Yokohama and Yokosuka

I hadn’t noticed until this very moment that the town we’re staying in, Yokohama, shares half of its name with the town we’re working in, Yokosuka (the George Washington is berthed there this week). Perhaps that’s no different than working in St Cloud and commuting to St Paul, but I’m pretty sure than Yoko doesn’t mean Saint. Perhaps this is something I can research once I catch up on my sleep, scheduled to occur once I get back to my own bed.

This is the first trip I had since receiving my United Premier Executive Gold status, my reward for spending too many hours on aircraft. My perk over the old Silver status? Nothing. Maybe next time. Thanks for playing.

At the Hotel Plumm, there’s not a single perk, only the tiniest of rooms, with deep tan walls, charcoal grey carpet, and hot pink furniture. The staff put the six of us in six adjacent rooms. Strange, but efficient. The décor suggests that they host annual Hello Kitty conventions, but their literature suggests that they specialize in weddings. For fear of even greater confusion, I won’t turn on the television.


Okay. I turned on the television, but it’s only to pass the time until we start heading towards home. It’s the usual morning infotainment shows, hosted by three to five talking heads. Sadly, the baseball scores are in Japanese, so I don’t know how the Carp did last night. The ads, though, are worth the effort to watch them. As if the bright colors, seemingly foreign soundtracks, and unidentifiable products, weren’t enough, many are populated by mascots and cartoon characters that make one question the seriousness of the entire people.

In the last one, an increasingly haggard businesswoman was shown hustling through her day, hounded by a short girl in a chubby, plush costume with little wings, somewhere between an angel and a snowman. Eventually, the businesswoman consumed something that looked like an oversized stick of gum, and she was instantly revived. I couldn’t tell if the plush angel-snowman was responsible for any of this, or was just hanging out in the scene.
In another, a couple of kids dropped a small metal can into a cup of water, causing it to steam and foam. Seconds later, their bathroom is sparkling clean.
And they have wireless Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Totally cool.

We’ll leave the hotel soon, and take the train to check out some of the sights of the Yokohama waterfront. The cherries are in bloom. They’re early, but beautiful, nonetheless, and add a nice touch to the urban landscape.

Lots of train travel this week, starting with an express from the Tokyo/Narita airport to Yokohama. We couldn’t get rooms adjacent to the base in Yokosuka, so we’ve been commuting by train every morning and evening, about 75 minutes door to door (including a short base taxi ride to get us to and from the gate to our temporary offices). We thought ourselves lucky to even get to the base the first morning. Perhaps five rail companies share the facilities at the Yokohama station, and their trains head out in at least ten directions. We found the right tracks eventually, but found ourselves on a local train, which makes 17 additional stops between here and there. We thought we had it figured out on the second day, but it was the Equinox, so they used a holiday schedule.

Yesterday, though, limited expresses each way, all the way. And today we leave. By the time I return (whenever that may be), I’ll have forgotten.

However, I’ll never forget the Hello Kitty themed breakfast I had this morning, definite change of pace from the noodle shop I had been frequenting. I liked the noodle shop because they had a comprehensive picture menu, which is the best thing next to an English menu, but the latter is a rare thing indeed. Mostly, it’s hit and miss. Fortunately, a lot of Japanese restaurants are tapas (more or less), so the commitment to something awful will only affect a small portion of the meal. With little dishes, we need a lot to feed six Americans, and to slake our gargantuan thirsts. At the end of supper last night, we were presented with an bill that looked more like a grocery list, and nearly half a meter long, once everything was itemized.

The weather’s been nice, which brings out the bikes, reminding me that I need a new battery when I’m CONUS.


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