Livin' the McDream Location Guide

This interactive map has a lot of the places we've visited marked. If you have questions about specific locations, ask in the comments!

Dakigaeri Valley and Lake Tazawa

Keenan and I went adventuring today with Eric, Ninoosh and Bean, on a Monday(!) thanks to an extra day off in honor of Veteran's Day tomorrow. This trip took us south and west to Dakigaeri Valley, Kakunodate and Lake Tazawa in Akita Prefecture. It was a lot of time in the car (between 7-8 hours) but we had a great day with friends and saw new places.

Zoomed in: B is Dakigaeri Valley, C/D are Kakunodate

Our first stop was Dakigaeri Valley or Dakigaeri Gorge, I'm not sure which is the official name. The gorge is 10 km long and had an old 8 km logging trail that is now used as a hiking trail. Unfortunately, due to a rock slide, only about 1 km of the trail is still accessible. It winds along the side of the rocky cliff walls and through some dark caves before finally reaching the highest waterfall along the trail, Mikaeri Waterfall. We had hoped to be here at peak time for fall foliage, but we missed it by just a few days, most of the leaves had already fallen. We were a little disappointed, but we pretty much had the place to ourselves rather than having to deal with crowds during the most popular visiting time of the year. The water in the river is an unusual light aqua color, it has such a high acidity that fish can't survive and the farmers can only use it for crops after it has gone through a treatment facility. We had an overcast day and it was still a beautiful color, can only imagine how it would look on a sunny day. Perhaps we'll make it back sometime and see for ourselves?

The hike started out passing a little shrine then across a large bridge before taking us along the sides of the gorge and through tunnels before finally ending at the 30 meter tall waterfall.

Driving from Misawa to the Dakigaeri Valley took about 3 hours and was 200 km (125 mi).

GPS coordinates: 39.608916, 140.654290

Ahh man...where else will I get any?

Mt Iwaki & Hirosaki Fall Festival

This Saturday's exploration took us to Mt. Iwaki and its Tsugaru Iwaki Skyline. I think this was our third or forth trip to Mt. Iwaki with the hopes of driving and hiking to the summit. The last couple of times we had to abort our plans due to heavy cloud cover on the mountain, today there were a few clouds, but it was looking like it'd be worth a shot. And let's face it, our time here is getting short when next year's deployment cuts out 7 months, so we've got to take advantage even when the conditions aren't perfect! 

Mt. Iwaki is near Hirosaki and using toll roads it takes about 2 hours to Hirosaki; we took a little more scenic route through the apple orchards and it took about 3 hours to get all the way to the Skyline Road (130 km = 80 mi).

GPS coordinates: 40.641561, 140.261645

Aomori Prefecture (prefecture = state) is FAMOUS for its apples. The Fuji apple was even invented here, betcha didn't know that, or did you?? Aomori produces over half of all the apples grown in Japan. Usually that's about 500,000 tons per year, from about 53,000 acres of farm land. 

That's a lot of apples, I did some quick math...

500,000 tons = 1 Billion pounds

The average apple weighs a third of a pound, so that's approximately 3 BILLION APPLES per year!

Out of curiosity I also googled how many apples are produced by the USA's largest apple producing state, Washington. About 10-12 billion apples annually, pretty impressive, although Aomori Prefecture is a "little" smaller...only slightly larger than Delaware.

Mt. Iwaki

Some apples still have their protective bags that are put on
when they're still teeny tiny.

Rokkasho Salmon Festival

Who wants to take home their very own salmon??

At the annual Rokkasho Salmon Festival you can do just that...if you can catch one!

It was a chilly start to November, but hundreds of people were here to take turns standing in a pool of water to see if they could grab a salmon within three minutes. Keenan and I did not partake in the "fishing," but we got the pleasure of watching our friend Eric and a few other people we knew. Lots of slipping, sliding, falling and all around good entertainment, at least for us spectators.

We were witness to several instances of triumph followed by defeat either because the salmon slipped out of their arms or they got bumped by someone or slipped and lost their grip.

I posted a video of the action toward the end of the post.

Keenan & Bean

Once you catch your prize, there's a tent set up where you can have it deheaded and degutted before taking it home.

Captain America got one right away...then Eric accidentally slid into him...

2 Years?? Cotton & China

Somehow it's already been 2 years since we said our I Do's!

While our time together is definitely not how or where we imagined it would be, we have also grown closer than I think either of us anticipated. During our second year of marriage we spent over 2 months apart (absolutely not by choice), we've explored more and more of Japan, tried and failed to go to Alaska and are now preparing for a deployment which will mean spending more time apart than together during the next year.
We celebrated a week late due me traveling back to Japan on our anniversary and Keenan not returning from the USA until a couple days later. In keeping with the tradition we started last year, we enjoyed a couple hours of all you can eat and drink at a local yakiniku restaurant. As for gifts, we're kept with that tradition too and gave each other stuff with the yearly theme, and according to Hallmark, the second anniversary is either cotton or china.