Samuri swords, pickled plums, castles, and dried salty-sweet fish snacks...

These are but a few of the recent cultural adventures the Spencer clan has had the last two days. To start things off we now have a car. Its going to be my (Ammin) clunker commuting car. Its a compact Nissan. HOWEVER, by some miracle we were able to cram, safely, all three of the boy's car seats in the back. So let me work out the math for you.

Tiny Nissan + 3 car seats = FREEDOM!!!

We were able to get off base on Saturday and explore a popular tourist site in Iwakuni. It is called the Kintai Bridge, along with a reconstructed castle of a feudal lord of Iwakuni originally built in the 1600s. It was a full day's adventure. The bridge is very famous and one of only a handful of unique bridges in Japan. Sitting atop the ridge of an adjacent mountain peak is the Iwakuni castle. It provided an amazing view of the bridge and city below. Were it not for a very hazy day we could have seen all the way to the base and out across the sea very easily. We ended that day with ice cream. Sarah and I ordered "royal milk tea" flavor. It was delicious!

We have also been out shopping a bit. I Japan they have "100 yen" stores, similar to our $1 stores. We took some brave culinary steps and bought some rather unfamiliar food, intentionally, just to give it a shot...and to show just how brave we are. The pickled plums were not a hit. I won't go into just how horrible they tasted. The salty-sweet dried fish snacks were not as bad. Odd, very odd indeed, certainly not delicious, but one could eat a bowl of them if given enough time and water to wash them down.

Driving off base has been an adventure too, but driving on the left feels pretty comfortable now. We hope to purchase a family van in the coming days. We'll keep you posted!