Still adjusting

It's 5 AM... of course I'm awake, I've been up for hours... I guess is takes a few days to really adjust to the time change!

Yesterday was such a busy day I thought for sure I would sleep for at least 10 hours, but I guess 6 will do. I hot the ground running around 8 AM yesterday morning and didn't get back to the room until close to 5 PM. I started with a housing class for people who want to live off base (something I was not/am not interested in but mandatory to take), after listening about the LONG process to live off base I was even more sure I wanted to live ON base! After class was over they told me I had to come back in a few hours for another class where I would find out about the waiting list for on-base housing... it turned out to be 0 months!!! After running around to get all the paperwork the housing department wanted, my housing counselor informed me there was a place available and I could go look at it... woooohooooooo! I couldn't believe all this was happening within 24 hours of getting to base! Everyone told me I would most likely be living in the hotel for up to 2 months waiting! I accepted the offer and today I will go back to sign the paperwork. Tomorrow is moving day (all 2 of my suitcases), and my rental furniture will be delivered tomorrow too! This took almost all day, but I'm super excited to move into the new place tomorrow.

I'm going to be living in a high rise tower on the 8th floor... I forgot the name of it because it is some Japanese name but I will post that later! It's really close to everything on base so I will be able to walk until I get my Japanese driver's license! It's 2 bedrooms and a large living space. All the appliances are American so normal size and pretty new. We have a balcony that is pretty large and it has a view of the green trees!

In between all the running around Kate and I did yesterday to get this housing stuff finalized she managed to show me around base and get me somewhat acclimated. There's a strip of fast food places (YUCK).... Sbarro, Popeye's, McDonald's, Taco Bell.... and then I saw a Starbucks!!!! woooohooooo!!!! The commissary is pretty nice... lots of veggie friendly stuff so I was happy about that. The home store was nice... even had my favorite Yankee Candle stuff... and lots of cool Japanese gifts... Sake sets, Kimonos, Samurai sword etc. The furniture store also had a lot of nice stuff that I'm sure we will be buying to fill our apartment.

I checked out the gyms which are all really nice... they offer a lot of classes there too (maybe i'll actually go). Everywhere we stopped Kate knew someone and introduced me and everyone is so nice and helpful!!!

Now... about the wildlife... apparently there are these huge brown birds with sharp, curved beaks that love to attack people if you are eating outside. I saw one and they are not a bird you would want to mess with! AND, there are these really big beetles called gichi gichi bugs that sound really scary too!

Japanese phrase of the day:
Moshi moshi: Hi (like when you answer the phone) I love this one!!!!