Nevada State Railroad Museum

When you have a little boy who likes trains.... you visit a lot of train depots and museums. While we were in Las Vegas and visiting the Hoover Dam, we made a detour for this little excursion. The museum and parked trains are located in Boulder City, Nevada; the city that built the Hoover Dam. (Seriously, this city was created to develop and build the man-made wonder. Worth a Wikipedia read.)

The museum is smaller and they only offer train rides on certain days; however, there is an in depth review of the U.S. mail system, mail cars, and couriers that was fascinating. Truly worth the stop.

A Day Out with Thomas

When you have a little boy who loves trains and Thomas... you end up doing lots of train and Thomas activities. One of those being our annual pilgrimage to A Day Out with Thomas. We've visited Thomas now three times when he's visiting from the Island of Sodor. We were lucky and got to meet Percy too!

It's a fun day to spend with the kids and with characters they love. There are many areas including train play area, coloring tables, tattoos, petting zoos, reading and video area, model train displays, and more. 

The highlight every year is watching James and Elizabeth's little faces when they hear that iconic train whistle and see Thomas pull into the station.

Part of the day included a short train ride with Thomas complete with conductor stamping our tickets.

Day Out with Thomas tours the United States annually and is fun, cheap way to spend a day. 

Grand Canyon

One of the greatest adventures we had while traveling across the US was in Williams, Arizona. The Grand Canyon Railroad offers an out and back train ride to the Grand Canyon. If you have a son who likes trains, are married to a man who likes trains, and if you know all the lyrics to Thomas and Friends.... do this. The train ride is decently long and went through varied Arizona biomes. 

James and his train

Absolutely fascinating

Little Miss was not impressed.

On the journey back, our train was robbed! James found this particularly delightful!

We plan on making it back to the Grand Canyon and spending more time exploring. It's a fascinating natural landmark. 

Traveling to Kyoto

Alright! Back on the exploring and adventuring journey! Columbus Day is also a Japanese holiday called Sport's Day. It became a national holiday after the Olympics were held in Tokyo in 1964.

We decided to take the shinkansen up to Kyoto on Friday afternoon so we could have extra time to explore. After a two hour ride we walked around the train station looking for something tasty. Around one corner we came on a wall of tasty!

Oh My!

Unfortunately we decided we needed some real food in our tummies before this decadent treat. After a quick bite from the 7-11 we continued down to the local train that would take us closer to our hotel. One thing that was different were the guard gates on the train tracks. Most train stations we have been through are open track. Here there was a gate up that only opened when the train was present. A coworker explained that they are to keep people from jumping on the tracks.

We took the train and walked to our hotel. It made it a late night, but meant we were already in Kyoto to explore the next day.

Vending machine was out of tea!

Shinkansen

To get down to Mt Aso Dustin and I took the shinkansen. We both have been on the "bullet train" separately, but this was our first time on one together. While waiting for our train to stop at Iwakuni some of the express trains sped through the station. They travel so fast!

Tokyo

So I've been home inIwakuni for 2 weeks and now I am on the road again! Hopefully this will be the last work trip for a while... :)

Actually I have really enjoyed all the traveling. I wish Dustin could have been with me for all of it, but it was still amazing (and scary) to be forced to explore Japan. This trip is for a two day conference in Tokyo on Tuesday and Wednesday. So this time we planned ahead and took vacation before and after.

After working a full day on Friday we took a taxi, train, bus, plane, another bus, another train, and then a long walk to get to the Yokota Air Force base in Tokyo. It was a long night of traveling, but meant we could have a whole extra day to explore the world's most populated metropolitian area.

BLT with amazing mayo/sauce

We ate at a convenience store before quickly jumping on a bus to the airport. Yes, I said convenience store. We would never think of eating convenience store food in the states unless it was a last resort or we wanted to call into work the next day. Here convenience stores have great fresh food. My sandwich was pretty tasty and had a spicy mayo sauce. Paired with a cup of grapefruit juice made it quite a tasty dinner!

Hiroshima

Saturday we took a day trip to Hiroshima. It's about 45 minutes away from Iwakuni by train. This was our second time trying to ride the train. We found out the reason they weren't running last Saturday was because of the tropical storm activity. We hoped this time would be better. A one-way ticket is ¥740 per person.

Round 2

The next picture came out pretty blurry, but it is how the trains designate who can sit in certain sections. We discovered that people really didn't pay attention to it too much. Again, we had a wide berth between us and the Japanese. They don't mind being scrunched up with each other, but wouldn't come close to us.

Hiroshima is a nice big city. Not Tokyo- or Osaka-big, but big compared to Iwakuni. Once we got out of the huge train station we were met by lines and lines of taxis.

We bought a day pass for the streetcar that runs through the city. For ¥600 per person you can ride on the streetcar (think smaller train) throughout the city.

Our first stop was the Peace Park and site where the first atomic bomb was deployed. The a-bomb was detonated 600m above the ground on August 6, 1945 at 8:15am. Because of the way it exploded a nearby building was left standing. It is called the a-bomb dome.

The park has memorials scattered throughout to honor the victims of the atomic bomb. There is an underground museum for the victims and then a large Peace Memorial museum.

It was a sad morning, but we learned much about the history of Hiroshima and Japanese wars before World War II. Also, the museums were not heavily negative on the United States. Instead the focus is more on peace for all and never using nuclear weapons again.

Throughout the museums and park Dustin and I felt odd being there... like we shouldn't be. One gentleman asked Dustin why he was there. It was a bit awkward.

I signed the log book of travelers at the end of the museum. We were the only Americans to sign in for the whole day. Lots of Canadians, Australians, and Indians.

As we were leaving the park, three Japanese people approached us and said "hello." Their English was very crisp and they introduced themselves and then handed us a book and asked us to read. They were Jehovah's Witness and had a book with their speech translated into multiple languages. I thought that was interesting.

Train Crossing

Lots of trains + lots of roads = plenty of crossings. We were out one night and caught this: 

A mile in our shoes

Yesterday was such a busy day that I am not sure if I will be able to put it all in one post. It was our first unaccompanied mission off base.... and it was busy.
We don't have a drivers license yet and our bicycles are still in storage for a couple more days so our first adventure was completely on foot. I've tried finding a map so I could outline our path, but our path covers three different areas and the maps are village-specific. Needless to say, we walked a lot.

We really had no plan, just wanted to explore. The Main Gate was manned by the Japanese military police so we had some confusion with trying to get off. After some hand gestures and funny looks we escaped.

Manhole cover painted with Kintai Bridge

We followed the path our tour bus had taken and walked the two miles back to downtown Iwakuni. Once there we explored an outdoor mall and some shops. I haven't quite figured it out, but this area has a strange smell. It's not unpleasant, but not really pleasant either.... maybe it's a food smell or just the smell of the area/industry. I'm still trying to figure it out. Some days you don't smell anything but sea water.

Covered Outdoor Mall

We started getting hungry after our walk so we decided to eat at a bento shop. Bento are the Japanese version of a lunch box. They usually consist of rice, a meat or fish, and pickled vegetables. As our first foray in traditional food went, it was really good.

Bento Boxes

Bento store

The store has a push/automatic door and has no eating space. The cashier didn't speak English so after some pointing we got something that looked interesting. I had no clue if it was chicken/fish/pork/something strange. She kept pointing at my order and asking a question. We didn't understand so she just says "not this time." Our meal cost ¥1030 or about $14.

Center Square of Iwakuni

After lunch outside in the main square we walked to a large electronics store called Yamada. It was huge! The technology here is pretty cool. Because much of it is all Japanese with little in the form of pictures or clipart it became a game to figure out what things were. For example, here is an appliance that we came across that took some time figuring out.

What is it?

Once open, it became clear it is a dishwasher! They are put on the counter and use the water from the faucet to wash dishes. This one was very small compared to American dishwashers and would be traditionally used for a family of four or more. When not in use, it gets taken off the counter and stored.

A dishwasher!

 We decided to hit the streets again and continue walking out of downtown. We stayed on the main road (side note: the Japanese don't label their roads. You just turn at the green building or go 100m and take a right.) and just kept walking.

near Waki station

Agriculture on a slope

 We came across a Harley Davidson dealership. A friend of ours is collecting pins so we were excited to be able to provide a Japanese pin. Unfortunately, no one in the shop spoke English. We gestured to what a pin would be and they repeated the word "pin" back to us many times, but nothing came of it. We thanked them and left. Sorry, Kevin. No pin from Waki, Japan.

Most neighborhoods have community gardens.

Community garden near Waki station

 To be honest this is the only gas stations I have seen like this, but it is still really cool. Instead of pumps, the lines are hanging from the ceiling and are pulled down to the vehicle. The price for gas on base is similar to the states. Off base gasoline is about 3-4 times more.

Gasoline Station

 After walking for so long we decided to take the train back. This was our first time buying a train ticket. That part was easy. We found where we were on the map and where we wanted to go. Then we bought two ¥180 tickets. The schedule said a train was coming every 15 minutes. After waiting for 45 minutes we gave up. We asked some of the Japanese passengers that were waiting, but there was no English speakers. From their agitation, I am guessing this was not a normal occurrence. The help desk was closed which also seemed to be an abnormal thing. So our first attempt to ride the train: fail.

No train...

It was a long walk all the way back to Main Gate. Every part of me hurt and all I wanted was to wash the sticky off and take a shower. It was great to see a different part of town. We found many restaurants to try and met some friendly Japanese. A successful day.

Indoctrination

Today we had to attend an all day seminar for indoctrination. Most of the information was interesting, but hopefully won't apply to us while we are here.
We are still fighting some jet lag. We both woke up at 3AM and couldn't go back to sleep. Hopefully after today's rigorous schedule we will sleep through the night.

The day started with 3 hours of briefs from various people around base. NCIS talked about how safe/unsafe the base is on any given day. Legal talked about the differences between Japanese laws and American laws. Also went over what to do if you find yourself in jail. Side note: you aren't guaranteed a phone call. Multiple people talked about alcohol abuse and restrictions. Japanese culture is deeply rooted in alcohol, but Americans always tend to take it too far. One woman spoke on equal opportunity and another on managing your money while stationed overseas. Lastly an officer came and spoke to us about the places where Marines are not allowed to go. By the end even I was fidgety.

Before we broke for lunch over 40 base businesses and organizations set up booths around the room for a quick meet and greet. We got information on cable, cell phones, bank accounts, the thrift store, commisary coupons... the list goes on. I was disappointed to see the University of Phoenix representative did not show up. We did get some great information about Japanese language classes,  cooking classes, and Dustin's school.

For lunch we were on our own. The briefs were held at Club Iwakuni which seems to be a multipurpose building. It has a couple restaurants, various ballrooms and meeting rooms, and the officer's lounge. They had a soup and salad bar in one corner that had us at vegetables. It wasn't as good as Sweet Tomatoes, but it was quite tasty.

Then came the good stuff! We all loaded up into an (air conditioned!) bus and got a tour of the base. The entire perimenter is only six miles so you can imagine that didn't take too long. It was good to start putting together where the major buildings are like the post office and library.

Then we went off base to the city of Iwakuni. It was our first time being able to leave... and it was quite intimidating!

Tour Guide

Tiny Train Ticket

 This may be the most confusing lesson I have ever had. The train schedule is daunting and much of it does not have English translations. We will definitely have to practice then and I am sure will waste some yen in the process.

Train Schedule

 After the "how to buy a train ticket" lesson we walked over to the bus station. This one seems a little bit easier because the base purchased a big sign that tells you exactly what bus and how much to make it back to base. If I still can't figure it out then a taxi will take me straight to my door.

Downtown Iwakuni

Rt 188 - Lots of Shopping

Then we were released to explore on our own. We walked away from the crowd (they headed into the 100 yen store). We ended up walking all the way down this street to a large department store. Unlike with stores in the States, each level had a different store, although checkout was only at the bottom. The first level was a grocery store. Two through fiver were women's clothes, men's clothes, toys, bicycles, a tailor, homegoods, etc. I imagined it to be similar to a Walmart only nicer. The sixth floor was a 100 yen store and the biggest (and loudest) kiddie arcade I have ever seen. We stepped off the escalator to a quadruple Chuck-e-Cheese style venue. It did have Time Crisis 3 so I will be wasting plenty of yen there in the future! The last and final level had a food court with Japanese soba and other foods. It also had a McDonalds that didn't look to serve anything in which I was familiar. They wouldn't let me take pictures, but there is another one across town that will.

So hot and humid!

The day was very hot and Dustin and I went through lots of water and one disasterous attempt at trying something from the vending machines. All in all we absorbed a lot of information that slowly sweat its way out of us in the miserable heat and humidity.

Upon returning to the base we went to visit Zero at the kennels. She was very excited to see us and ran around like a crazy dog for a while. Kyoto (the walker) was with her when we pulled up and Zero almost pulled the 90 lb woman off her feet! Hopefully we can get housing soon and bring her home.

Well, it is only 7:30PM here but I am exhausted. We are trying to stay up till 9, but I doubt that will happen. Soooo sleepy...