Walls Need Love

Moving from a gorgeous apartment with granite counter tops, hard wood floors, and vaulted ceilings in San Diego to a 1960’s apartment with industrial tile, brown walls, and a brown tiled bathroom left me in a bit of a funk.  How were we going to turn our military housing unit into a livable, modern home that was fresh and fun?  After countless hours of Google searching, I found our answer: WALLS NEED LOVE!! Yes!! Our walls DO need love!!  Most of our rooms are coming together nicely, but the bathroom had a lot to be desired.  Our brown tiles from floor to ceiling made it impossible to hang any kind of decorations, so vinyl wall art seemed perfect.  With Walls Need Love, you can pick out all of your colors, and we went with a black and red Japanese cherry blossom tree (perfect….I know!) to match our shower curtain (which is 6 inches too short here).  I was stoked when the art came in, and James and I spent last night hanging it up.  The tree branches were a bit difficult, as the branches are very skinny, but overall, the process was extremely easy.  I think the tree looks fabulous, and it has completely transformed our bathroom.  We also purchased flying red and black birds, but we haven’t decided how to use them yet.  For those of you looking for something to spiff up your room, check this company out.  It’s definitely helping our place feel more like home.



WallsNeedLove.com comes with the following warning.... (It's too late for me!!)

“WARNING!! Wall Decals are addictive and may induce uncharted levels of fun & creativity. DO NOT use if you are: spontaneous, creative, fun, unique, stylish, trendy, fashion forward, progressive, or just simply love to decorate. You just might be prone to a seriously fun decals addiction. :) ”



Grape Wine > Rice Wine

I LOVE WINE!  I love going to wineries to sample local varieties.  I love smelling the aromas, the way my taste buds tingle during tastings, and holding my glass up to the light to inspect the liquid in my glass.  I love talking to the owners and wine makers, hearing their stories about the winery, and getting to know the winery dog.  I especially love going on wine trips with my girlfriends!  All in all, I just love wine.  I love the wine itself, and the experience that is wine tasting.  I was really hoping that this love for wine would transfer into a love of sake tasting, but so far, that is not the case.

Before we moved to Japan, I had tried sake a few times, and I never really liked it.  I thought maybe it was because I had never had good sake, or that perhaps it was an acquired taste.  If it is in fact an acquired taste, it is a taste I would like to acquire while we are living in Japan.  The O Club was holding a sake tasting and seminar, so we bought tickets and were excited to learn more about sake and to do some tastings.  This was truly a seminar, and included a three hour lecture on every aspect of sake brewing, tasting, serving, and purchasing that you would ever want to know.  The seminar was taught by a Sake Sommelier, Ad Blankestijn, and most of it was a bit over my head.  Some things I learned about sake:

• Sake has been the national drink of Japan for almost 2,000 years.


• Sake is made of rice, koji (a mold), yeast, and water.


• There are more than 1,400 sake breweries in Japan.


• Rice comes in different qualities, like everything else.  Who knew?


• Japanese sake only uses Japanese rice.


• They have to polish the rice first.  The more expensive your sake, the more polished your rice.


• There are four grades of sake: Honjozo, Junmai, Ginjo, and Daiginjo.


• I still have no idea how to tell the difference between the four.


• Most quality sake is served in wine glasses.


• Sake is closely connected with Shintoism, and you will see sake barrels at Shinto shrines.

During the lecture, we sampled a variety of sake with food pairings.  I greatly enjoyed the food pairings, especially the sushi and tempura.  The sake on the other hand….not so much.  While I’m glad that we attended this sake tasting, I still have no taste for it.  Most of my glasses stayed full, as I couldn’t bring myself to have more than a few sips.  Despite our first sake tasting lacking anything I could drink, I haven’t given up hope yet!  We still have three years to acquire a taste for sake!

Happy 60th Anniversary Howard and Ethel!

We received this email today from Dad G and thought we would share it with everyone! Happy Anniversary GM and GP!

"We would not be here if not for this event 60 years ago September 2, 1950.  La Plata Md."

Japanese Dog Treats

And this is why I buy AJ's treats online.  Although I'm interested to know if he would eat them....

My Japanese iPhone

This is what my inbox looks like on my iPhone.  I am constantly receiving text messages in Japanese, mostly from our carrier Softbank and our Wi-Fi box Fon, but I have no idea what they say.  At first I was a bit confused, so I would go in and talk to the Softbank lady, and she would smile and tell me not to worry.  But I was a bit worried, since Sprint used to send us important messages regarding our account through text messaging.  They have a cell phone kiosk on base, with English speaking saleswomen, to ease the communication barrier.  While it was helpful having an English speaker, the process was still confusing and we left not understanding what we had signed.  But we had new iPhones, so we were happy!  I asked a lot of questions, and the woman just smiled and told me not to worry about it.  In the end, we gave up and signed our contract (that we couldn’t read) because we figured everyone else was doing it.  We had a laugh with the JAG about it later, because he felt the same way.  He was asking questions that weren’t being answered so he finally just signed because everyone else was.  The cell phone plans are opposite of those in the US.  Our free minutes are from 1 am to 9 pm, and our calls are only free if we are calling other Softbank users.  If we call any other number (which is most of Japan and on base), then we are charged 17 cents a minute.  If we call to listen to our voicemail, we are charged 40 cents a minute, so we just don’t check our voicemail.  Plus, we can’t figure out how to change it to English, so we aren’t really sure how to check it in the first place.  We don’t get cell phone service in our house, or in any building on base, so the actual phone part of our iPhones isn’t that useful.  Even so, we use Wi-Fi in the house to use the internet, and we get service out in town which allows us to use google maps GPS.  This is the most useful app ever, and James and I would be lost without it (literally).

Chocolate Mushrooms

Okay, so these aren’t really mushrooms. They are just chocolate cookie treats shaped like mushrooms (yummy).  These little fungi are by far my favorite treat in the Japanese candy aisle to date!  So cute!

Sushi-Go-Round

I never imaged my lunch involving a conveyor belt, but sitting in our booth at the local Sushi-Go-Round, that’s exactly what happened. As we sat down, I was mesmerized by the yellow and white plates slowly moving past me with bright oranges, reds, whites, and pieces of fish I couldn’t decipher sitting on perfect rectangles of rice. How fabulous! We pulled cups from the stand above the conveyor belt, and an old Japanese man sitting behind us motioned for us to get water out of the faucet at our table. We filled our tea cups with scalding hot water, and were then instructed to pour two scoops of green tea powder into the mizu (water), which he demonstrated for us. Hai, Domo arigato gozaimasu! Though he also laughed at me a few times, he was extremely helpful. I thought he was going to fall out of his seat laughing when I dropped a piece of sushi that didn’t quite reach my mouth from the chopsticks. I’m sure he told all of his friends about the funny American girl who couldn’t eat sushi with chopsticks. But, after he stopped laughing at me, he motioned for me to eat it with my hands. So I followed suit and found it to be much easier.

Sushi-Go-Rounds are fast food sushi restaurants, where you literally pick the sushi you want off of the conveyor belt. James, Cliff (one of James’ co-workers visiting from the states), and I enjoyed a fast-food sushi lunch before heading to an office barbeque. While it’s not the best sushi you can get in Japan, it’s fast, cheap, and convenient. The best part about the Sushi-Go-Round is you can try something without having to order a lot of it. Each plate has one or two pieces of Sushi on it, depending on the type. And if you don’t like it, no worries! The sushi chef isn’t there to offend, so you can just leave it on the plate. It gives you the opportunity to be adventurous without having to spend a lot of money and without having to eat something you don’t like. The perfect combination for us! Our local Sushi-Go-Round is on the 2nd floor of the grocery store, and each plate is only 105 yen. That’s basically a dollar a plate. There are other things besides sushi on the conveyor belt, like sides and desserts, and those have different prices associated with them. At higher end Sushi-Go-Rounds, the color of the plate will coincide with the cost. When you have finished eating, you ring the bell for the waitress to come, and she counts the number of plates you have eaten. In her hand held device, she punches in the number, and out comes your bill. It is a must see in Japan, and I can’t wait to take all of our visitors to experience our local Sushi-Go-Round!