Japan!: October 2010

After four and a half years of marriage to a military member, I'm getting used to having our plans changed regularly. Plans to move over the summer? Never mind... you're actually not moving until next year. Plans to go to Phoenix for training? Never mind... you'll be headed to Ohio instead. Plans to spend another year in Ohio while Chris goes to Korea? Never mind... you'll both be going to Japan instead.

I'm also getting used to having those new plans work out way better than we expected...

For example, Chris was supposed to fly a jet to his deployment. So we said a tearful goodbye, he flew away, and I went for a run with a friend to clear my head and lift my mood. When I got back, I had five missed calls from the squadron asking me to come pick up my husband... who had landed back in Misawa a few short hours after taking off.

New plan... Now Chris and one other pilot were going to have to fly commercially to the deployment. And they would have to travel the long way around the world... through the States. And they couldn't leave the States for another week. So with just a little bit of paperwork and a leave-in-route request, Chris and the other pilot, Bodhi, had a ticket to California for the next day... and they talked me in to going with them. New plan... San Francisco for a week with Chris! So much better than the old plan of being by myself in Misawa:)

We landed in San Francisco a few hours before we took off from Tokyo... The international dateline is like a secret vacation extender... especially for me, who didn't mind that I lost a day coming back home.

Our first task was to rent a car. The boys picked it out.

Driving around San Francisco is like being on a roller coaster. Thank goodness we picked up an automatic... It might be impossible to drive a standard on these hills.

This is Lombard street. According to our map, it is the "crookedest" street in the world.

I love the architecture! It's so "Full House".

We had the most amazing weather while we were there. But of course, we were in California... so the weather is always amazing.

We spent a couple hours biking around.

I could get used to all this sunshine.

We made the mistake of biking past all the restaurants and then realizing we hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch... We were starving, so the hot dogs at this stand tasted amazing. And this was my first experience with an organic hot dog. It looked a little greenish... I might be partial to preservatives.

I thoroughly enjoyed our bike ride.

Definitely not where I expected to be two days after Chris's "deployment date".

I have to say, the guys' picture was way more interesting than the picture of just Chris and me.

Wow... I think he cleared the Golden Gate Bridge!

Sorry... no fun jumping pictures.

Bodhi's girlfriend Ashley was in San Francisco for business... which made this trip so unexpectedly perfect. She joined us after work.

Hanging out at Pier 39.

These things make me think of Rice-a-roni.

Ahhh... Napa Valley. Chris and I spent a full day here driving around and taking tours. Our first stop was the Robert Mondavi Winery.

Such a beautiful place.

This is where the gift shop and tourist welcome center were located. I think I could be happy working at a winery gift shop in Napa Valley...

This larger building is where the huge oak tanks are located where they ferment some of their choicest wines... Our tour went here later.

Again, we had amazing weather (no big surprise for a summer in Napa Valley, I guess).

This building is depicted on the Robert Mondavi label... but I'm taking the picture from inside the winery, so it's essentially backwards from the label picture.

This was our tour group.

A couple rows of cabernet sauvignon... my favorite.

Have you ever tasted wine grapes?? They are delicious! Sweet and rich and juicy... just have to be careful of the seed. But they are worth way more as wine than they are as grapes, so you never see them in stores in grape-form.

I want to live here. Or maybe just have a summer home here so I can visit. I guess, now that I think about it, I would miss my home in Japan. I kind of like rainy days every once in a while...

This is inside that building that I was talking about. This is where the cream of the Mondavi crop goes to begin fermenting into wine. There's another building, somewhere far less glamorous I would imagine, where the cheaper Mondavi wine (basically, the stuff I've always had) gets made in giant stainless steal barrels.

But these are oak barrels... Even though Mr. Mondavi is a mastermind who helped perfect the stainless steal barrels, he still preferred the oak barrels to make the really good stuff. Mmm. All those handpicked, juicy grapes coming in will make their debut on wine store shelves in three years.

Each giant barrel is further divided into these little ones for more aging. They are currently being misted to maintain the proper humidity. These little barrels each hold 300 bottles of wine, and the wine from these barrels sells for about $50 (and up). I won't make you do math while reading the blog... that's $15,000 per barrel!!!

And now the best part... tasting! We were educated on how a real wine snob should properly taste wine. Swirl, sniff, sip, pause, sip, swish, pause, sip. I'm okay with all that... except for the swishing. I do not enjoy swishing wine. Try it. It's terrible. Your next sip might taste great, but I think it's only because your mouth is so glad you're not swishing again.

The next winery we saw was Beringer. This is the oldest continually operated winery in Napa. The gift shop was in this building. This is also the building on the Beringer label. And they actually have some pretty good wine! Beringer is not just $4 white zin!

But speaking of white zin... these are zinfandel grapes. Our tour guide called them juice bombs. My mouth is watering.

We so look like wine connoisseurs. And thank goodness for spell check to help me spell that word.

This building is built into a hill, so the wine aging tunnels inside are kept nice and cool.

This is an old wine press. After the grapes have fermented and the grape skins have risen to the top of the juice, the skins are pressed to release any lingering wine and grape flavors. It is a delicate process though, because too much pressing cracks the seed, which is very bitter, and ruins the wine.

These were the wine tunnels where historically most of the Beringer wine was made.

This wine cellar made an appearance in "A Walk in the Clouds".

I see some tasting in our future...

We got to taste the wine right out of the barrel. I've wanted to do this forever!

We also got to taste the same type of wine after 2 and 4 years of aging. It was so cool to see how the flavors mellowed with time.

Outside the gift shop at Beringer.

Our last day in San Francisco we walked around Union Square, where we had been staying. Chris was so happy... he found a North Face store.

I wanted to go to China Town so bad. I've always wanted to go to China Town. Then we got there... and it was so much like Japan that we decided to scrap that idea and do a few more "American" things while we had the chance.

So we caught a trolley back down to Pier 39. Earlier that day we had purchased a new zoom lens, which is why this picture is more of Chris than it is of the trolley.