First Weekend Out

Hooray, we survived our first week living in Japan!

If you are curious about our first weekend here, you have come to the right post.  We stayed on base mostly, but did get a chance to go out with one of Ryan's coworkers, his wife and their baby.  Otherwise, we were confined to the base area since we did not have a car yet.  We did get smart and rent some bikes.  The rental cars were all out, so this was the next best option.

Most of the eating was done on base as we explored the various dining options.  In Europe we had some different Fanta flavors, but nothing like this:

Sweet!  That's green apple Fanta.

The food here was not all that great, but it is one of our 24 hour options.  I have never quite been served a veggie wrap like this before.  The middle was jam packed with cold shredded lettuce, but the outer area was sauteed mushrooms and peppers with cheese.  I wasn't really sure what they were going for with this one.  I don't think I have ever had something even close to this when ordering a veggie wrap before. I will not be ordering this again because I don't like shredded iceberg that gets served cold on warm things so it starts to turn slimy and wilt.  Iceberg just isn't all that appealing to begin with, but mushy and wilted makes me cringe even more.  At least I had some onion rings to enjoy with it!

   

Saturday night we took our first trip to the closest major city, which is like 30 minutes away.  The first stop was a furniture store.  They had lots of cute and tiny furniture.  It was a little like Ikea, but not quite, and lots of fun to walk around and look.  Also fun was the bathroom.  Yes, again with the bathroom.  Many toilets also have a little washing sink on top.  I just think it's funny.

 

Dinner was at CoCo's Curry House, which is another top spot people kept telling me about.  If you have lived in Japan you know about CoCo's.

 

Here's how it works: You either pick a curry dish from the menu, or go ahead and create your own.  Here are the steps in the picture below:

You pick your sauce, then your rice portion, then your spice level, then your toppings.  When you are ready to order, you push this button and someone will come take your order.

 

Since the curry was meat, I had a nice salad with some crispy shrimp.

 

Ryan had the curry with chicken cutlet (think katsu chicken) and cheese.  From what I gathered from Ryan and the others we were dining with, this is just amazing food.

 

I really liked my salad, and we also enjoyed some cheese naan.

 

Sunday we decided to go out on the bikes and look at cars.  Somehow we wound up going on a long bike ride around the base to explore everything.  With a little off-roading, we found this area.  Kinda spooky.

 

Then we found the base beach at the lake.  You can rent these little cabins to camp out in our just use for the day or something.  They are tiny, but cute.

 

We also stopped by the golf course and explored there too.  I was pleased to discover they offered a vegetarian menu at the club house restaurant.  I ordered a veggie burger with a side of veggies.  This was a great lunch.

 

Ryan had a grilled chicken sandwich. 

It was just what we needed before continuing back to the other side of the base and getting some rest before Ryan's first real week of work (although we did have 2 tours that were mandatory scheduled for the week).

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever heard of CoCo's?  Ever tried Japanese curry?  Do you like spicy foods?