Lunch date with my husband

April 15th, Noboru and I went out for a lunch date. We went to the Shisui Premium Outlets. Not to shop! : ) We went because it's a fairly new outlet mall near Narita, they have Cold Stone, California Pizza Kitchen and some popular caramel popcorn type shop called, Garrett. So with the boys at school, we went for our date. 

They have 2 regular EV chargers and 1 quick charger! We used the quick charger that morning. 

Yep, you've seen that card before, we have that card and I posted a pic a few weeks back.

She has 2 chargers, the one on the left is for a quick charge and the one on the right is for a regular/normal charge.

So we plugged her up and she was ready to have herself a free lunch... while we went to check out the food court! : )

California Pizza Kitchen, glad we have one near us now, but the prices were a bit high. 1200-1500 yen for a personal sized pizza and the drinks were almost 400 yen, 380 yen or something like that. $30 bucks (US) for the both of us, for lunch is a bit high in my opinion, for dinner $30 would be fine once in a while, but for lunch? So we ended up not having lunch at the mall at all. Hahaha. But the bright side is...we at least got to look around. 

The Cold Stone lacked a lot of the signature combinations like the one in America has...no "That's How We Roll" (the cinnamon roll one which is my fave...no Birthday Cake either. Pretty disappointed with the options Cold Stone in Japan has.

The bright side is, we did get to walk around, so we got some good exercise that morning and the car got to charge for free. So not a total waste. 

Inside the food court, it is pretty though.

Yep, Narita! : )

Cold Stone.

Such a small menu, versus the one we're used to seeing in Guam.

A lady checking out the prices at California Pizza Kitchen, we did the same thing too.

Look at this line and it's barely 10:30am-ish, hahaha. According to Noboru there are only 3 Garrett Popcorn shops in all of Japan. We are lucky that 1 is near us. However, I must say the prices are absurd so I am glad, we tried it once at least, however we probably would never buy it again, because the small amount you get for the price is just not such a great deal. Just too expensive for the little amount you get.

We ended up going to the Ohsho for lunch and we had very nice affordable lunch sets. I picked this. Fried rice, karaage (Japanese style chicken nuggets), egg drop soup and salad for 679 yen ( about $6.79 US).

The chicken is all white meat and so good. : ) All in all, a nice day, a very nice walk around an outlet shopping mall. We did buy 1 medium bag of popcorn, plus we had lunch at the Ohsho and had a nice time with one another all morning and afternoon. : )

Look how small this bag of popcorn is you guys and would you believe this is a size medium!!! @.@ This was close to 1000 yen ($10 US) Never ever ever again. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious... but not $10 delicious, let's put it that way! Hahaha. : )

Noboru told me...the popcorn at Tokyo Disneyland's actually cheaper, and we both laughed! And it is...especially if you have a refill bucket like we do! lol. Oh well, bright side is, we had ourselves a lovely date. : )

My new car, yay! : )

Well, we did it! I found my "new" car and I just love it, you guys! Monday, March 10th, we (Noboru and I) ended up going to the car dealership first thing after sending Branden and Noah to school, we drove all the way to Makuhari. We had originally planned to go on March 11th, but something came up for Noboru and also for me too... I ended up going to the movies with 2 of my closest friends on Tuesday, March 11th to see, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. So anyway, this particular car dealership has the largest selection of the Nissan Leafs, the 100% electric car, in the Chiba area. They had them all lined up in a row here and they also had another row on the other side and a handful also in the showroom too. Wine color, black, silver, blue, white and silver. I knew, I didn't want white (white cars are just really really common here), didn't want silver either, too basic (again I think the 2 color cars... I see most here are white or silver, not that they're necessarily bad colors, mind you, it's just I'd like something a little different, is all), wasn't interested in blue either. I was interested in wine and also the black. However, my last car was wine colored... Pepper was the same color. So, since I had driven a wine colored car for the past 6 years.. I really wasn't wanting to drive yet another same exact color car... for another 6 plus years, if you know what I mean. Plus...I just really wanted black! I really did. In fact, I told Noboru, either I'm gonna get a black Nissan Leaf or a black Toyota Prius. I really am not interested in any other color. This particular dealership had 2 black Leafs. But 1 of them was a special model/special options available on it, meaning it had the full skirt around the car. And I love the back of this car...it is so distinct, lol. You know how some cars, just have a certain look. Do you know what I mean?  Like the old 80's Saab, I always really liked that model car, the butt/rear of that particular car was always so cute. : ) or the VW newer bug just has a really cute look too. Even the Prius has a certain back/rear look, that's again... so cute too, I think. : ) This car, also has a certain butt/rear/back too and also by the really long back lights, I always know it's a Leaf. : ) 

This is her you guys... my "new" car. She was a dealer test drive car, so she has never lived at a house or had a family before...not ever. : ) She has only 1875 miles on her, if it helps...for you who are more familiar with km, she only has 3000km on her. That's nothing! She smells like a brand new car, she is so amazing guys. Look how shiny she is, even. Aww. Oh, and she's only 2 years old, but was only driven on test drives. : ) 

Yep, absolutely zero emissions! Can't possibly be anymore eco than that! lol! : )

See this wine colored car, see the bottom of the car door? How the car ends a bit after the door, a little wine colored metal after that... but not too much. There is no side skirt, front or back skirt on this car, like mine has. This is a regular model. A typical Leaf. 

She was moved because I just took her for a test drive. She has so much power! And we just filled out the, we are buying her paperwork. They asked me, if I had any favorite numbers to pick for my license plate numbers? Yes, I did! So, they have to do lots of things on the car dealers end. Meanwhile us, we have to make her charging station at our house and we already have a company coming to make it and we ordered the color on that already too. Plus in Japan you have to show proof  that you have a place to park the car.... yes we do have a parking space. : ) But again we needed to show proof of that, so we had to go to the police station for a parking space certificate. Yada yada yada. So, it will take a while to finally get the car, but yep, Noboru bought her for me. She has no name as of right now because...she just doesn't. :  ) But see, she does look a little different than the wine car on the above pic, and that slight difference is the front, side and back skirt. In America, the skirt for the Nissan Leaf is not available!  And, out of 300 used Nissan Leafs sold in Japan, on the week of March 10th when we bought ours, only 2 in all of Japan...whole country wide.... had the skirt that were for sale, ours was one of them, so it is a little unusual to find a Leaf with that detail on it. I'm just glad, I found one and in black nonetheless. : )  And the condition of the car just couldn't be better. I also like the extra tinting for the back windows for the kids.

Also, this little extra detail which I think makes this car even way cooler than she already was, being 100% eco and all.  Is the emblem at the front of the car. It glows at night. My car doesn't have this on it yet, but Noboru has promised to call up our nearest Nissan dealership immediately and pronto, just as soon as we bring her home with us.... and he's going to order me the glowing Nissan emblem and I am really excited about it. I can't wait! This glowy emblem isn't available in American either. The only reason we know this is as new Leaf owners, we have been reading the Nissan Leaf owners forum in America for info, and..who knew... many of them were trying really hard to find a way to order the skirts for their Leafs and the glowy emblems that are only available for us, in Japan. Go figure.

It doesn't show up so good on a silver car... but it's gonna look so tight... on my black car! Anyway, so this whole car switcheroo is nearly done. Oh and this is so cute, the grandma next door, asked Noboru a few days ago...where is your wife's car? Meaning our Subaru R2/Pepper. We had already bought the black Leaf, but as usual...Noboru is so tight lipped. He just said...We sold my wife's car and we bought her a new one. You could tell she was hoping for some...extra info...but nope...he wasn't sharing. Hahaha. I asked him..you didn't want to tell her, huh? He said, "no...she'll find out eventually." : )