First Time Off the Base

Audrey, Olivia and I went on a Marine Corps Family Services tour on Friday to see our new town up close and in person!

This is a view of Iwakuni from the observation deck of the Iwakuni Castle.  Look towards the sea and there is a tall tower.  That is the air traffic control tower on our base.  We are right up on the Inland Sea with a seawall around the base.  People like to run on the seawall.

Our first stop was the Kintai Bridge. 

The Kintai Bridge is quite unique in that it originally wasn't made using any nails so that it could be dismantled in case they were being attacked, like this.......☺

You have to pay a toll to walk across it.  We bought a combination ticket to walk across it, ride the cable car up the mountain and to tour the Iwakuni Castle.  The castle is on top, right above the girls' heads.

There was some kind of medieval reason they had a tree like this.  Something to do with forcing people coming towards the castle to put down their arrows.  

I think the best reason though is because it's pretty.

It was a hot day and the girls were happy to wade in the river.  

The water was crystal clear and such a beautiful, picturesque scene!

There are vending machines all over the place.  The International language of "Coca Cola" is spoken here, but unfortunately, Diet Coke is in short supply.  It was so hot though, that water was our drink of choice. 

The cable ride was fun and fast and took us quickly to the top and then a short five minute walk to the castle. 

This pretty clock plays a song and shows you the fisherman and their birds inside, five minutes before the cable car comes.  

It is showing a Cormorant fishing scene where the fisherman use the comorants (birds) to catch fish then they pull them back to the boat, not allowing them to swallow the fish.  I guess there's a boat tour that we can go out on to watch this being done.  It's only done in a handful of places in Japan, so we're lucky that we will have a chance to see it!

Also, by the castle was a lovely playground with a roller slide.  This was the girls' favorite part!

And when I say girls' (plural) favorite part....

I do mean ALL of us girls'!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our tour guide told me there are lots and lots of roller slide parks in Okinawa and planted the seed in my mind that we should catch the Patriot Express down there sometime and have a little vacation in the Hawaii of Japan.  Sounds fun!  ☺

One last view of the Iwakuni Castle.

Our next stop was the train station where we got off the bus and had a few hours to ourselves to shop and eat.  We tagged along with another family who had just gotten here recently.  We went down to the Fuji Grand shopping mall, an eight (or was it seven?) floor mall and took the escalator  from floor to floor.  Each floor had its own shopping theme.  Children's clothing, toys, the bottom floor was a grocery store of sorts and at the top....MCDONALD'S!!!!!!  :)  The girls ate their chicken nuggets and french fries and the other Mom and Dad, let's give them names, June and Art, and I had Japanese food.

One thing that was really nice is there was either a picture menu or the dishes displayed in a window and you could point at what you wanted to eat.  I had some cold noodles in a delicious sauce with some tempura something on top.  A side of pickled vegetables and some rice.  It was awesome!  ☺

We went back to the bus, shopping a bit on the way, and then it was off to the YouMe shopping district.  Sort of like a Super WalMart.  We shopped for about an hour, got the girls some swimming suits for swim team and then had some ice cream.  There were all kinds of funky flavors including Wasabi!  The girls got cream soda and coconut grove and mint chip and I (YAWN!) got coffee and chocolate chip.

Audrey and our new friend Sabrina (who has a 15 year old sister Samantha, AKA our new babysitter someday) were interviewed by the Armed Forces Network (AFN) journalist who accompanied us on our trip.  The tour guide's daughter (another 11 year old, hooray!) told us that if you live here long enough, you will be on the television and in the newspaper multiple times!

Audrey is laughing because I'm lifting my dress up a bit and miming walking through the river, but she thinks I'm telling her to tell the guy about the squatty potties.  That was a fun joke the rest of the day.  Can you imagine on the first day of school?  "I KNOW YOU!  YOU'RE THE GIRL WHO TALKED ABOUT THE SQUATTY POTTIES ON THE TV!"

All in all, it was a great day!  I am super proud of the girls for not being Ugly Americans and being open to learning new things and experiencing this new culture that we are living in as well as using their manners with a cheerful "Arigato" (thank you)!

Beautiful Americans....Olivia and Audrey Wagoner.  I love you girls!  ☺