Fall Colors of Oirase Gorge, Lake Towada & Jogakura Bridge

Yesterday, a tiny adventure to find Keenan an anniversary gift with the cotton or china theme led Ninoosh and I to a little shop with handmade pottery. Not exactly "china" but pretty close. The shop is in the home of a very friendly couple that makes everything. The guy makes the pottery and his wife does the designs on them. All of their stuff is so beautiful! So glad I found this place, I'm sure we'll be back again and again. I believe the name translates to something like Hatano, but I'm not sure. I did pick up a sake set for Keenan...

So on to today, the leaves at Lake Towada and the Oirase Gorge are at their peak and I didn't want to miss them! Keenan will be back in a couple of days and I know he won't feel like adventuring right away, making today the perfect day to head out solo. It was a great day! I stopped a few times along the gorge on my way to the lake, took my time in the small village at the lake, Yasumiya, then stopped along the gorge in different locations as I made my way to the Hakkoda Mountains to drive to Jogakura Bridge. The leaves were beautiful everywhere I went, except high in the mountains where they had already completely fallen.

Remnants of the rice harvest.

One of my favorite gardens to drive by.

Today's route. 186 km (115 mi) and a little under 5 hours
of driving, not including any stops.

Traffic at the Oirase Gorge was crazy as I expected, but not the worst I've ever encountered. This coming weekend the road will be closed to vehicles so the river and leaves will only be viewable by walking or biking. I believe there are shuttle buses, so walking only one direction is possible. Knowing the road would be closed this weekend was another reason I felt like today was a great day for me to check it out!

As you'll see, it was a popular spot, the artists that were set up were painting some amazing pieces, and as usual, I felt out of place with my middle of the road camera and no tripod, haha.

Didn't think I'd do this again in 2014...'Merica!

Yup, headed back to America last month! Never thought I'd make more than one trip this year, realistically I thought I'd only make about one trip back to the USA the entire time we are living in Japan. This was definitely a trip of opportunity, and if it wasn't for Space-A flights I wouldn't have gone. Keenan had a few weeks of training stateside so I decided to "hop" back and spend some time there too. After his training was complete we actually got to meet up and spend a few days together with our families before I headed back to Japan. Keenan spent another week getting in some hunting and family time before he followed me.

I got to spend tons of quality time with my parents (why yes, they did just visit us in Japan a short 3 weeks ago), siblings, nieces and nephews, both grandmas, had lunch and dinner dates with friends, crocheted, shopped and ate all the foods I missed. It was a great trip! 

Short lived crochet lessons. We'll try again when they're older!

Kitayamazaki

Beautiful rugged coastline with picturesque rock formations? Sounds like it's worth seeing! Oh, there are 1,000ish stairs each way involved in seeing this awesome site? Hmmm, Ninoosh and I, both of us currently living the single life, decided it was worth it! Bean may have thought otherwise, but she didn't have much of a choice. She cooperated pretty well, except for the part where she spit up all over Ninoosh and screamed for the last 30 minutes of the drive home. I suppose since she's a baby we'll give her a pass on that, it was a lot of car-riding for one day!

Kitayamazaki is part of the Rikuchu Coast, this stretch of coastline on the east side of the island is 8km long and has cliffs 200m tall. It's near Tanohata Village south of Misawa. Our drive from was about 120km (75mi) and it took 2 1/2 - 3 hours each way.

GPS coordinates: 39.980220, 141.953490

Once we arrived and got Bean strapped into her carrier we were off. There are several observation platforms, a couple are near the parking lot, another is 363 stairs away and then there's another one at sea level...510 more stairs. I know that doesn't equal quite 1,000, but we felt like there were plenty of stairs unaccounted for and it was easily 1,000+. Didn't look like very many people take the trek down to sea level, in fact, we only encountered one person on that portion of our hike. An older gentleman in a business suit, who passed us on our way up. When he got to the bottom he started yelling. No idea what he was yelling or doing. Didn't sound distressed though. It kept us puzzled for the rest of the day.

The stairs were tiring. Totally worth it. The scenery was beautiful. 

My Parents' Visit - Part 11 - Final Days

Man, how fast time flies! It's already time for Mom and Dad to head back to America. Yesterday was their last full day in Japan. We spent the day getting them organized and doing a last bit of exploring.

We had to go to Hachinohe to get their tickets for a train tomorrow morning bound for Tokyo. After getting that must-do out of the way, we wandered the beach one last time hoping to find a glass float...see below for the results.

I will never get over the pretty cosmos
that grow along the roads.

Hachinohe Station.

Great find Mom! Woohoo!
(No, I did not "plant" this for her to find!)

My Parents' Visit - Part 10 - Misawa Air Festival

Fresh off a Husker victory (1:00 am game time, so no, we did not catch the entire thing...), today's adventure kept us close to home at the 60th Annual Misawa Air Festival. 

The yearly event showcases the aircraft of the Japanese Self Defense Force (JASDF) and United States Air Force. The event takes place on our base, which is a joint base shared by Japanese and US Forces. It's a huge festival that draws an average of 100,000 Japanese and American spectators each year. The weather was great today which contributed to this year's crowd being especially big, estimates were around 120,000-130,000 people! It is not unusual for rain to spoil the scheduled flight demonstrations. I specifically remember not going last year due to the fog and downpours I observed from the dry comfort of our house. 

It's hard to describe the noise we hear on an almost daily basis to anyone that hasn't lived on a base serving as home to fighter jets. The pauses in phone calls when I have to say "Hold on a sec, I can't hear you while this jet goes by," don't make sense until you've experienced a jet fly by when you don't expect it. They're loud, but as the saying goes, that's the sound of FREEDOM. So while it may sound like I'm complaining, I'm not, and some days I hardly notice anymore. 

Wouldn't be a Japanese festival without relaxing on
blankets with food and beer.