Update On The New Car

Yes, I'm talking about our new car. It seemed all fine and dandy when we first bought it. You would think that buying it from a dealer everything would be all good, right? WRONG! In order to get it all registered and everything, you have to do the base inspections along with Japanese inspections. Well, it failed. The base inspector said there was all kinds of problems with it and it would cost $600 just for labor, no parts included. So we took it back to the dealer. It really wasn't necessary to do everything they said, although it did still need some work. We got it done at the dealership and a week later were able to finally get all the registration taken care of. Not everything is fixed yet though. We still need to replace the brakes (they aren't super bad yet, but will need replaced soon) and we are having problems with the alternator. It's ridiculous how much stuff costs in Japan. One auto parts store wanted $800 just for the alternator. Ouch! We can order a new one online for $150. Ben talked to the Auto Shop here on post though and I guess they got something figured out. One of Ben's buddies is going to help him fix it all up, so hopefully by this weekend it will be up and running. It's great when we can get it to work though. Most days Japan has perfect convertible cruising weather. I love it!

Right off the lot!

It's so much smaller than my car! So much fun though!

Isn't it cute?!?!

Only in Japan

Living in Japan, you never know what you'll see as you drive down the road. Here's a few examples from our last trip to Yokota...

This was actually on post, but it's "American" and "Japanese" style outhouses.

Sorry, no bikes or handcarts.

I don't think she had enough stuffed animals in her back window.

Ummm, excuse me, but my car is that top middle one...

Wait! Which way do I go?!

The Japanese Police, hard at work as usual.

Duh, you just gotta "Reflax"!

The "Vacation" Part of Oki

Our trip to Okinawa wasn't just dr appts. After a few days of having to take a cab everywhere we decided to rent a car which made it easier to get out and see stuff. We went to a couple of the other bases down there, went to the beach, and were able to just get out of the hotel room for a little bit (which is always a plus). :)

I'm not sure what exactly they were celebrating, but there were fireworks right outside post over the weekend. We had the perfect view from our hotel room. It was so cool!

Torii Station is the Army installation down in Okinawa, which just happens to be right on the coast. So we got to go to the beach and the only people there were those somehow affiliated with the military in one way or another. It wasn't crowded, the water was great, and it was super nice to get out and enjoy ourselves for a little while.

It was so great to see Ben smile again too. We both ended up with some sunburns (his were worse than mine). But it was so nice to get out and enjoy some sun.

We got poured on that morning on our way there. Luckily it had let up by the time we got there.

We rented a 2-person kayak and some snorkeling gear for the afternoon. That was pretty cool. I wish I had an underwater camera so I could have gotten some pictures of the cool fish we saw while snorkeling. Just for the record though, ocean water doesn't taste that great. Yuck, too salty for me. :P

All in all, a very relaxing day. Just what we needed.

Trial and Error

We went back to the dr this afternoon for test results. Or really the lack there of. We still don't know what's causing the abdominal pain or the kidney stones. He did a few tests the end of last week. For the kidney stones he had another CT Scan done and had to do a 24 hour urine collection. The CT Scan didn't show anything, and the urine collection has to be sent to Texas or somewhere so we won't know those results for a couple months. For the pain, he had to do a test where he swallowed a camera the size of a large pill and was hooked up to all kinds of wires and a machine and it took pictures as it went through. That was done to make sure there weren't any problems with his small intestine, and there aren't. We didn't think there was, but just to be sure. So we don't know what's causing the pain. There's really no point in doing another colonoscopy. He's had two done already and nothing was found so there's really no point in doing another one. While we were there today, the dr went and grabbed one of the surgeons who deals more with abdominal surgeries and such just to make sure he didn't miss anything and to see if he had any other ideas, and the surgeon was just as stumped as the rest of us. We discussed our options some more, and now we're going to try a trial and error approach and see if we can find a medicine that helps. So he's back on naproxen and something else that I can't remember at the moment, and we've got to get him off the percocet. Narcotics can actually make gut pain/problems worse, and he's been on them almost 2 months now so we really need to get him off. We are trying anti-inflammatory first, which we think may help. He had been on naproxen before for his shoulder and the pain really started when he ran out and stopped taking it. Another thing that makes us lean towards inflammation somewhere, is using a heating pad helps the pain. Doesn't make it completely disappear, but helps some. So that's the plan of action right now. The kidney stones, well we're not sure what's gonna happen with that yet. I guess we wait and see what results come back from the urine collection and go from there. So really we aren't going home with much more than we came down with. And it wasn't much of a vacation seeing how we spent most of the time either in the hotel room or at the hospital. We did go down to the beach Sunday, and I'll post those pics when I find the camera. It's probably still in the backpack. But that's all the news for now. We'll be home tomorrow. Hopefully our puppies forgive us for having left them out on the back patio for the past week. We had someone taking care of them, but with all the rain that's fallen up there hopefully everything's ok...