For Wednesday and Thursday we were at Yakota Air Base for Mason to actually work. I thought about doing some day trips to the Tokyo Area, but in the end I chicken'd out. It would have been two hours each way on the trains, without cell phone access, with three kiddos by myself, and I just got a little nervous about that. Plus, we'd had full days at Disney, and I think the kids are I were happy to have some calm days. The TLF that we were in on base was quite old-fashioned, but spacious. It was basically a 3 bedroom apartment. We met people at the park that said that out of the 4 towers near us, one was a TLF and the others were base housing apartments, that were essentially the same as our room, but a little more modern.
It was pretty nice that since we didn't have transportation on base and taxis were sparse that they had a shuttle service. Now, I had envisioned a bus as the shuttle, but this was actually a smaller 10 person van. The driver spoke little English, and there were probably 12 stops around the base, and they came every 40 minutes. It would have been a 1.5-2 hour walk to the other side of the base, so we were grateful for the shuttle option, but it also made me nervous, because if the shuttle was full or there weren't enough seats, you had to wait. This was especially a worry about the morning shuttle for Mason to go to work and the return shuttle in the evening...if we missed it we'd be stuck. Fortunately we always were able to get on, and sometimes that meant getting there 20 minutes early, since people seemed to respect the whoever gets there first gets on first unwritten policy. After two days of using the shuttle, we had shuttle buddies and frequently recognized people who were also using the shuttle.
Anyways, Mason was off working with the Japanese military building plans and secret stuff, while the kids and I ventured out. We made our way to the ITT office to pick-up our tickets for the excursion we would take on Saturday, and made our way to the BX around lunchtime. It was fun to see their BX and Commissary, and then we bumped into Mason and some co-workers having lunch, so we joined him for lunch before making our way back to lodging. When we got back everyone was pretty warm and tired, so we had some rest time and then ventured out for a walk in the housing area. The boys were surprisingly whiny during this walk, saying they were so tired and couldn't walk...yet no complaints at Disney, lol. The neighborhood was nice and it was pleasant to see big trees that smelled wonderful.
When Mason came home from work we took the shuttle back to the main base and went to the Chili's on base for dinner. They were doing take-out only which we didn't realize, but then they said we could eat in the restaurant out of our to go containers, but in the end with the shuttle times and everything we ended up heading back to the room and eating there.
On Thursday we were lucky enough to meet up with friends who were stationed with us in Minot who had just recently moved to Yakota. They had just gotten into their house on Wednesday, so we met at the park right outside the lodging and let the kids play for an hour or so and then we walked to their house for a tour and lunch. It was great for the kids to be able to play and to catch up with a friend.
After making it back to the room for a little rest, the kids and I headed to the commissary to pick up a few groceries to tie us over for the rest of our trip. The cashier, Bruce, even let Theo scan and checkout our entire order, which was fun for Theo but I was a little concerned the delay was going to make us miss the shuttle, but it worked out. After Mason came home and we had dinner we took a walk to another nearby park and let the kids play while watching C-130s fly overhead. It was nice to have a quiet minute with my love on a park bench.
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