What I miss from the states:
1. Shopping malls, enough said.
2. Bargain shopping (Ross, Marshalls, TJMaxx, etc.- Yes the top two are shopping. The Japanese styles are very punk and shopping online is HARD!).
3. Olive Garden (Ok we have a Macaroni Grill on one of the marine camps, but it's still just not the same.)
4. Chipotle (Yes my other top reasons are food. Hmm, shopping and food are the way to my hear! Hehe! Hm, while I'm at it I also miss Arby's, Chick-fil-a, Sonic, Jamba Juice and well, pretty much every fast-food place and restaurant!)
5. Street signs! There are hardly any street signs off-base. Directions are solely based on landmarks (i.e.-turn at the little mirror thing).
6. Seeing more than 10 different style cars... and more colors than white and silver (that's the majority).
7. The newness of the states. Everything here seems a little old and rundown.
8. Being able to turn right on a red light. Here, you have to sit through the entire light.
9. That motorcycles don't have their own traffic rules! Here, they do whatever they want!
10. How in many places they don't allow smoking in restaurants or other public places. Not here, they smoke wherever they want!
11. The convenience of 24-hour Wal-Marts.
12. Target.
13. Cell phones. The ones here are crazy. I can't even understand half the functions on my phone and it takes entirely TOO long to try and send a text message.
14. Having more than 1 radio station to listen to. I miss my country stations! :(
15. Convenience. It all boils down to everything is so convenient in the states! You don't realize it until you don't have it!
16. Take-out Chinese food. Ok you're probably thinking I'm crazy since I live in Asia, but take-out Chinese in the states is completley different than authentic Chinese food.
17. Being able to run to the store and not run into a million people from work/your husband's squadron. It's a SMALL island here! I seem to run into someone I know everywhere I go.
18. DVR and having HD channels. We are fortunate enough to have about 70 cable channels (which is cool, I thought we were only going to ge tthe 5 AFN channels). However, DVR was awesome and I can't wait to have that function back!
19. Having a mailbox at my house instead of having to drive to the post office and pick up the mail everyday. Not to mention our combination box is possessed and only likes to open after about 5 perfect attempts to open it!
20. Being able to pick-up the phone and call friends and family whenever I want to. With the crazy time difference, it's very difficult to schedule phone calls (via Skype which is AMAZING!).
21. Not having many other options when the commissary is out of something. If the commissary was out of something, we could always run to Wal-Mart or another grocery store. Not really an option here! So when we see something we know is hard to get (i.e.- ground turkey, Pillsbury pizza dough in the can, ground pork, spinach & a few other items) we stock up! It's a drag when we stalk up and then don't use it before it goes bad...
Well, that's all I can think of for now. But don't get the wrong impression, I do like it here in Okinawa! It's just after awhile, a foreign country starts to lose it's sparkle and you start to miss "home"... wherever that might be?! I can't complain about being minutes away from beautiful beaches, being exposed to some awesome culture (I love how polite and friendly the Japanese are!) and having some of the yummiest food around! We also have made some great friends and it makes it all the better. We hope if any of our friends/family want to come visit us that they do!!! Really, there are plenty of great things here! Hm, I'll have to compose a list about the things I like about Japan soon!!!
1 comment:
I feel your pain on some of these... especially: convenience (whether it's food, stores, or any type of service), radio stations, Target, and having a mailbox. Jordan and I try to remind ourselves about all the things we will miss once we leave, which always seems to help. :)
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