you walk in.
One car garage w/ some great storage.
The attachment on the toilets.
Stainless steel counters
Our house number

(We didn't get this though, another day!!) We went to the local grocery store called Universe. It is pretty big and had lots of great stuff. The veggies and fruits looked soo good. Very fresh and looked perfect. They have tons of seafood. Even lots of stuff that was at the fishmarket that I went to before. Then there was the section that had the food that they make there. You can see all the workers preparing it all, through the glass that goes along the side of building. They all are wearing gloves and masks. It all looked soo good!!

This is what we came home with. We went shopping hungry!! But this is very comparable to dishes you get out on town for a fraction of the cost. This was about $21. It was about a dollar for each skewer, Berto is in love with them and got 8.


HAHAHAHA. These boards are outside every "apt" door. We came home from the movies the other night and someone wrote this. Oh, and at the movies (theater at the Shimoda Mall) you can get beer, hotdogs, french fries and topping on popcorn is butter or caramel. The caramel was really good! We saw Harry Potter.

Three Shrine Festival

This festival was in Hachinohe (same town where I went to the fish market), a couple weeks ago. Right before I had my camera/internet issues. So these are the pics I took with camera. And I took some video too!! It was about an hour away. We had to take a couple toll roads. On the way back Berto somehow took the wrong direction, we had to go about 15 miles out of the way. That ended up being like a 1,000 Yen mistake (10 bucks). Ha-ha. Omg, also once we got there, we couldn't find parking. Just kept driving around looking. We were starting to get frustrated, so were ready to just park anywhere. We found this little lot that had one of those mechanical arms. So, we thought "This looks good enough." I figured we might have a problem once we got back. Of course the ticket was written in Japanese. We kept trying to put some Yen in the slot to let us out. It wasn't working, and just when we were about to call the number listed on sign, an attendant came. I guess the lot was for the nearby hotel. Ooops, so we paid our 150 Yen to get out. :)

The festival had some really elaborate floats. What was really neat was that in order to get through the street in some places that had lights, it transformed! It went from being really tall, to lowering down to fit. You can kind of see that in one video I took. There is a building in background that says "Happy Science". Jim had asked me about that on FB, (I can add pics to FB with one click on cell) I have no idea what that was. They do name alot of things here with "happy" though.

Camera Issues

Hey everybody!!

As some of you know I have been having serious camera and internet issues. My digital camera which I have only had a year and a half isn't working. I have error message about the memory stick. (We tried buying a new memory card to see if that was problem, it didn't work) Soo frustrating because I NEED my camera! I know family/friends all want to see what I'm seeing. There is some internal memory, so I can use it to take some pics, but I don't have the cord that connects to computer. Gilbert and I have been talking about possibly getting a new camera. And trying to send this one in to get fixed. Then we would both have a digital. (We have our first Cyber-Shot too, but that is very OLD and takes regular batteries. And is still in our shipment of stuff)

We have been here about 5 weeks now. Still living at the Navy Lodge. It's been tough just living out of our suitcases this whole time. And being away from our cats. But good news is that we will be moving into our new house on Monday!! (I will be posting iPhone pics, they are not as good a quality as camera pics though)

Love,
Kristina



Our phones, you can see my chapstick in the corner!! :)


Pachinko Casino that is across street from our house!! Jam Friend Club


This is right outside the main gate.


Thought this looked cool, really foggy day.


Little restaurant we went to. They had 2 tables that were seating on "floor". It looked more like a thin cushioned bed. But we sat at the sushi bar. Berto got sushi and chicken skewers. One skewer was skin, meat, some organ?,light meat, dark meat, and a wing.


I got a tempura meal. Shrimp and veggies tempura, with dipping sauce, sticky rice, yummy salad, pickled veggies, miso soup. It was all soo good!! The soup had little shells with tiny amount of "meat". These are the little shells that you find at the beach. And some "ocha" which is green tea.


Outside of restaurant. We will definitely go back.