We're not in Kansas Anymore......................... ~Part 2: 80 kph

You may have noticed I was a little vague in my last post regarding the events of our first week here on Okinawa.  Here's why--it sucked. There's just no way to sugar coat it.  The night we landed we arrived to tropical storm conditions.  Luckily, we were so tired from our 20 hour journey that we hardly noticed the howling winds and beating rain at our window.  The next day was rather cloudy and rainy, but that afternoon we took advantage of a break in the weather to take the hotel shuttle the to get some supplies at the base exchange & commissary (civilian translation: mini-shopping mall & grocery store.)  You may be asking, "Why the shuttle?  Didn't you guys have a sponsor who was supposed to help you out with transportation?"  Well, the Marine Corps in its infinite wisdom matched us up with unmarried sponsor whose car could only carry two-thirds of our family.  She also seemed to feel this was a Monday -- Friday gig, so we were left to fly solo over the weekend. Our FIRST weekend.  On an island thousands of miles away from everything we knew.  At any rate, the shuttle was tolerable, and except for the annoying driver Drew--who talked to us like he was Mr. Rogers-- it would suffice as our means of transportation until we bought some cars.  

As if we didn't have enough going on, while we were in the commissary Mary seemed unusually subdued.  Rather than running around begging for every sugar-filled, hyper-inducing "food" item, she insisted that Bill carry her.  That should have been our first clue that something was amiss.  Well, as Bill was reaching for much needed coffee, Mary threw up all over him.  Good times.  We weren't too surprised--we had just spent 20 hours on a germy airplane and Mary's germ prevention habits are still in development, so we half-expected something like this, but we didn't expect it at the commissary.  I'm sure we made quite the first impression on Okinawa!  That little bug lasted about 24 hours, and the next afternoon she was back to her usual chaos-causing self. 

Even though we had limited means of transportation, it was important that both Bill & I attend certain meetings together, such as those pertaining to housing.  And, since we didn't know anyone to watch the kids, they had to come along too.  Sitting through the meeting with them wasn't an issue--they've behaved remarkably well throughout this whole ordeal. (I guess they've figured out that Mom is one meltdown away from the cookoo bin so they're doing their best to get along.) The big problem was GETTING to the meetings since we didn't all fit in the sponsor's car.  At one point our solution was for Bill to ride with the sponsor with a couple of the kids, and for me to follow behind in a taxi with the other kids.  When we chose this option, I had no idea our journey to the housing office would require taking the Okinawa Expressway where the top speed is 80 kilometers per hour.  (That's the equivalent of 49 miles per hour--but since most speed limits are in the 25mph zone, it seems really fast.)  At one point it got a little stressful when our taxi driver wanted to take a particular exit but our sponsor wanted to keep going.  He's talking excitedly and (likely) cursing in Japanese, she's waving him back on to the expressway, and it finally hit me--what on earth am I doing here?  How did all this happen?  One day I'm a cute little 22-year-old, fresh out of college looking for a teaching job in Jacksonville.  Then this guy I've known since high school asks me out, he joins the Marine Corps and those dress blues are so darn cute, and the next thing you know it's 15 years later and I'm flying down the interstate in Okinawa at a hair-raising 49 miles per hour with a Japanese taxi driver who couldn't speak three words of English....or Spanish, for that matter!  It was certainly a surreal kind of moment, but the good news is after a little bit of last-minute swerving (and a few prayers) we finally got behind our sponsor again and made it to our housing meeting.  Not quite something I'd like to go through again, but it was certainly an interesting experience!  The housing meeting was much less exciting and not nearly as productive as we'd hoped, but I'll get into that in another post.

Another thing we had to do that first week was attend a Newcomers' Orientation and take a written driver's test before we'd be allowed to buy a car and drive on the island.  The word Bill and I both used to describe the Newcomers' Orientation was....PAINFUL.  For starters, the auditorium's thermostat was set at about 46 degrees, so we spent 5 hours freezing while several base representatives gave their own version of this speech:  "You are all visitors in this country.  Be good representatives of America.  Don't do anything that might get you into any sort of trouble.  A tiny, little infraction could turn into an international incident that could put the military's presence in the Pacific in jeopardy, so BEHAVE."  After all that, this sweet, proud little Japanese lady came on to tell us all about the wonderful things to see and do on Okinawa.  However, after being threatened for 5 hours, we'll probably never want to leave the house! 

After we'd suffered sat through the Newcomers' Orientation, it was finally time for the moment of truth--the driver's test.  It was a written exam, and most of the driving rules are similar to those in the United States (except for the fact that they drive on the left side of the road.)  But about 40% of the exam was deciphering the road signs which are nothing like those used in the United States.  For example, would you be able to figure out what this means?

This is a Stop sign.  I dont know why they don't used the old fashioned octagon, but they don't.  Which begs the question, how do little Japanese school kids ever learn what an octagon is?

Here's another one: 

Bill and I kept calling this "No rickshaws allowed" but it really means road closed for light vehicles.  I guess rickshaws are considered light vehicles. 

This was Bill's favorite: 

It actually means "bumpy road ahead" but all we could think of was "Boobs in the Road."  Either way, drive slowly. 

Finally, we were stumped on this one: 

We could not, for the life of us, remember what this sign meant.  The official definition is "Road Closed for Vehicles Carrying Explosives" (which, apparently, is such a problem on Okinawa that they had to make a sign.)  Finally, we decided the Japanese writing looked like the mangled aftermath of an explosion, so if you don't want that to happen, don't bring your explosive vehicle down that road.

I guess all those little tricks worked because we both passed our tests! Woohoo! However, we were still without a car.  There are two ways to get a used car here on Okinawa--going to a used car lot, or using a private seller.  The cheaper way is to go through a private seller, usually another military person getting ready to move off of Okinawa.   This was also a better choice for us because the sellers are usually so desperate to get rid of their cars that they're willing to bring it to the buyer for a test drive.  Since we were car-less, we took advantage of their desperation (and we shared our own desperate circumstances) and asked a couple of sellers to bring their vehicles to the base hotel so we could check them out.  We quickly settled on a 2001 Subaru Traviq whose primary selling point is that it had enough seating for 7.  (Don't worry, Dads....we also checked to make sure it's road worthy and had a pretty good maintenance history.)  We've lovingly nicknamed this car "The Silver Bullet" (which, for Marines, has another, very disgusting connotation and you'll have to ask one to explain it to you because I'm not going to do it here.) 




As if you couldn't tell from the expression on his face, my editor/husband wants me to let you know that he thinks this is a very corny picture and takes no responsibility for its inclusion in this blog.

 
This was originally going to be my car, but after driving it around a few days we realized that getting into and out of the third row seat involved a lot of fighting folding seats and moving them around, plus Bill really took a liking to the little car.  We finally made a decision on a second vehicle, a 2000 red Mazda MPV, aka "The Red Racer."

So by the end of the first week we'd managed to get some transportation, but we were still homeless.  I'll discuss the roller coaster ride of a housing search in my next post.