The Intrepid Adventure.

After gathering enough courage (and enough sleep), we finally ventured into the strange and curious world off base [gasp!] on the Saturday eight days after our arrival. Armed only with enough yen for an emergency cab ride home and a few key phrases in the local tongue, we flashed my red Cinderella-liberty card at the sentry and opened the door to a whole new world. I mean that quite literally; to walk off base here you go through a door. The base is that small. I’m not kidding.

Anyway, at the height of summer at noon it’s about 85-95 degrees here. Throw in the ever-present 100% humidity and you’ve got that “but it feels like 140” thing going. Sounds like the right time to walk two miles downtown? Yea, but we did it anyway. So at the eighth floor of Fuji Grand (the big department store downtown), I bought the girls a sugar-frosted-sugar-n-syrup icee and after some air conditioning they eventually agreed that they weren't going to die of heat exhaustion.

We enjoyed some shopping, launching a brief and unsuccessful quest for Brenda's elusive big-toe-separated-socks and seeing what our hosts had to offer. One fascinating observation: the Door to Nowhere (see attached image). After some careful study, we concluded it was a Doctor Who Portal to Another Dimension and ran screaming for fear the Daleks would come through any moment and get the children.

We ran all the way to "The Yellow Brick Road" (no, I'm not kidding, that's what it's called. say what you will about munchkins), another little shopping area. We ate dinner/lunch (or linner or dunch) at the highly recommended and highly overrated Ganesh restaurant. Yes, we ate Indian food for our first Japanese meal. Gotta keep 'em guessing.

Feeling particularly courageous, we braved the bus system back to the main gate area, pleased and surprised we made it back still a family of four and didn't lose anyone along the way, and all promptly passed out happy but exhausted.