Mobilio and Verisa-our new rides

Everything here is new to us, so I will probably be blogging about normal everyday things for the next little while and what I have observed or experienced in how they are different from what we are used to! 

Four days after we arrived on island, we took a written driver's test to get a license that would allow us to drive here. We had to study (I seriously felt like I was getting ready for a test at school) and then after a day long newcomer's orientation, we took the test. It was a lot of road sign recognition, how far from certain things you can park, making sure we were familiar with which side of the road we should be on, etc. Luckily, Grant and I both passed, so the next order of business was to buy a car. Our poor sponsors had been driving us around for close to a week, so we were anxious to get a mode of transportation that didn't require someone else picking us up (even though they were awesome and willing to take us anywhere!)

We were excited to come to Japan and get some funky little Japanese cars. We also wanted to have a car big enough to drive around with others, especially if we have visitors, and also load us and all our stuff in for trips to the beach, etc. We settled on the 2003 Honda Mobilio for our family car. It is perfect for us. 7 seats (but we keep the back 2 folded down-they fold under the middle row-most of the time), funny styling, very clean and nice. It is funny because there are seriously hardly any new cars here (and Americans definitely don't drive new cars here). Okinawa seems to get their cars from mainland Japan after several years up there, so a 2006 is about as new as you can find, and even those are hard to come by. We bought it off bookoo (okinawayardsales.com)-essentially the same as craigslist over here from a really nice couple who is heading back to the US, and so far we have been very happy with it!

As would be expected, driving is a little bit different, since the steering wheel is on the other side of the car from what I have been used to in my 14 years of driving! It actually hasn't taken as much adjusting as I might have thought, but I have definitely turned on the windshield wipers instead of my blinker a few times (called the "Okinawa wave" :) Definitely newcomers. I've gotten pretty used to it now but still occasionally do the wrong one when I'm quickly changing lanes, etc. It rained the other day and Grant used the blinker instead of the wipers...so it goes both ways ;) Overall it's been a relatively easy adjustment, but when you are on a road with no other cars or in a parking lot, it's a little bit harder to remember where you're supposed to be.

We've just had one car for the past week and a half or so, but with Grant officially starting work today, we thought it would be good to look for another. We wanted another funky Japanese car and looked all over, but it has been hard to come by exactly what we wanted. There are some dealerships that won't really work with Americans, and most of the cars were at those. We went to a used lot that caters to Americans and decided to look around. We liked our experience of buying the other car off bookoo, but there was nothing coming up that we were interested in so decided to give this a shot. We walked through the entire lot, found a few we liked, but kept being drawn back to this white Mazda Verisa. It's not the funky Japanese "boxy" styling we were looking for, but it was too cute and good looking to pass up, so we bought it!

 Here are a few examples of "sweet rides" that Grant would have loved :) Pay close attention to the pink heart wheels on this baby, pink windshield wipers, and hello kitty sun shades in the front windows.

 And we both kind of like these mini full size vans :) Kind of cute, huh?

 We were more seriously considering the Honda That's (yes, "that's" the name of the car :) and cars that looked similar to that if you want to google them :) But again, we just couldn't find the perfect one, so chose to go with the Verisa, and we love it too :)

We didn't get to bring it home yet (they're waiting for the Navigation screen to arrive and putting new tires on it-it was shipped from mainland and had snow tires which we obviously don't want/need here). One cool thing about it though is that it is only available in Japan, and when we read about it the website says, "The car is built with the watchwords-simple, quality, and compact-and is targeted towards couples in their 30s with individual style and values." I guess they did a good job because it appealed to us! (It was weird to realize we are now a couple in our 30s though...)

 We are excited to go pick it up later this week. I love the white and it's a really good size. Five seats with good trunk space! I think our cars will suit us well for the next 3 years.