Zack has been really busy this week getting ready for his first deployment, so I've been busy trying to find people to hang out with while he's gone. As usual, I've had some help from Mel. Mel, as I mentioned before, is the wife of another officer on Zack's ship (the CHENG, which is short for chief engineer). They're newlyweds as well. Before getting married, she was in the peace corps, and spent some time in both Russia and China. She has a masters in ESL. We like a lot of the same stuff (like travel and lanugages), so we get along well. Mel and her husband will be moving to Virginia in a few months, but she learned a lot while she was here, and she's apparently determined to help me transition smoothly. From what I gather, she had no real guide, so she spent a lot of time staring at her walls, and we all know how much fun that can be.
One of the things Mel recently discovered is a group called the Officer's Spouses Club (for a legal explaination of why this is not discrimination against the spouses of the enlisted folks, e-mail my sister Emily, who just learned all about fraternization laws in the military). Mel explained to me that "spouses" for all practical purposes means wives, and they get together at least once monthly to either do something fun or just hang out. This month's outing was tomato picking. You can go to these outings either by becoming a member (which means paying dues) or by getting a member to invite you. Since Mel only found out about this recently, she's not a member, but her friend Debbie is, and she took both of us as guests.
So Thursday morning, I woke up to the sound of rain pouring down the roof and wondered how serious I was about meeting people. Was I, for example, willing to go tomato picking in the freeezing cold rain? Maybe, I reasoned, they'd skip that and go the lunch part. So I went, rain and all. Mel gave me a ride to base, and then a bus took us the hour and a half to Oshima Island, where there were supposed to be tomatoes. On the way, they had their Club meeting, and I learned that the Officer's Spouse's Club is more than just an excuse to go hang out. They run a thrift shop on base and use the money from that, and the dues from the club, to help those in need. Primarily, they give out scholarships, but they do other things with it too. This made me feel much better about potentially joining, considering the fact that you still have to pay for all these outings.
The tomatoes, as it turned out, were in big plastic greenhouses, which made a lot more sense based on how cold it's been. We got to taste before we picked, and either I had forgotten how good vine ripened tomatoes really taste, or these are especially good. One of the men who worked at the place then distributed baskets and clippers and took us to the greenhouse to pick. He showed us what a good tomato would look like and everything (green on the top, with lines on the bottom and bumpy means it'll be ready in three to four days). I got a few ready to eat, and a few that will conviently ripen while Zack's not around, since he doesn't eat them anyway.
After everyone had picked to their heart's content, we went to a nice hotel on the island for lunch. We had all ordered in advance so they could be ready for us. All the options were tomatoes fixed in some special way. I had tomatoes wrapped in bacon over cabbage in a cream sauce. It was delicious. There was also Tomato Rissoto, Tomato Tempura, and even a Pizza option. All of it looked good.
But what made the trip really good was how friendly everyone is. I guess I'm still learning that we're all in transit everywhere we go. These ladies know it and take advantage of the chance to meet people. If I stood without talking to anyone for more than a minute or two, one of them would say "I don't think we've met yet. I'm (insert incredibly forgettable name here)" and chat. They are a well spring of information about living in Sasebo and also just fun to hang out with. So that was good. I gave the president my e-mail address, and she said she'd get me on the list to get the information for the next one. Debbie said I could be her guest again, but I'm thinking I'll be joining anyway...
Thursday night, we had a brief about the upcoming deployment of Zack's ship. All the guys were required to attend and wives(the ship has an all male crew) were encouraged to come, so I did. The brief itself was like watching our Welcome to Sasebo class in fast forward, but it gave me a chance to meet the CO (Commanding officer), XO (Executive officer), and more importantly, both their wives. The rest of the officers on the Guardian, other than Mel's husband, are single, so the four of us comprise a very small community of our own. The XO is new, but his wife, Skii, has lived for the last ten years, and they've been in Sasebo before. She's Austrailian, and models, sings and recruits other models, so she's pretty busy, and also very nice. The CO's wife is Japanese, so she's kind of got her own life, too, but we're all going out to lunch on Monday, so that will be fun. The XO's wife and I are also going to take the ombudsman class that's coming up because the ombudsman of the ship will be leaving in a few months, too, so someone needs to pick that up. (The ombudsman's job is to help families communicate with the crew while they're out, as best I understand so far. I don't really know, but I know she's super important. Like most important jobs, it's farly thankless, so no one wants it, so... More to come on that I guess...)
So Mel, continuing in the spirit of getting me out of my house, informed me that night that there was a Noritake sale coming up today. She invited Zack and me both to come with herself and Joel (her husband) and check it out. Naturally, we went. We were joined by Terri, the wife of the CO of another ship, also new to town as of a month ago, and Carmen, the current ombudsman for Zack's ship. We took Carmen's van to the factory, which is in a town about half an hour from here. The drive was absolutely lovely. It was along a winding road through the mountains with a good view of the valley below.
Upon arriving, we wandered through two rooms full of china in all shapes and patterns just out on tables. There were baskets waiting at the door you could pick up to hold what you chose. All of it had price tags, and everything was 20% off what the tags said, so it was a really good deal. We got a few things, mostly gifts, but not much. (Dad, I didn't buy you the giant porcelain leaping deer, don't worry.) Carmen didn't get anything because they didn't have the teapot she wanted, so she's waiting until the next sale. Terri filled a huge box with her purchases, and Mel and Joel got his parents a whole set in a pattern his mom likes.
Once we had paid for our purchases, there were tables with newspaper so you could wrap everything carefully. If you wandered further back into the warehouse, you could find an auction going on for more china. I have no idea how it worked because of the language barrier, but I do know that once and item and price were announced, there was a rock/paper/scissors contest to see who would get it! It was highly entertainting to watch. At a stand in the back of the auction room was a man with a vase full of wooden chopsticks and piles of plain white china behind him. If you gave him your receipt, he would let you choose a number of chopsticks based on how much you had spent (we got to pick three, Mel got five). Chopsticks that had been marked red on the bottom were considered lucky. For every lucky chopstick you picked, you got a medium sized china teacup. For every normal one, you got a smaller sized teacup (they looked like the plastic ones you see on airplanes). We got three lucky chopsticks, then Zack found a receipt someone else had left behind and not used, so we ended up with six lucky teacups and two unlucky.
THEN, we all decided to eat lunch at the various stands they had set up in the auction room. Our food was served on more china, which was ours to keep. So we came home with two plain white plates as well! The whole thing was highly entertaining.
Tonight, we're going out for Japanese Mexican. There's a guy who used to live in California who has a restaurant on the Ginza. I think the restaurant has a name, but it's identified by the sign MEXICAN FOOD over the door. It's supposed to be really good. We intend to find out for ourselves.
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