Moving day again....no more for 3 years!!

New bed that Tracy bought at the Base Thrift Store. It needed some new hardware on the rails, but we could not pass up the price. (Plus we only shipped one bed frame...so this makes #2)

The movers came to pick up the "loaner" furniture, and deliver our furniture. They literally wrapped the stairs and the doors with furniture blankets, so that they do not scratch anything.

Our belongings are in those 2 crates...thought we packed more than that

Good bye ugly, uncomfortable loaner mattress!

Yea, it is our belongings. Again 50 nails in each crate, plus the plastic band or "seal"

So we were allowed approx. 6,000lbs of goods to ship, and our grand total was 2,077. We did leave some furniture at home, but we really have nothing.

 Fun, more packing paper





The fun part of watching them unload the truck is not knowing what is wrapped up in the paper. All of the packages/boxes are numbered, and that correlates to the inventory sheet. The sheet is so vague as to what it is, and some boxes are labeled "kitchen goods"....

The legs or feet to our sofas....so that is how they are gonna get it through the door!

Lots of packing paper

They literally have it everywhere

 Can you find the dent....this is our only claim we have to file. When this came off the truck, it just so happened that the Customer Service Rep from Fukuoka Soka was at the house to discuss "How to file a claim"...she saw the trash can, and said "That is definitely a claim."

 Jon admiring the mess in the living room....at first he was a little scared to open the box to his right next to the step stool. The box literally looked like it was folded in half at some point...that box was his flat screen TV, and it survived....no damage!

Finally, we can all get a good nights sleep in a comfortable bed.





Just the beginning of the boxes piling up in the kitchen. Everything in these boxes survived the trip. Not a thing was broken. Then again, they did use 6 sheets of paper on each drinking glass and we have 24 glasses, 8 sheets for coffee mugs (we have 10), and I don't even want to know how many for plates and bowls...a lot!!





The smashed trashcan....full of trash! No not really, it had 5 towels, a shower curtain, a coffee grinder, 1 cutting board, 4 wash clothes and some clothes in it...who packs like that!!

Seriously...they wrapped a shoe! One shoe of a pair was wrapped in paper, the other shoe was in a basket with other shoes!

One of the "more important" items in our shipment. We can not wait to hit the golf course!

   Progress...trust me it is!

All of the boxes are empty, broken down and ready to be picked up by the movers, along with all the packing paper. 3 loads of laundry have been done (things have a funky smell from being in a wood crate), and 1 load of dishes washed...its progress!

Garden Update

Soybeans....These little soybean pods were not here the other day...must have been the storm we had last night....

My Japanese Lily is loving life! It gets plenty of rain water (or hose when there is no rain), plus about 12 hours of sun....I can't wait for it to bloom to see what color it is!

The cucumber plants are getting tall. I am 5'11 and they are as tall as me! We have a lot of little flowers, and little cukies growing! I stopped counting at 50!

Jon's tomato is getting bigger, still green, but definitely bigger.

Hiroshima Carp Baseball

Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium

Our tickets, Y1600 each (approx. $20.50)
Notice on the bottom right of the ticket 7i, that is where we bought them
7i is literally 7-11 here, minus the gas & Slurpee's

View of the stadium from our seats
We bought "general admission" seats, basically it is the entire upper deck of the stadium

Notice the seats have no backs to them
The section on the left is the Carps "Official" cheering section
This area has a band (think college football) that plays during every at bat for the Carp

Visitors "Official" cheering section, and yes they bring the band with them too!

Why has the states not caught on to this...The beer girls carry kegs
Nice Ice Cold Beer...if you like Asahi & Kirin

Kirin Keg

Carp mascot Slyly! (His jersey # is !)
He reminds me of Hamlet @ L.E. Storm Stadium

Carp Slurpee...it was some sort of blackberry slush
It was yummy and very cold

Jon & Tracy

Jon with his Carp Balloon
So instead of a 7th inning stretch, they blow up these huge balloons, and then let them go
The balloons whistle, and then fall to the ground....Really!

Hiroshima Carp Logo

The Shin (Bullet train) leaving Hiroshima Station

Starting to look gloomy....thank goodness we are on the train

Leaving the Hiroshima train station



Pouring down rain somewhere between Hiroshima & Iwakuni



On Saturday June 25th, we caught the local city train from Iwakuni to Hiroshima to take in a Japanese baseball game with some friends. The game was between the Hiroshima Carp and the Nagoya Chinuchi Dragons. (Also known as the team Tom Selleck played for in the film Mr. Baseball)

The train ride took about an hour, and it was very full. The closer we got to Hiroshima, the more people got on the train. I now know what a sardine feels like!

From the train station, we had to walk about 3/4 mile to the stadium. There were vendors everywhere selling Carp gear as well as food & drinks. As we got to the stadium, we started to notice some differences between Japan & the states. When you get closer to the gates, there are cup stations, where you dump your drinks into large cups to take them in the stadium. You can literally bring your own water, beer, etc, to the game, as long as you pour it in the cup they give you. They do not allow plastic, glass or cans in the stadium for safety purposes, plus the Japanese are big on recycling!

The food at the stadium is way different. You can get hot dogs, cooked in a yummy sauce on a stick, you can get a corn dog (tempura battered), you can also get one wrapped in what looked like a baguette. The big thing in Japan is noodles. Everyone was having ramen at the stadium! Nothing like hot ramen in soup while watching baseball!

The game was fun, and hot. It was close to 90 degrees, and very humid (think 90%). We were all melting. Jon managed to find something like a Slurpee, which was yummy, and icy.

Some differences we noticed at the game:
* The Japanese do not play the National Anthem prior to the game, they do it after the game.

* Each team has an "Official" cheering section, with a band and huge flags.

* Each teams band, plays the entire time that they are at bat, and plays a different song for each player.

* Japanese scoreboards are confusing. They do not show the at bat players picture, nor jersey number.

  It only shows what position number they play.

* Japanese pitchers bat....oh yea, kinda funny to see batting averages of 0.59

* Every other inning, the grounds crew comes out to rake and water down the field (takes forever)

* There is no "7th inning stretch"...just blow up a balloon, and let it fly

* Japanese baseball teams are allowed 2 "non-national" players...and most of them are from the Dominican.

  Talk about confused....a spanish speaking ballplayer in Japan!

After the game, we stopped at what our friends call the "Butt face Cafe"....the character on the outside has a huge butt-chin, so they have named it the "Butt face Cafe". It is a yummy Ramen House, and full of Carp fans after games. Jon and I split an order of chicken (tempura/panko crusted chicken) and a large bowl of ramen with steamed pork dumplings and green onions...yep we no longer can share ramen...it is too good to share.

After dinner, we walked back to the train station, and caught the train back to Iwakuni. We were so happy to be able to sit in an air conditioned train, and relax. As we got closer to home, it was getting cloudier...big black clouds. It rained a little on the way back, but was dry when we got to the Iwakuni station. Our friends met us at the Crossroads (ATM is there), and so they dropped us off there to get our car, and it was pouring. What would usually take us 2 minutes to drive home, took longer as we could not see the road, it was raining that hard. Once we got home, we ran to the house, and still got drenched...what a great way to end a great day!!

The Express (Unaccompanied) Baggage is here!!

Fukuoka Soko...yep our stuff is in there

This little crate is our "express shipment"
It took 6 weeks to get here

Hard to read the crate, but it literally has all of our information on it
Macdonald, Camp Pendleton to Iwakuni, Japan
It even says how heavy the shipment was before they crated it, and after it was crated

This crate was "sealed" with about 50 nails, and that black plastic band
The movers literally pulled out every nail, and then cut the band

Yippeee...our stuff
That is a mountain bike

Ok, so my dad said they used "a lot of packing paper," no kidding
This is a flat screen tv, 2 broken down mtn. bikes, 2 mtn bike tires, 4 pillows, a laundry basket and a suitcase
Each item was individually wrapped in about 12 sheets of paper

Just the start of the boxes
Each box was labeled with what was in it

This was all that we packed as express
We pretty much forgot what was packed, so it was fun to open boxes

Yea our bikes...the movers put the bikes together before they left

Yippee..our first shipment arrived on Wednesday June 22 @ 1030am. The movers were very nice, and fast. From the time they opened the crate, to the time they left was 25 minutes. It was fun to open the few boxes we had, as we had both forgotten what we had packed.
On Friday morning, Jon checked his email, and we had a notice that our household goods shipment had arrived as well, and that we needed to call and schedule delivery. We were on the phone at 730am booking our delivery for Tuesday June 28 @ 1030. This shipment is literally everything we own...beds, furniture, golf clubs (yippee), everything!!
I will definitely post pictures of that.....the movers do not like "American furniture" as it is big, bulky and very heavy. Guess I will have to make the movers some cookies!!