My first experience off base

On Saturday, Mike took me off base for the very first (and so far only) time! I had no idea how weird or different it would feel once we got off base but gosh was it funny! We drove on the LEFT side of the road to a huge superstore called Joyful Honda. It's kind of like a cross between a Walmart and a Home Depot. Anyway, driving on the left side of the road was scary enough for me and I found myself sucking in my breath and squeezing my eyes shut a couple of times. I even told Mike to get over on the other side at one point because my jet lag and stupidity made me forget that driving on the left side is what you're supposed to do! Once we got to Joyful Honda, I almost felt like I was at Disneyland because there were so many Asians ; ) The store itself was pretty amazing although I couldn't tell you where to find anything because all of the writing is in Japanese and I don't read or speak a lick! While we were there, Mike and I were trying to figure out a way to carpet our house. You see in Japan, they really don't have carpet installation services. I actually don't think they have carpets, just those tamari mats. Anyway, we found carpets on these large spools basically and were trying to calculate how many centimeters we would need for each room and how much yen it would cost for that many cm! When we finally did the math ourselves and were ready to buy it, then we hit another obstacle. We had no way of telling the people who work there what we wanted! So we left the carpet area and will be back when we speak Japanese ; )

When we left the carpet area, we went upstairs to the pet store and I witnessed the most crazy contraption invented for pets. Inside the store, there was a glass room with what looked like a washing machine. I wish I had my camera but picture this washing machine with a glass window where you can see your cycle spinning. Now, in place of a load of laundry in the washing machine, imagine a dog inside...no joke! They literally put their dogs in this machine and watch the little fella get washed. I mean the dog isn't thrown around or anything but I've never seen anything like it! Once the water is off, then the blow dryer starts and then there's this dog just looking at you through the glass window with his fur blowing every which way and panting simultaneously! Haha, it was so crazy! On a sidenote, the Japanese are crazy about their dogs! Every other person had their dog in the store with them. Most of the doggies were little and fit inside of the carts but they are all treated like royalty. There are even these special puppy mats for the dogs to sit on inside the cart.

After the pet store, Mike and I used the bathrooms. I normally wouldn't blog about using the bathroom but this was another interesting experience I must share. Walking into the bathroom, I bumped into someone and she said "hdaiougha hgioaughh" so I said sorry. I didn't know what else to say! Then I got into my stall and was quite surprised to see what they consider a toilet. This thing was like a car that you can do your business in! The thing had all these buttons to push. For example, the purpose of one button was to make the flushing sound without actually flushing. This is so if you'd like a little white noise while you're doing your business, no one would really hear what's actually going on behind the stall! There was also a bidet option so you could wash your privates (haha) and like a ton of other weird stuff but I didn't have enough time to keep Mike waiting while I played with my toliet. I left my special toilet and told her I'd be back again soon! Why don't we all have toilets like that???

All that being said, I really do like it here and I'm happy to have my own home. Tonight I'm cooking for Mike for the very first time since getting married 7 months ago. I'm making fajitas! Which reminds me, I need to look up the recipe for the lime marinade that I like to use so I best gets the steppin! Peace out yos!