Despite having taken a COVID test when we landed in Japan, we were still required to do 14 days of Restriction of Movement (ROM) aka Quarantine regardless of the results. During this time, we were on base in a Navy base hotel. I use the word hotel lightly as it was really an apartment converted for a hotel stay. Fully furnished, 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a kitchen, and a laundry room. It had a lot of space so it was perfect for our stay since we literally couldn’t leave! (Being an introvert, I very much enjoyed our mandatory stay-cation.)
Taylor has a great sponsor and when we got there he already had the kitchen set up for us with baby food, cheerios, bananas, milk, coffee, and lots of Japanese goodies! We had all the essentials to get us started (he even got us tons of diapers and wipes and a laundry basket). The next day we used the base shopper program to get some other items we needed and Taylor’s sponsor brought us some more milk and bread a few days later. Although the hotel had a kitchen, it didn’t have much to actually cook with so we took advantage of the delivery options they gave us. We did breakfast through their MWR program, usually PBJs or leftovers for lunch, and rotated through their fast food and restaurants for dinner.
Adjusting to the time change went way better than I thought it would. It probably helped that after we landed and finally got to the hotel it was around 7 pm, so after 24 hours of travel, we were all wiped and ready to sleep. The boys would wake a lot through the night the first few nights, but it was easy to get them to go back to sleep. The boys are now taking their normal naps and sleeping through the night just fine. Jeffrey is still our early bird though. He made it a routine to wake me up every morning by coming to me and saying “It’s morning time, it’s red!” and proceed to pull back the blinds and show me the sunrise (he wakes me up by getting an inch from my face and whispering “open your eyes, it’s red”). I now understand why Japan is call the Land of the Rising Sun. They were some beautiful sunrises. The pictures don’t do them justice.
Our days were filled with playing, watching Christmas movies, and doing Christmas activities. Jeffrey really loved these festive window clings and a magic painting book. Jonathan really loved whatever Jeffrey had at the moment or getting into things he wasn’t supposed to.
I decided I had some time to figure out some Christmas cards this year. Here is how our photo shoot mostly went, but I had some success in the end.
Taylor got lots of snuggles. Jonathan became quite the daddy’s boy.
To get out of ROM we had to have another negative COVID test, so on day 10 we were able to go on a nice long walk to the hospital to get our tests done. Obviously, the boys did not like the test, but it was quick and they did okay overall. Thankfully it was a beautiful day. It was so nice to get some fresh air and see some of the base (my favorite parts were the mysterious WWII-era bricked-off tunnels all over the naval station. Apparently a few are still used today). We even saw Mount Fuji way off in the distance!
Two nights before we were to exit ROM, Taylor’s new bosses brought us some authentic Japanese food for dinner. There was TONS of sushi, yakitori, fried oysters, fried chicken, calamari, edamame, strawberries, and a Japanese dessert. Oh, and some wine! So thoughtful of them and such a delicious treat!
Although we weren’t able to explore, our first two weeks were really great. We felt welcomed and cared for by Taylor’s new team, we were able to adjust to the time changes, we were able to relax after some long days of moving from the weeks before, and we were able to dip our toes in some of the many differences between the US and Japan. We are now released from ROM and will be diving in to Japan living off base!
BRB, Out to Japan – Jackie