Saturday the 14th - Once a Coug

I am in the smallest room in the hotel. Another great thing is that it has 2-prong plugs instead of three like the other rooms i have stayed in. This was rectified by getting an adapter, but i am starting the process of trying to get another room. Right now the hotel is busy but it should open up after this next week. Anyways onto Saturday...

The old waking up at 2 am worked like a charm again. At least it happens to everybody. Two of the people that were on the same flight as myself thought it was a good idea to listen to me and follow me around japan. I know, sounds like a bad idea.

After eating breakfast and show my shoebox of a room to a few of the people who are on their first full day in japan, i took two people on a trip. I showed them a little of base. Important things like the ATM machines and were to get food. After that we headed to the local train station.

We got everybody PASMO cards to make the train situation easier. Then we headed to my favorite spot, Yokohama Landmark Plaza. I started by showing them the important things like, Starbucks. We then headed to the big mall. I pointed one guy in the direction of the Pokemon store for his granddaughter. Then i talked them into going to the top of the tower.

After we got back down we decided it was time for some lunch. So we went to the mall on the other side of the water. I pointed out why quite a few people had umbrellas, to keep the sun from burning them. We ate at a Chinese fast food place, which was pretty filling. After filling up on some white chocolate with white chocolate chip ice cream we headed to the Ferris wheel.

The wind was blow pretty good near the top. I thought we were in the middle of an earthquake, but the one that happened this morning was very far north. After we got out everybody was pretty beat, so we headed back to Yokosuka.

They made the mistake of following me on base and going to the exchange and commissary. After making sure they and their goods were in a taxi to their hotel i went back to the hotel.

After spending about an hour in a haze staring at the ceiling want to go to sleep but realizing that will only hurt the adjustment, I called them up and we went to my favorite eatery. Pepper Lunch. Everybody enjoyed the food and on the way to show them the 100 Yen store, i made a pit stop showing them a grocery store.

We spent about an hour walking around. For some strange reason we did not find 2% milk, we did however find 80%. The Japanese do not fool around when it comes to milk fat, they want 80-100 percent nothing less. We also saw lots of seafood which looked like it was in need of further prep before eating. One thing that was interesting was the piranha ready to eat in one of the cases.

Now for a couple of interesting stories. On the big escalator in Yokohama, the two other guys were about 10 feet behind me. I looked back to see if they had gotten on and then heard beautiful words, GO COUGS. I turned around shocked to here the call of WSU alumnus everywhere. It was a Japanese businessman who had spent two years at WSU. Funny enough that he was there the same time i was, we talked a little about football and basketball, before giving a farewell GO COUGS. Just goes to show Once a Coug, Always a Coug.

The other interesting story is very short but it shocked all of us. We were sitting on the train back waiting for the doors to close when, out of nowhere this guy starts running for the train. This is after the song to close the doors and start moving has started. He hurls himself into the door. Or I should say about halfway into the door. The door had closed on him. We thought we were going to see something bad, luckily one of the platform workers jumped in and pulled the doors apart letting the man inside the train. Crazy.

Pictures