August Random Stuff

Wow! What a month August was for us! We went to some amazing festivals, saw some beautiful sites, plus our belongings arrived! It's been a little crazy and Keenan probably feels like I never let him relax on the weekends, but things should start to slow down right? Haha! I did get going on becoming a volunteer with the Red Cross on base. Will get "placed" somewhere within the hospital sometime soon. I also started shopping for some kimonos to send back home for my nieces' dance studio. They are going to do a Japanese inspired dance and I thought having authentic kimonos for their costumes would be cool.
Here's a few random moments from the month of August...mostly shopping...

This is a kimono shop in Towada City (19km = 12mi away, but about 30 minute drive). All the kimonos and obi (sashes) are 500 yen = $5.

Front of the store.

Couple rooms upstairs just had piles
of yukatas (cotton kimonos). 

So many boxes of obi's!

Hokoji Temple

Yay for a 4 day weekend! To start off the Labor Day weekend we ventured toward Nanbu town to pick some peaches. There are several farmers near Nanbu town that allow people to pick whatever fruit is in season (apples, peaches, grapes, cherries, strawberries, etc.) for an hourly all you can eat fee plus per kilogram for the fruit you want to take home. Unfortunately we didn't give ourselves enough time to get there and it was going to be too late for peach picking. We decided to see the Hokoji Temple and drive a little through the mountains.

Hokoji Temple was founded sometime between 1249-1256, the temple burned down sometime in the 1800's and was rebuilt. I believe the pagoda was built in 1949, but of course this is just information I find that may or may not be completely accurate/translated correctly.

Jodogahama and Sannoiwa

Decided to visit Jodogahama today, which is "Pure Land Beach". It's a beautiful beach area with some pretty cool rock formations. Jodogahama is about 175km (109mi) from Misawa and is along the Sanriku Coast and the city of Miyako. The weather forecast had looked promising, but shortly after reaching Hachinohe we encounter heavy rain and it was not looking good. Traffic was heavy (and slow) the entire way. We didn't even get there until around 1pm. I don't know exactly how long the drive took, but I think it was somewhere between 3-4 hours.

This was a scenic overlook area we stopped at...

These benches are interesting!

Beach Finds...

Spent a few days during the months of July and August wandering the beaches, already blogged about my first couple of finds and here's a few other "interesting" things I found. A couple are kinda gross, but still intriguing when I wonder how far away they came from. 

Vertebrae from what I think was a whale?

South and West Coast Shimokita Peninsula - Part 2

On to Part 2, Part 1 is here if you haven't checked it out: http://s-mccall.blogspot.com/2013/08/south-and-west-coast-shimokita.html

We continued driving north along the west coast of the Shimokita Peninsula. As you can see it's a windy drive through the mountains. We made our way to Hotokegaura with one short stop along the way. The distance on this map from the bottom point to the top point is about 36km (22mi). It took us right at an hour.

Scenic overlook, too bad it was so overcast

South and West Coast Shimokita Peninsula - Part 1

This post and Part 2 covers our attempt at driving around "the hatchet" also known as the Shimokita Peninsula. It's the farthest north are of the island of Honshu (main Japanese island). This area is still part of Aomori Prefecture (prefecture is like state). We didn't make it all the way around, but did see the south and west coasts. 

Before I get to that drive here's a few other things:

Being the handyman that I am (and with my Dad's detailed advice) I was able to repair our headboard to the point where we could set up our bed. You can't even tell there's anything broken when looking at it! The first couple nights I was a little nervous the whole thing would come crashing down, but I kept reminding myself of all the wood glue and screws involved in the repair. This should get us through the next few years until we get stationed where we can actually get a replacement. AND...it fit in our room with both nightstands and we can still open the closet! Yay! (Sorry, this was very exciting!)

We went out to dinner one night with a Japanese friend to a place called Ramen House Ogasawara. There was no English menu so luckily we didn't need to worry about ordering! 

Hachinohe - Coco's, Kabushima & Tanesashi

I didn't want to spend all weekend unpacking, especially when the weather was nice. Finally getting out of rainy/foggy weather...but into the heat. We decided to go to Hachinohe which is a city to the south of Misawa. It's very similar in size and population to Lincoln, NE. Hachinohe is about 30km (18mi) from Misawa, but the drive can take about 45 minutes.

We had lunch at Coco's Curry. We'd heard enough people rave about it that we figured it was about time we tried it out. It is a chain restaurant that serves Japanese style curry (rice, spicy gravy and meat). There are 10 levels of spicy, 3 is what they consider "the original" so that's where we started. Anything above a 5 you have to have finished an entire meal of the next lower level to move up. My level 3 was spicy enough, any higher than that and my nose would have been running!

Just another example of Hello Kitty being used in advertisement

Our Stuff is Here! Woohoo!

Our household goods shipment is finally getting delivered! So excited to get our stuff and make this place more homey! Before I get to that here's a few randoms...

We finally ventured out to the local McDonald's...I had one of the Japanese favorites, Teriyaki McBurger. It was a pork patty, similar to a sausage patty and had teriyaki sauce, lettuce and mayo. It was ok, but I probably won't order it again. Fries and drink portion sizes included in the meal are also smaller than in USA.

This is some pasta that I had at Pasta House in Misawa, it had scallops, broccoli and mushrooms. Very yummy!

Aomori Nebuta Festival 2013 - Part 2

On to the exciting stuff! (This is Nebuta Part 2, so if you haven't checked out Part 1 you may want to start there!) First a little about our dinner...haha, we did do more than just eat today. We had dinner at a yakiniku restaurant. That's a type of restaurant where there is a grill in the table and you cook your own food. Most places have American style tables and chairs, this place did not, we had floor cushions.

Plate of  "pickles," daikon radish, cucumber
and something else...a root maybe?

More "pickles," mushrooms, beansprouts and other stuff.

Miso soup, yakiniku sauce, uncooked beef.

Aomori Nebuta Festival 2013 - Part 1

Ahhh, the Nebuta Festival! I know in my last post about the Akita Kanto Festival I said that was the most exciting thing we had done since being here, well, two days later we went to the Nebuta Festival. Now I'd say the Nebuta Festival is the most exciting thing we've done! Haha, wonder how many times I'll say that? This one will be tough to top though! 

So what is the Nebuta Festival? I'll let this info from www.japan-guide.com and the official Nebuta site http://www.atca.info/nebuta_en/nebuta.html explain it:

Akita Kanto Festival 2013 - Part 2

Here's were the action begins! The Kanto Festival was awesome! Amazing how they were able to balance the bamboo poles (kantos), some weighing over 100lbs! I think my favorite part was watching the groups of kids with their smaller kantos. It did get a little scary when some of the tall ones were getting tangled up or swaying toward/above us, a few fell, but that's what the cables stretched above the streets were for. They kept the kantos from crashing to the ground if they fell to the side. Seemed like the candles went out pretty much instantly when they started to fall, so the risk of getting burned wasn't very high.

Be sure to check out the video toward the end!

The parade started out with a procession of groups carrying their kantos. Once everyone got into place there was a signal (chanting and a flute I think) and then they raised up the kantos and the show began! After 20-30 minutes they would lower them down and move on and we'd have new groups in front of us. As I said in Part 1, the area for the parade is about 1km (0.6mi) long, but there is an island down the center of the street and they are on both sides. The participants are wearing the traditional outfit for this festival.

Almost everyone was very excited to see
non-Japanese peopleand even more excited that we were 
participating, we gave lots of high fives!

Probably the smallest kanto we saw, itty bitty!

Akita Kanto Festival 2013 - Part 1

Ah, the Akita Kanto Festival! This is part 1, I split it into 2 so the pictures don't have errors loading. Please be sure to check out part 2, it will be the more entertaining post!

This was a last minute trip for us, I had tried to sign us up for the trip through the tour office on base but it sold out. We got on a waiting list and a couple days before they called to say spots had opened up! Yay! Here's a little history from japan-guide.com on what the festival is about:

"The Kanto Matsuri (竿燈まつり, "pole lantern festival") is a Tanabata related celebration in Akita City, held every year from August 3 to 6. The highlight of the festival is an impressive display of skill in which performers balance kanto (long bamboo poles) with arrays of paper lanterns attached to the end. The Kanto Matsuri together with Aomori's Nebuta Festival and Sendai's Tanabata makes up the three great festivals of the Tohoku Region.
The kanto poles come in different sizes with the largest measuring 12 meters, weighting 50 kilograms and carrying as many as 46 paper lanterns, lit by real candles. To the sound of drums, flutes and onlookers chanting "dokkoisho, dokkoisho", each kanto is hoisted up by a single performer who balances them on end using various techniques. The performers change every few minutes and gradually add extensions to the pole until the kanto are at their maximum height.
The main event of the festival, the Night Parades, are held nightly along Chuo Dori street in the center of the city. The various performing groups, carrying nearly 250 kanto poles, line up on the street, and when a signal is given, the poles are all raised up at once and the performers show off their skills. The event lasts about 90 minutes. The performing area of Chuo Dori is nearly one kilometer long."

A Successful Hunt!

So quick update...still waiting on our Household Goods Shipment, but did finally get notice that it has reached Japan and will be delivered on August 8th!!! We cannot wait!

My obsession of finding a glass fishing float or many of them has made me into quite the beachcomber! I have been wandering some beach or another at least once a week hoping that I can find a float one of these times. I have found lots of interesting things but no glass floats. I think this was around the 7th time I'd searched and not sure how many hours worth, but it was plenty. Most of my searches had been in the afternoon and I'd heard that just after sunrise was the best time to look. Right now the sun is rising around 4am so that would mean leaving the house around 3am...I'm not that crazy or desperate...yet.

Today (August 1st) I decided that I would get going early and try my luck at Shipwreck Beach on the Mutsu Bay (see previous post "Shipwreck Beach(first visit)" for a map of the location). It's about an hour drive away. I left the house a little before 7am and got there just after 8am. Unfortunately, I was not the first person there, so my hopes of finding a float quickly disappeared, but at least I was able to collect some sea glass.

This was a giant plastic float, it had obviously been floating
in the bay for a long time before it ever made it to shore.