Grilling my own dinner

Last night was a total blast! As a little back story, I have a couple of friends from my old Silverdale ward that now live in Japan (their husbands are Navy and Military). One of them, Shari, spent last night showing us around the Naval Base as well as parts of town. She also introduced us to this cute little restaurant that I'm sure Tom and I will return to.

I can sign up to get my own pass to be on the base, but it's a little slow coming. It has to be signed by Tom's superiors here in Japan. You can imagine that takes a little bit of time to round up. It also takes about 3 days to process the request. So we have the request turned in to get signed, but it has yet to even get turned in. So, at this rate I should get the pass about the same time I get to fly home. Until then though, I can get a day pass as long as I have someone to act as my sponsor. Both Tom and Shari can do this. Of course both of us have to go to the office to get the pass. Fun times. Anyway, we did this yesterday so Shari could show us around.

It was a lot of fun to kind of see the other side of where I'm living. One of the first things I realized, was how wiggy it is to drive on the other side of the street. I kept trying to get into the wrong side of the car, much to Shari's amusement. She's been driving this way for a while, so it's 2nd nature to her but every time she would turn a corner my instant response was to think we were driving into traffic. On base the driving was backwards but pretty normal. Get into town though and you might have to fear for your life. All the cars kind of wedge themselves into little spaces and crevices of waiting cars. If there is a little gap, it will be filled by a waiting car. Too funny!

Shari's husband had to work last night. So after we picked up her kids we headed to one of their favorite restaurants (the kids love it). The restaurant is called "Pepper Lunch". I asked Shari about the name. A lot of the recipes call for pepper, but the lunch part is a mystery. She said usually there are some girls there that speak english. Not so last night. There wer two Japanese men there that we were having problems communicating with. They actually forgot Tom's meal and had to figure it out. So, you walk in the door and have to go up to a machine (similar to a vending machine), insert your coins, and press the button for the meal you want. You then sit down at the bar, give the little slip of paper the vending machine gave you to the chefs and they cook and bring you your meal. The meal is served to you on a hot skillet. The meat is still semi-raw and you mix and cook the meal yourself on the hot skillet until it is the way you want it. There are also sauces you can add to the mixture to your taste. Pretty fun and really good!

We then went to this mall area. There was a grocery store in the basement, similar to Central Market in Washington. They had all sorts of fun displays and seafood. We got some tasty gelato for dessert there and spent about half an hour just wandering around looking at the Japanese form of the grocery store we are used to. There were some really cool food there. If we lived here, I would have great fun in that store!

I'm starting to kind of know my way around. It's kind of nice not to be completely lost! I can't wait for the next adventure. We're also going to be joining Shari and her family for church tomorrow! We were planning on going to the temple with her yesterday, but that didn't work out. However, she did tell us how and when to go to the temple for the english session. So we'll be doing that at some point before I leave!

Keep tuned!