Back to misawa

So I'm coming back to misawa from spokane.  I was in spokane for completing MBA, now my husband got order and I was kind of bored to be at home going to school whole time. I decided to come back to misawa to spend the time with my husband. My flight was spokane - Seattle - haneda - misawa.

I failed to book the hotel in haneda. Hotel was fully booked and I needed to stay over night at international airport because it's not allowed for people to wait at domestic airline after midnight.

For those who wants to get a cheap capsule style hotel in the terminal 2, here is an information.

http://first-cabin.jp/locationlist/haneda-terminal1.html

Trip to Korea - Subway

Korea has amazing public transformation and it is very safe everywhere. I recommend you to buy bus/subway card (available at any convenience store) and travel with it. You get discount by using transformation card. 

Seoul Subway Map

Trip to Korea- Traditional market

We were staying in Cheonan which is 30 minutes away from songtan. There is Traditional market everyday and we got to eat street food (hoteak - Korean pancake with brown sugar and cinnamon in it) It was interesting to see food and fruit at market. 

Trip to Korea - Everland

Eveland is located Yongin which is outside of Seoul. We drove to everland but there's shuttle bus to Everland which ever you're at. Since they don't provide English option for shuttle bus.. Ask your Korea friend or me to get the bus ticket.. There's one in Suwon Station but needs to make a reservation before taking on the bus. I wonder if they do on site sale for bus ticket. 

Reservation for Eveland shuttle bus

Any military members with leave paper, he/she gets free ticket for everland which costs over $40,000 without having any discounts on. We purchased the ticket through ticketmonster which is something like groupon in korea. We got ticket for $48 for 2 person. I wish I could known that there's discount for military members with leave paper. 

ticket monster

Everland was pretty fun place. We rode T-express which is wood roller coaster and known for the most scary roller coaster in Korea. We waited 50 minutes on Saturday and it was very fun.

Then we went to Lost Velley. it's newly built place so we needed to wait for 70-80 minutes to see animals. basically there's desert animals. people is on the car that can goes to on the water and the ground. the tour guild feeds meal to giraffe and we could see giraffe from very short distance. 

Everland Website

Traffic Information

Trip to korea - Trick Art Gallery

This is interesting place that you can take funny pictures with a nice painting as backgrounds. The point of this gellery is taking a picture that doesn't make sense. We actually went to the place at Hongdae last year and had great time. 

Direction

1. Start from Seoul Station (Line #1)

2. Take off at Jong gak station ( 2 stops away from Seoul station)

3. Exit #12 and walk toward insadong, then you will get to see Ssamzzi building (wired building)

Admission fee is $9. They provide military discount of $1 off. 

Trip to Korea - 63 building seaworld

My husband and I went to several interesting places in Korea. The first place was 63 building at Yeouido in Seoul. There's shuttle bus if you don't know the direction. I didn't know where to take the bus and didn't see any bus coming saying 63 building. So we decided to walk. It is very easy to walk and only takes 15 minutes. 63 building is 63 stogies building with yellow colored building so it's easy to find.

Direction (subway)
1. Start from Seoul Station. - Line #4
2. Get off at Gongdeok Station (one stop away from Seoul Station) and change subway line to Line #5
3. Get on the Line # 5 which goes to Yeouinaru
4. Get off at Yeouinaru ( two stops away from Gongdeok station ) and take exit #4
5. As you exiting from the station keep walking to the right side and see the sign for 63 building on the street. the building is pretty sticking out yellow colored (golden yellow).

63 building sometimes offers foreigner discount, so check if they have discount option available at the time that you're visiting at the ticket center. the admission fee is 19,000 per person. I paid pretty much same price when I went to Coex aquarium at Gangnam, Coex was a lot bigger then 63 building and has more fish. 63 building was fun but wonder if it worth of paying that much.

Trip to Korea

My husband and I were out of misawa and went to Korea for a week to trip and see my family. We prepared leave form and registered name on space A email on Saturday 8am. Even though we needed to register our name again on Monday morning for travel, It was worth of trying registering name before the show time. 

This time it took more time even though there wasn't much people on space A for pcsing because we needed to be in the conference room with other people and wait till they finish their processing. I understood the situation. It really helps to finish writing form down If you prepare a pen with you. A pen is not provided easily and there are many people without having any pens with them. 

Few dollar is needed to ride on a taxi to main gate. ($2.60 is basic fee) Don't let taxi drivers take chances without noticing passenger on the taxi. they are sometimes pretty rude and does that action without letting us know. 

where to dispose Lithium-ion battery

You know you can't really dump the Lithium-ion battery with normal waste.

According to Ehow,

these batteries can lead to respiratory problems and, in some cases, skin rashes. In many states, it is illegal to throw away lithium ion batteries. This is because they enter the solid waste stream and contaminate soil and water. In addition, if this kind of battery is subjected to high temperatures, it may explode.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/way_5171333_proper-disposal-lithium-ion-battery.html#ixzz2ck7j7Y1D

So, When I found half blown up Lithium-ion battery, I needed to dispose it right away,

Hazardous dispose building is near the post office. When you go straight where you can see the sign of DUI reports. you will see big building where is fenced around on the left side. Make a left turn after the building then the building of 977 is show up on the right side.

More information at,
Trash disposal in Misawa

Hazardous Waste: Base Hazardous Waste Storage Area,
Bldg 977 @ 226-2306
Paint, spray cans, gasoline/oil, batteries, cleaning products,
pesticides, camping & BBQ propane gas cylinders (empty), office/
shop fluorescent bulbs, etc.

Fluorescent bulbs: from MFH must be turned in to Self-Help,
bring old bulb to exchange for a new one. Bldg 794, 226-4992

Hours
Mon - Fri: 8 a.m. - 4 p.m

Self Help - House maintenance

If you're living in On base housing and found anything needs to be replaced at home. the best place you to go is self help. It's behind the CE building. you can reach through the gate next to CE building and turn right then you can see the sign of the place. You have to bring the old light bulb to get replacement. I found my oven light and 2 of bedroom light was offed. I couldn't unscrew the light bulb box so I call to housing maintenance office to ask how to. She sent me craftsman instead. Of course that was great. I found whenever I call to the housing maintenance, they send a person right away. for example, I call them at 9:30am then she set the schedule at 10am and they come right on time. 10:00!

Self-help Store
Mon, Tue, Thu and Sat: 0900-1600
Wed: 0900-1300
Fri: 0900-1500
Sun: Closed

Pit Stop Garage in Misawa AB

After finding out break light is out on my car, I went to pit shop for changing light. Since I never done light bulb changing here, I was going to buy the light bulb and do it by myself. when I got to pit shop, i found out that I need to unscrew the back light box and take the whole thing out to be even able to reach to the light bulb part. So I asked the lady at pit shop to see if she has screw driver. Thankfully, she brought one of the workers who fix the car. And he replaced the light bulb in the middle of working on other car. The price was $10.20 for both break light and my car is 1997 Honda crv. I believe you can buy light separately at auto hobby shop where is next to the CE building.

You can find the information of pit shop at

http://35fss.com/garage.html

All you need is fans...

When you pcs to misawa from states side.. bring at least 2 fans or more. The fan you can get here - Japanese local store or BX even doesn't have nice fan. Especially you can expect nothing at Japanese local store. What they have not only looks breakable but also prices expensive. We bought one fan with small free fan attached, we wish we got more. Amazon might not ship it because it's big and you never know how the product quality will be.

Make sure that you buy fan and ship it here! If you're with family, you'll automatically have to live on base for a year at a tower or a h-style house.  There's no A/C in housing.... Fan is very important! It saves life at summer time here.

Updated on November ,2014

Now Misawa AB approve portable AC that fits the regulation of the military housing. Few of products are displayed at BX. I highly feel that it is recommended to buy products in The states and bring it here to misawa since we don't have much of selections here. we bought the fan at Costco in Vegas and we were very happy with that. Please check the regulation with housing office before purchasing any items, it might not be allowed on base due to the energy consumption rate of the products. 

A super expensive peppers

So I bought 2 bell peppers today at commissary... it was $4!!!!!!!!!

Peppers here are ridiculous....

4 peppers means.... $8!!!!!!

It sounds like I need to start farming here in misawa..

Summer seems over in misawa?

So it has been severe hot weather in misawa for about 2 weeks. I've heard that summer here is super hot. Now I know what they meant. I lived in vegas for few years until i come here and I thought I'm pretty good at handle hotness. It is totally different than what we usually think of hot weather. I couldn't stop sweating all day long. Only thing I did was weat on a couch and spacing myself in front of the fan. Since my husband and I are living in the tower. We don't have air conditioning! Now we're allowed to have an air conditioning with our own expense! Think about it, when there's only few weeks of summer then who's going to buy air conditioning??  I'm sure there will be A/C in almost every base housing except misawa ab. It's almost useless or will have to sell it with super discounted price to neighbor when we pcs again. So... we decided to bear with it. And it has been super hard. This humidity makes me sweat a lot. Now I know why japanses people were so skinny. We even went to the library to avoid seatting at home and angry about the weather. The library isn't that cool.... it's somewhat between cool and warm.. it's better than being at home though..

It seems like we're almost over with summer here. It feels so nice at night. ;) hopefully summer is over soon!! But I know what that means.. super long winter time with lots of snow...

nebuta festival aomori japan_2

*More info

-Taking toll road saves about 45 minute than take non-toll road. - Toll fee is 830 yen

-Parking at the festival is pretty easy. - Parking fee was 1000 yen

-Lots of people bring their own  chair or picnic blanket
-Bring own food is a good idea. at the place, We could get french fries and fried chicken (800yen total). those were very cold. After finish eating bring the trash back with you or you can take those trash to the vendor that you got the food. they will take those. 

nebuta festival aomori japan_1

My husband and I went to Aomori on Saturday last week. This festival last for few days. This is good event for the local to be participated from the very young children to the senior members. Anyone can participated, one of my husband's co-worker suggested us to participated next year. what you're going to do at the festival is dancing with locals and enjoy in the crowd of marching people. 

Aomori is one and half hour away from Misawa AB. Be aware there will be so many people when you're out of the festival which makes hard for us to get out of Aomori. We took 30 minutes to move 4 km which is little over then 2 miles. For the people who live in base housing, curfew might be the thing that you consider to go to here. 

Festival was very fun and great opportunity to experience Culture of Japan.

Ninja shoes. Japanese lady kindly allowed me to take the picture of her shoes.

We got to Aomorori around 4pm and they were preparing for the event.

this is what we saw at the festival. This beautiful thing is glaring at night, and making the picture looks very cool. the local Japanese people pull this only with man power. pretty impressive. 

Electricity outlet in japan

110v in japan different Hz depends on where it is in japan.

It only matters when you use the home appliances which needs lot of power such as rice cooker or something like that..

How to connect Wifi at misawa ab library

This is the way to connect to wifi in misawa AB. I could connect to wifi from my phone or ipad without having any problems (just choose 'LIBRARY' and put a password 'library123456'. somehow, the system on the computer kept saying that I need to know the ID.  the library desk gave me a book that I can use to access the library. the library has fantastic broadband and connection compare to the internet we're paying for.  I wonder what makes the differences between those internet. 

Misawa Tanabata Festival _ 2013

Tanabata (七夕?, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival.[1] It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar. The celebration is held at various days between July and August.

check for more info about Tanabata at HERE

It has a story about this day in korea, The day is called as'chil suk' which means 7th of July. There's a couple in somewhere in sky. their name is 'gyungwoo' and 'jikyeo'. They are in love with each other and want to meet but somehow they can't. there's only a day allowed for them to meet. that's 7th of July. the crows make a bridge for them to step on so they can meet in the middle point. It always rains on that day because they cry for happiness after they meet each other. People consider the rain early in the morning as cry for another separation for a year.

So this is a picture that I found from Japan Guide webside,
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2283.html

It rained so much in misawa for 3 days while it had festival. Though there were not very many people walking around the town, It was fun to have something to do in misawa on weekends. My husband and I went down to the main gate area and checked what they have around here. 

bones stuck on sausages

kimchi something

chocolate on bananas

super fried sweet potatoes

one way street to max value, they covered top part due to heavy rain