Upon arrival we started our hunt for the basics...a house and a car. Our success in both these areas can be attributed to the service oriented nature of the Japanese along with several of those we will be working with in the dental clinic....many of the landlords came to pick us up to look at houses and coworkers drove us to nearby towns to shop for cars. Four days after landing in Misawa we signed a lease on a house and an hour later one of our coworkers friends came over with a car...and we bought it on the spot. We were very lucky to get a brand new 3 bedroom 2.5 bath 2 story house...you can see the mountains in the distance from several of our bedrooms...in a Japanese neighborhood off base. We are only about 10 minutes by car or bike to the main gate of the base. Heath really wanted a mini car like all the Japanese drive so we bought a $2000 '96 4-wheel drive Mitsubishi Mini Pajero...which is like the old Suzuki Samarai. As for the age...it is in its prime on base where the average age of cars is a '95. After just a few days, however, the mini pj already had to be put in the shop to repair a terrible "clanking" noise on turning ...luckily it cost us less than $200....stay tuned to see if this car makes it to the end of our 3 year tour. As for Japan...life is different...but really not that different except for the language. In all our travels we can usually make sense of things in Latin based languages....but this is a whole new ballgame...characters are impossible to write and difficult to even to find in our Japanese to English dictionary. The Japanese language is exciting to learn and the locals are very happy when we try. More on our adventures later. We miss you guys...please start saving so you can come and visit. -Amy