Things that Make me Laugh :)

Ok, I absolutely LOVE talking with Japanese people and learning more about their culture. Last Saturday Brian and I had our friends Ryo and Kahori over for dinner. There English is ok, not great, but good enough to converse a little. It is SUPER fun to get to know them better and of course we both love to practice speaking another language.

First of all, I made enchiladas for dinner. They enjoyed watching me make it and even helped out a bit. At one point I had my hands messy with the sauce and asked them to open a can... apparently a Japanese can opener is pretty different than an American one. They couldn't figure it out and I definitely couldn't explain it to them. I WISH I had a camera cause it was HILARIOUS! They almost looked like the guys in Zoolander hitting the computer like a bunch of monkeys... ok, maybe not that bad, but it was pretty funny.

The best part though is email. I sent Ryo an email to say thank you for coming over and he replied that next time we should go to their house. Let me tell you though, his English really isn't that great and it is really confusing in email. Please read:

Hi,Joy

OK it's good.
Then we treat you to a traditional Japanese-style dish. I do not understand whether you are delicious,and please come to our house to play without hesitation when Brian is going on a business trip.If it gets a telephone, it is OK. We want to learn American culture, English, too and teach you Japanese culture, Japanese.

The Japanese stay was limited, too. Please absorb more it in things of short time

We do help.

Thanks,
Ryo&Kahori

Clearly, his English is WAY better than my Nijongo, and you can figure out what he is trying to say for the most part (there are seriously parts though that I have NO idea what he is saying), but so so funny. And I swear I am NOT making fun of him. It is awesome that they try so hard and I absolutely LOVE IT! It just brings tears to my eyes cause I am laughing so much :) It just makes me wonder what I sound like when I speak Japanese... what am I really saying?

Our Plan... as of Today :)

Alrighty folks... YOU ALL need an update. There was talk of Brian doing EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) and us moving back stateside in the next few months. However, as we are accustomed to in the Navy our plans have changed drastically. So let me just give you the rundown...

Brian's EOD package was approved by his command and sent off to the detailer. We were waiting on orders when we found out that the detailer denied it. This came as a surprise to us cause we didn't think it could get denied after being approved by the command. The reasons it was denied were 1) Brian's higher tenure, 2) His age (EOD age limit is 30), and 3) he recently dropped out of BUD/S. Apparently EOD is in the same boat as SEALs and if you drop out of one you cannot return to either until 2 years has passed. Though he is over the age limit his PT scores are great so I am not sure why that mattered. Probably because it was just one more thing (he would need a waiver). As for his higher tenure.... it does not make sense to me because though he is an E-4 it's not like he is behind the curve.

Regardless of these things the plan now is to resubmit the package when he advances to a higher rank (E-5). Advancing in the military is complicated and I don't feel like explaining it, but basically when he advances he will be resubmitting a package to EOD.

What does all this really mean? In a nutshell... A) When Brian advances he will resubmit his package, if it is approved we may be leaving by July 2010 (not likely to be any sooner). B) If his package gets denied he will finish out his time in the Navy here in Japan (so we will be here until Nov 2011).Does Brian plan to retire with the Navy? Good question! If he goes EOD, yes, he will likely do 20 years. If not, he will likely get out in January 2012.

So there you have it! That is our life plan as of today! It could very possibly change by tomorrow, next week, or next month. We just never know with the military. This is our basic plan for now, but who knows what will come up.... so sit tight everyone and if you want to come visit please do!

Typhoon

So... we had a typhoon last week. What is a typhoon you might be wondering?? Well, basically it is a storm. Wind, rain, maybe comparable to a baby hurricane. And by baby I mean probably like a 1 day old baby who is sleeping after a meal... not bad. Everyone made a HUGE deal about this storm. We had one about two weeks ago and it was literally NOTHING. So this one, people were making an even bigger deal about and I thought I was going to see something exciting. I felt like I was wating for the world to end... There was a lot of wind and rain Wednesday night. There was, I will admit that. BUT Thursday, the base closed down as it was in TCCOR 1. TCCOR is a rating system that only the military uses (and it may only be the military here in Japan... I'm not sure) but they use it and #1 is the "worst". Apparently, our base (of all the ones in Japan) won't close for anything, but even our base was closed on Thursday so that is really saying something about the seriousness of this Typhoon. Which was cool for me, I got a paid day off. It was lame for Brian though cause he was supposed to be in port for three weeks, but because of the storm they had to pull out for a week so the ship wouldn't be damaged by the storm.... LAME.

Below is my neighbor Shin. He is super nice and apparently crazy because he had this tree propped up much too quickly... Another neighbor told me that this storm was the worst one in about 5-10 years... yikes, no wonder why they were all freaking out. Don't get me wrong it was a storm, but it really wasn't THAT bad. I think it hit other parts of Japan much worse...

Tokyo Weirdos...

I feel like I should say something here, but there are no words...