It's funny the sorts of things us silly Americans take for granted. Google, for example. Google is a great website. In ENGLISH!

In Japanese, it all means NOTHING! I get unhappy every time I open Firefox and Google appears with Japanese characters everywhere. WTF does any of that even mean? And it's even more depressing when all of my search results are in Japanese! How will I ever get things done again? Somebody should tell my freaking foreign IP address that when I type ".com", I MEAN ".com"! I do NOT mean ".co.jp"!!


Okay, that was my depressing rant for the day. Today was highly productive and Google didn't bother me at all until I opened my computer here in the lobby to check my email and saw nothing but a bunch of little scribbly marks all over my "home" page.


We got our overseas drivers licenses! This was quite a feat. We've been technically in the clear to do so since last Wednesday, but we have always had something preventing us from taking care of business. This morning before 8AM, Mark called me on the OBNOXIOUSLY loud room phone and said that I needed to be dressed and put together because he'd be here in 25-30 minutes and we were going to take our licensing exam.

So I dragged myself out of bed more than a little disgruntled, and got myself assembled for our outing. By 9:30 our chauffeur for the day had arrived and we were on our way to Camp Foster.

By 10:45, we were signing our licenses. We ate lunch at Macaroni Grill and then headed out to town to peruse the used car lots.

Boys and girls, we are the new owners of a 2000 Toyota Funcargo! (No, I did NOT just make that up. Shame on you for asking!)

Yes, I know what this car looks like. A little shoe. But don't knock it till you've tried it! Our dealership of choice was unfortunately out of both the Vamos and the Scion. So we went with this rather affordable Toyota. It has a ton of interior space and a huge cargo area in the back. It seats 5. And it has a CD player. Check us out, aren't we so high-tech? Okay, fine. You know what? You can shut your face! For $4300 with a 0% interest rate and a warranty that would knock the pants off of some American dealerships, I am not complaining!

So, yeah, the Funcargo. Which is just awesome, because honestly how many times in your life do you get to drive a car with "fun" in it's name, let alone OWN one? I mean, let's dissect that model name: Fun Car Go! It doesn't get much more authentic than that. And I'm pretty sure I've never seen one in the good old U.S. of A. Which makes it even more appealing, if possible.

We pick up the Funcargo on Wednesday afternoon.

Tomorrow, we'll be moving out of our lovely hotel and into our lovely industrial apartment. I have to keep reminding myself that it won't be entirely vacant when we get there, since the loaner government furniture was supposedly delivered today, although we didn't opt to borrow any beds because... Well, I don't want to sleep on their nasty beds. I'd rather wait for my nice comfy bed to arrive via the huge wooden crate it left San Angelo in. At any rate, it'll be interesting all by itself to see what kind of ugly crap they loaded into the place while we had our backs conveniently turned. And figuring out grocery and necessity shopping tomorrow while we are in between vehicular dependence and Funcargo-ness is going to be incredibly interesting. We'll see how that pans out, too.

For now, I feel like it must be nap time or something. It's been a damn long day. And tomorrow should be long, too. Isn't that special.

Here in Japan, there are a variety of "normal" cars available. Mark and I have reached total agreement on the fact that we are NOT interested in such a vehicle.

If we are going to be in a foreign country for 3 years, we are damned well going to buy some sort of absolutely ridiculous ride. When in Rome...!

I've fallen absolutely in love with this. I'm pretty sure to buy one would be a bit outside of our budget. But look at how freaking awesome it is! I've seen two of these now, in person. They are even cooler (and funnier) when you're standing next to them. It's like a mini-mini-van.

It's just as well, though, that we probably can't afford it. I was slightly disappointed to discover on their website that the Vamos only seats 4. I mean, we only need 4 seats - two of which will be filled with car seats - but my sensible side says that if we're getting a mini-van (even a mini- version) we had better be getting 3 rows of seats. Bare minimum in any vehicle we'd better be getting seating for 5. Even if we NEVER use the 5th seat.

Oh well.

Mark, honestly, has his heart set on a Scion. Which is fine with me - Scions are awesome cars. Although here there is no differentiating between a Scion, Lexus, or Toyota. All Toyota products are classified as Toyotas. You just KNOW an xB when you see it rolling down the road, though. There is no masking it's Brave-Little-Toaster style with a different emblem. And anybody who knows me at all also knows that I pine for my xA on a daily basis. Biggest mistake we ever made - trading it in for the CR-V! I would be perfectly happy with another Scion product. At this point, I'd be happy with ANY car if it gave us a little bit of independence. Having to rely on our sponsors - bless their hearts - or public transportation options to get anywhere is getting old. Monday we are supposed to take our SOFA licensing exams, and after that we're free to go car shopping.

I have a long list of things I'd like to do while we're here and the sooner I can get started the better. I'm feeling behind. Far, far behind. We move into our apartment on Tuesday, so at least SOME things will start getting settled. Yesterday we got cell phones. Very very slowly, we're piecing together some normalcy.