Morioka Village

Morioka is about an hour and a half north of Misawa. These pics are us spending the day at Morioka Village which was a little arts and crafts village with some fun little shops. It was a fun day and fun day with friends. We made little peanut flat cake cookies. They are common around here and are really good. They taste in between a rice cake and a cookie. I made a little wooden horse that was decorated with a ceremonial gear. Northern Japan was the place that the emperor kept all his horses so you see these horses a lot around here. We also got to make a noodle soup. Oh yea, the picture in the middle that looks like chocolate and whip cream on a stick, it so is not. We sampled a couple of items in their sweet shop. Their sweets tasted really gelatinous. That one had a bean paste on top with some sort of cream. One bite was enough for me.

Making Japanese Noodle Soup

At the Morioka village, we ate at a restaurant that had us make our meal from start to finish. We started out kneading the dough, then we put the dough through a press to create the noodles. Then we soaked the noodles in cold water and then they showed us how to display it in the bowl. Cole was struggling with the display part so our helper was laughing and had to show him how to wrap the noodles in a tight ball in the bowl. Then we poured a broth over the noodles and added a watermelon wedge, piece of pork, and some spices to the dish. Can't really say that I love cold noodle soup, would have been better warmed. But it was a lot of fun making the dish.

Chase's First Birthday -8/8/09

I can't believe my baby is already one. It is crazy to think that Chase has been on this earth a full year now. He is so much fun right now and I am so glad I get to spend every minute of the day with him. He is such a cheese ball all the time and he just loves to give us hugs and loves to play hide and seek. Nothing is better than hearing his laugh. We had a fun night celebrating his first birthday with Brad and Liz and their cute 3 girls, Ashly, Sara, and Becca. And since we had only been in Japan a couple of weeks, his presents were from the Bunny Store (what we call the Japanese kid store here). The girls gave him some cute squeaky balls, and a coin bank that we call the pachinko machine. (So there a bunch of pachinko parlors around here and they look like they are big gambling buildings, but gambling is illegal here. There is one that is always packed with people by our house called the Jam Friend Club that looks really fun from the outside, but Cole and Brad will have to report what is inside when they go check it out sometime.) Chase got from us an etch a sketch, bubbles, japanese cookies, a big bouncy ball, and some sort of japanese tree that a ball rolls down inside of it. Don't know what it is called but it is in the video and Chase loves it.

Aomori Festival

The Aomori Festival was the by far the biggest festival with the most people. It was the last night of the festival(festivals usually last around a few days)so the floats were put out into the harbor for everyone to see and then they have a firework show over the water. There was of course more food vendors, but we decided to eat healthy that night and had a corn on the cob (cold but good) and a rice ball with some salty salmon inside. I also experienced one of my most embarrasing moments at this festival which I will share later with a picture so you can better understand what happened.

Hachinohe Festival

This was a fun night and great way to celebrate my birthday on July 31st. The festival was very colorful, loud, crowded at times, and the floats were amazing. The floats all told a different mythical story and there were about 50 different floats and each float had members shouting over and over again (yada yada yada yada). Apparently it doesn't mean anything. There was also a bunch of street vendors selling all sorts of different foods on sticks again. We decided to try the different deserts, so we tried the icecream which was similar to a sorbet type taste. And we had a whipcream fruit filled crepe which was really good. We had our first photo taken by a japanese man who I thought wanted us out of the way so he could take a better picture of a float, but apparently he wanted us in the picture. And Chase is just a hit here, we constantly here cow-wa-ee(means cute) and then they touch his cheek. The japanese are some of the nicest people and they love kids and they love their festivals.

Hachinohe Train Station Float

Just a fun picture taken on our tour day of Hachinohe. They took us to the train station to give us an idea of how to use it(still clueless), they took us to a nearby mall for lunch, and we went to the fish market. It was an interesting way to spend my birthday.

Fish Market

Have you lost your appetite yet? This fish market was unbelievable! There were just rows of people selling fish, squid, crab, fish eggs, and who knows what. Some stands had samples you could try. We were not very brave, but we did try some tasty crab and shrimp. The picture of Chase is right after he ate some crab, and I think he approved. We will have to go back and buy some fish or crab sometime, and we will let you know how it turns out. This fish market is in Hachinohe which is a city about 15 minutes from Misawa.

Shinto Shrine

What is your Chinese sign? Cole and I are the year of the monkeys and Chase is the year of the rat. We went to a Shinto shrine where we learned that there is a special ritual done in order to cleanse yourself before entering the shrine. It does involve putting the water in your mouth, so I hope everyone's hands were clean that day. And there is a special way to say a prayer which involves ringing the bell, clapping your hands, and bowing. Here you see me clasping my hands as I bow. But you don't want to clasp your hands and bow in front of people like we see in the movies cause it is only done for honoring the dead or in spiritual situations (at least that's what they told us). The Japanese love to bow whenever they greet, leave, say thank you, and just because. Needless to say, you end up doing a lot of head bobbing in return.