This past Saturday we loaded up the kiddos in the van and drove to Northern Yokohama to visit Zoorasia (Yokohama's Zoo). Yokohama is the second largest city in all of Japan and runs right into Tokyo, which is the largest city. Anyway...yes you read that correctly we drove! I had picked up a little sheet at the Fleet and Family Center about Zoorasia...they provide many computer sized sheets about things to do in the area. One side provided train directions and one provided driving directions. I had posted in a wife/mom fb group here asking for any tips about going there. I do this once in a while when the Fleet and Family sheet doesn't provide much information and when the website isn't in English/or doesn't give much information in English. I got quite a few responses. I knew that there wasn't a close train station and learned that many just drive there. It was a 45 minute drive there compared to about an hour ride by train and then a 45 min walk/or 20 min bus ride...so it made more sense to just drive. We have had limited driving experience out in town. We've driven to a few stores South of us...but that's about it. Yokohama is North of us and easier to get to by toll road. Japan loves their toll roads and for about how often they occur they basically compare to U.S. interstates. We turned right out of the gate and then it was pretty much all new. Thankfully the directions that were provided were good and it was an easy drive. The whole drive could have gone terribly wrong though very easily. While the toll roads provide the same use as U.S. interstates they are ran as toll roads...meaning that there are only certain exits and it isn't easy to get off and get back on again if we had missed our exit. We were given the English and the Kanji characters of the roads and most of the road signs were in both languages...but there were many other signs written just in Kanji. Signs in red and yellow with characters on them...that I'm sure give needed information. But we of course just kept driving and hoped for the best! And keep in mind that it is rare to find someone that speaks fluent English. So had we missed the exit and gotten off to ask directions...it would have been pretty pointless. Many speak just enough English for us to convey with broken English/Japanese, hand signals, expressions...the concept were trying to get across. We did have the iPhone but as we got driving I noticed that it wasn't entirely accurate in showing us where exactly we were on the road. But we made it!
Because we drove there we were able to bring the double stroller. Bringing the one we have on the train would pretty much be impossible. We all enjoyed the zoo. Noah walked most of the way and then after lunch...the kiddos both fell asleep. It's fun to go to these zoos even as adults because we see animals that we've never seen or even knew they existed. Noah is into kangaroos and monkeys lately(and there were a lot of different types of monkeys, apes, chimps, gibbons...etc.). Most places provide an English translation of their paper/map, which is helpful. The staff usually come running at us to hand us an English version of whatever else they are handing out. However we are still handed the Japanese version as well. At the end of the day the thought occurred to me that we had not seen another American the entire day...wait maybe we saw one other family. And even as Kristen noticed that when out and about in Japan...us Americans always smile and make eye contact with the other Americans we see. It's kinda like a science experiment that I did as a child. I had green, blue, and red toothpicks that I dropped in a grassy area...and of course could find the red toothpicks the easiest....followed by blue and lastly green. Equate the Americans to the red toothpicks! We're walking and talking and seeing only Japanese people...hearing only Japanese. So, when the eyes see Americans and hear English...you automatically narrow in on exactly where it's coming from...and then you of course smile. Often there are families from bases and reek military. However, we've met musicians, military contractors (they don't get to go through the week long class...and just thrown into Japan with no information given to them), or tourists. They are often floundering and see that we have things under control and are beyond happy to see Americans/hear English! It amazes me how many people get on the trains and don't know anything about traveling via train/or even where they are going! Zack has given train advice...giving the website that we use to figure out the train transfers. I have given away my train map twice...need to get another one. The base provides these for us...so other English speaking people that come to the area cannot get them at the train stations. I think I've been rambling! Anyway...the point is that when we came here in July 2011 the idea of not seeing any Americans the entire day or hearing English was completely overwhelming. But we went on vacation on the completely other side of the country and go on day trips...and now it's our everyday thing. We can get up and drive to the zoo. We can go to the train station and ride our way to wherever we want to go. We can function in the Japanese society. We can not see Americans/English speakers for days in a row and that's okay, too!
This past week we learned about that F18 going down in VA Beach. That plane went down in our old neighborhood...across the street from our old apartment complex...it went down right next to where we used to live. We knew and everyone else knows that living there meant living in a flight path. It comes with risks to which we had to sign off on before moving into the apartment. Many people in the area love the base...and some hate the jet noise. Noah and I LOVED the noise! But there were some that didn't like the noise...for the record the base was there long before all those neighborhoods/and the build up of the area. Less than 10 years ago the area was much much less populated. But waking up to see the pictures from our old neighborhood made my heart hurt. I lived there for two years but I left a little bit of me there...or maybe a little bit of VA Beach got into me. And the same is happening here in Japan. We'll probably end up going back to the VA Beach area before Zack's career is over and it will be a little like coming home. By the end of his career we're going to have a lot of "homes" around the world. And someday Zack and I have said that we'll have to come back here to visit/travel in Japan...we'll have to come back to this home.
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