Rainy Day

If there is one thing that strikes terror in my heart, even under the best of circumstances, it's a rainy day. A good 75% of my day is usually spent outside in some way trying to find ways in which to burn off all the excess energy produced by the 2 toddlers I live with. Fortunately for us, the weather during the first two weeks of our stay here has been great. Hot and humid, but no rain in sight. There is also a small playground right outside the door of the Navy Lodge, so even if we didn't have a busy day planned, we could at least get outside and let A & J run around.

When Adam left yesterday for a week in Tampa (thank you, US Navy. I stand in awe of your organizational prowess and common sense), I had my game face on and was mentally coaching myself about how I could handle the next week without him ---- a week that is probably going to be one of my most challenging yet in terms of logistics, paperwork, and Japanese red tape. But at least I knew I had the weekend to explore and get my bearings before having to dive into all of the business of the week.

It started off great! The boys rode in the stroller to the commissary, and we loaded up on everything we would need to make it through the week. They even walked back so I could push the stroller filled with groceries. No problem! After we unloaded, we went outside for the rest of the day. We finished up with a little "Cars" on DVD, and they were out by 7:30. I stayed up late organizing paperwork and drinking beer, congratulating myself on making it through the day. I worked out the trains we would need to take today in order to make it over to the aquarium in Enoshima, which looks like it might be the best thing since Sea World. I was looking forward to a day of taking the boys on their first train rides and tiring them out trekking through the aquarium looking at fish.

Around 9:00 I started hearing rain. A lot of rain. I looked out the window and saw what appeared to be a monsoon. I thought, "OK, maybe it will all be done by tomorrow." I went to sleep around 11:00 still hearing it... and woke up to the same thing at 6:00 this morning. I narrowed my eyes and thought, stubbornly, "This is not ruining my day!"

I tried. I REALLY tried to get to that aquarium.

We left around 8:20 and waited for the bus outside the lodge. The bus arrived. It dropped us off at the gate closest to the train station we would need to use. (There are 2 train lines in this area, and they use separate stations, although occasionally you can find a station that has transfers between the two lines.) I had one umbrella between the 3 of us, naturally, and the boys were wearing their only shoes, the velcro ones.

We sloshed over to that gate. It was closed. Apparently it is closed on weekends. Now I know. We turned around. We sloshed to the main gate. By this point, the boys were completely soaked, and I was getting there. I decided to take a taxi to the train station that houses the other train line, because I remembered that there was a mall of some kind there, so I thought I would try to get them some rain shoes. That mall was closed. We walked into that train station, and I tried to figure out how to get from there to the aquarium. I couldn't figure it out. We took a train anyway that had a stop near (or what appeared to be "near" on the map I have) the original train station so that we could start from scratch, finally. It was not as near as I thought.

What I found, instead, was a mall that was actually open. So we went in, and I found the Japanese equivalent of "Bounce House". I said, "I give up. Boys, go play." For 500 yen (about $6) each, they got to do this for an unlimited amount of time:

After I decided I was done worrying about whether or not they were going to crush Japanese children half their size (who were probably twice their age), I said, "Come on, boys, let's go get outfitted for stomping around in the rain." This resulted in:

Then we braved the weather once again and walked back onto base. We waited for a bus while the boys drank their beloved cherry drinks.

I discovered that a theater on base was playing "Ice Age," so we took the bus there. I bought them popcorn, and we settled our damp selves into the dark theater for what I hoped would be 2 hours of zoning out. The boys lasted an hour. We then trekked back to the Lodge, where it is now 4 PM. They are playing on iPhones, and I am obsessively looking at the weather channel. It says it will be sunny tomorrow. I am hoping for the best. But I have my game face on, just in case.