Shopping

Our new home will be ready on September 10. Until then we are going to continue living in the Kanto lodge. The upside is that we get a daily allowance for food so we are tasting a lot of new foods. So about the new digs. It is in a "gated master planned community." It is a two bedroom one bath and we will have a small yard for Ethan to run! Much more spacious than originally described. There are many amenities including: free gym, indoor and out door swimming pool, auto workshop, community center, personal travel agent, free flights on a standby basis, outdoor rec center, and tours of many desirable destinations and events. Did I mention there is a grocery store, wal-mart type store, and furniture store that are all tax free? The train station is just a short bike ride away and for a small fee you can travel anywhere in Japan. Pretty amazing deal. By the way, this apartment comes with a paying job. Haven't started there yet so we will see how it stacks up but, I think it will be great. Here is a picture of a breakfast joint with an upclose view of the runway. The bakery is to the right in the picture. Yes, you can really get that close to the runway. We were surprised too!

Today we took Dave's recommendation and went to Harajuku. This is a shopping district about 20 or so miles from Fussa and it took us 45 minutes by train and only one train transfer. It probably would have taken 2 hours by car. The train is much faster. These are just rough estimates because I don't really know the area very well yet. The styles in this shopping district are CRAZY and I have a few pictures to prove it. First though, here is the parking lot near the station.

Now here are some crazy clothes and such.

If Brandon Fitzpatrick were here he would love this hat store, I think.

If Bob Morganelli was a truck driver here this is what his truck would look like. This is a coke delivery truck and about the size of all the delivery trucks. Not sure how many times they have to go back to the warehouse to load up....could make for a long day.

Apparently the Japanese are really intrigued by Native Amerian jewelry, crafts, and clothing because we saw about 5 of these shops.

The phones here are absolutely amazing. These are prototypes (I think) of phones that may be released? They are different kinds of instruments. The sticks you play in the air like air drums and it plays music. There is a harmonica phone, a harp type phone, and a flute phone. They all create electronic music while you play. AMAZING. I don't think I am doing it justice with my description. You couldn't play with them in the store but you could listen to headphones to hear how they would sounds. The phone store is called AU and they have a 5 story building with prototype phones, concept phones, real phones, phone characters that you can buy and much more. I know that Dad will LOVE this.

They also have lots of name brand store that I think Tracey would love. They are HUGE.

And it is true. You see many American things for sale for INSANE prices. All of you guys from Arizona are going to get a kick out of this picture. This bag sells for the equivalent of $25.

The name of this store cracked me up. Inside the t-shirts were $60 and up. All the people shopping inside were decked out in the BAPE clothing from head to toe; shirts, shoes, socks, pants. It was incredible. I think it was a hip hop store.

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Here are two cars.....one is a redone original mini and the other appears to be some type of SMART car....at least that is what the symbol looked like.
Both of these cars were located in what appeared to be a fancy housing area. There were single family homes (very rare in this area) and everyone had really expensive cars in front of their houses. Here is a picture of the street and a few single family homes.

More about food. It seems like every blog has info about food. Obviously that is one of the things I love. We got lucky today and the menus had pictures. Which one would you choose?

Here is some food we ate today.

Quinn is loving the desserts!

I tried to get a picture to capture the city streets but it is really difficult.

It was a really fun day. It is very hot here. We are not really having any culture shock yet. I think it is because we get to come back to the base every day and chat with other americans. That really helps. I start work on August 18. Tomorrow we are going to take the written Japan driving test so we can get licenses. We haven't decided if we will buy a car yet. It has been easy so far but it isn't cold either. Let me know if there is something more you would like me to include in these blogs. And keep those comments coming. I like to hear from everyone. AND DOWNLOAD SKYPE. I miss you all!