Our Adventures in Atsugi Japan

So when you first get to NAF Atsugi you will be walking everywhere. Although the base is small and most things are centrally located to the lodge you will see that things will take a lot longer to accomplish due to walking (especially if you have more than one child). Food shopping will seem like an impossible task and you might find yourself going to the commissary multiple times a week or even a day. However you will get a good workout in. I have a Fitbit and in a single day I went from the lodge to the CDC, to Fleet and Family for our AOB/ICR, to the school (near the CDC) back to fleet and family, back to CDC, to the commissary and then back to the lodge and I had over my 10,000 steps for the day and that was with me sitting in a class all day.  I personally do not mind the walking but if you do this might be a bit difficult for you so you might want to take people who offer you a ride up on their offer. So if what I stated above dose scare you then you are in luck this sce...

So when you first get to Japan everything is very overwhelming and scary mostly because it is something new. If you are like us and get here at night then you do not get to really see what anything looks like so venturing off base could be a bit scary. I am here to say do not worry once you get here you are required to go through and AOB/ICR (Area Orientation Brief/Intercultural Relations) which will fully prepare you for going out in town which will be one the 3rd day of your AOB/ICR.  On the 2nd day of our ICR they will show you how to use the trains as well as give some recommendations on where to visit fully preparing you for your 3rd day which is your "field trip."  On this field trip you will be taken on a bus to the train station Sagami-Ōtsuka Station.   Once you are at the station you will be  shown how to get a pasmo card which is a prepaid card you can use instead of getting a ticket every time you use the train or bus. The pasmo card can also be use...

 We made it!! The journey to Atsugi was long and exhausting so if you are going to make the journey ba aware. We started out fine making it from Indianapolis to Dallas without a problem but Dallas is where it all started to go down hill. We thought we had an hour layover in Dallas but by time we landed and got off the plane we had 20 minutes. If you have ever been to Dallas before then you know 20 minutes is not enough time which lead to us pretty much running to the next gate with a 3 year old who had been up since 1:00am so we ended up dragging her  through the airport but we made it and made it to Seattle with no additional complications.  So we spent the night in the Radisson which is right across the street from the airport. Due to the AMC terminal being at Seattle Airport it is very popular for military to stay at. The hotel itself is very nice for an airport hotel however I would not recommend eating it the hotel restaurant it was overpriced as are many hote...

So here it is November 30, 2017 less than a week until we set on our journey to NAF Atsugi!! I have so many thoughts and feelings going through me and it is driving me insane. It also does not help that we are staying at my mother inlaws in Indiana until we fly out on on Dec 4. Both me and my husband cannot seem to get a full night's sleep this week. We are both tossing and turning but I guess this is our preparation for a long flight full of no sleep. We fly out of Indianapolis on Dec 4th at 8:00 am which is about 2 hours from our current location in northern Indiana and of course we have to be there 2 hours prior so what time do we have to get up LOL about midnight knowing me because I always feel I will forget something. Once we leave Indiana we will have a layover in Dallas/Ft Worth and then land in Seattle Wa. at about 12:30 their time which gives us almost a full day in Seattle. Then we lease Seattle on Dec 5th and arrive in Japan on Dec 6th at about noon their time. This i...

As soon as we got our orders to  NAF Atsugi  my mind was going wild with imagination; I did not know what to do first or even what to do last this was all so new to me. I mean the only place we had been were in Norfolk Va and New Orlean La. I had never been out of the country and Japan was definitely not on my radar. So I did what I think any of us would do and took to google. I googled the base, the location and of course the housing. Housing was a hard one, I found the housing page easy enough but when it came to the floor plans and photos those were not as easy to come by like New Orleans or Norfolk . The housing in Japan is not government contracted like here in the states so there was no Lincoln Military housing web page or anything similar it was a page maintained by what I can assume is the Navy (corect me if I am wrong). There is a wealth of information out there on Japan what to do, where to go,where to eat and stay. However when it comes to a family of 5 PCSing ther...