Late last month K and I visited Swan Lake to take a walk, a fairly regular occurrence except that I remembered to bring my camera. XD There were a few more swans there this time, I think because this is along their migratory path. I often wonder why there are always two particular swans at the park all year long.

It was a nice day out for being late November so we wanted to make the most of it. After the lake we headed to the mall close by and wandered around there some too. I took pictures of some cute plants they had at a flower shop (hana-ya, hana means flower ya is a suffix for shop) there. Then on the way out I saw this cute little Volkswagen van. I had seen a similar van at a dealership earlier in the year but it was a different color.

Wheh, been a while. Lot’s ‘o school and work >< The Terms this year are blah, this Sunday the term I’m currently in ends, and Monday the new one begins. >< This last term I took and interesting class called The Psychology of Persuasion, and this coming term I’m taking one called India: The weight of tradition on the modern world. I’m excited but also afraid there will be quite a bit of writing involved. Work has been extremely busy lately and that cuts down my homework time. I’ve also been playing Hello Kitty Online (HKO) and helping out on the wiki when I have the time, my characters name is Chihiro. ^^

In October K and I went on a hiking trip through the Oirase gorge. It’s on the way to Lake Towada and we’ve wanted to walk it since we got here and finally had the chance. It’s supposed to be one of the nicer places in Japan to hike during the fall and see all the pretty foliage, but unfortunately when we went the leaves hadn’t changed yet. I think they would be now though because the leaves are turning here around where we live now. It’s been a later fall than it usually is here, staying pretty warm until nearly November. Just recently we’ve had our first cold spell and had to turn on the heat. But I heard some states have gotten snow already, which is unusual for those states.

Oirase gorge is known for its waterfalls and we did get to see several of those. They were really nice, and everything was such a beautiful green. I had a very fun time of it. ^^ It’s a very well maintained trail too, and the day we were there, there was a group cleaning up the trash along the trail and the road that runs parallel to it. I got an interesting picture of some of their group going up some steps. They look like they’re elves on their way to the boats to leave the world in the Lord of the Rings. XD

I’ll go into some of the waterfalls because the tour people gave us a sheet with the Chinese characters for the names as well as an English description of what the names mean. I unfortunately lost the map that marked which waterfall I had gotten to, so I’m just going to name some of the more interesting ones. There is the Mouth of the Mouse waterfall, the One Thousand Senryo (it’s an old Japanese currency) rock, Ten thousand Senryo stream, Great Bottle of Sake Fall, Nine Step Fall, Elder and Younger Sister Fall, the Un-Aging Fall, White Thread Fall, the Gem Bead Screen Fall, the Long-nosed Flying Goblin Rock, and the Asura (a guardian god of Buddhism) Stream to name a few.

So we walked the trail and ended up at Lake Towada where we caught a ferry to Yasumiya. K and I love going there, especially to the temple. It was a bit of a windy day so that did damper things a little, but otherwise we had a great time!


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I’ve entered this in the Sanrio Town’s Travel the World Event: http://blog.hellokitty.com/traveltheworld

I made this a couple months ago on my other blog  and finally got around to posting it XD  Hope you enjoy!

For those using Firefox I’ve noticed there’s an issue with it playing the music.  The music is very soft for the first 5 seconds, then gets louder, if no sound plays after 10-15 seconds (after all the loading of course) I’d suggest just clicking the link below and watching it from Dream Studio.
http://video.sanriotown.com/video/d402d62932b61025

Video clips of the 2008 Aomori Nebuta Festival.

I apologize for the somewhat lengthy pauses between the videos.  If I didn’t include them, half the time the videos skip the first half before it catches up.

Yay! Got my computer’s CD-rom working, the old one had gone bad XD

Almost a month ago now I went to the Aomori Nebuta festival for the second year, this time with a friend too. It was a lot of fun, hot, but fun. ^^ I finally got my new camera so I got a few more good shots this year too.

First off we strolled around the Aspam building and looked at souvenirs and I picked up a cool shirt. From what I gathered from the sales clerk, the design is from a famous Aomori artist. The drawing wraps around the shirt from the front to the back, and I really like the burgundy color.

Next we wandered out back of the Aspam where they house all the floats in tents. This time of year in Aomori it rains fairly often, so this is mostly to keep them dry. We got to watch some singing and dancing, and got to check out more souvenirs. The more popular ones are these strings of bells that you can wear around your neck or some to attach to your cell phone or purse.

Then we headed into the city and wandered around the shopping district. I found this really cute carp bag that I couldn’t resist XD We also picked up some food to eat, me and S (for sake of privacy he shall be known as “S”) got these giant taco (octopus) legs on a stick. They were really good too, they heat them up for you when you order them and brush on a sauce while they’re heating it.

After that we went looking for a spot to chill at during the parade. We ran into some co-workers of mine and ended up staying there. The parade doesn’t start till it gets mostly dark out, but they start setting up a little before it gets dark. Then they shoot off some fireworks when it begins then all the musicians start playing. There were some pretty cool floats with some nifty themes. But it started raining XD a lot… We were partly covered by an overhang but there were some people in front of us who jumped up when it started and moved back to where we were. But the dancers, musicians and floats kept going even in the rain! They looked soaked too XD But the floats were covered in a large sheet of plastic to keep the rain off, and that slightly interfered with the pictures unfortunately. But it was still a blast.

I think it’s great everyone gets a chance to enjoy the festival!

I have no idea XD

It’s not a festival without Totoro!

Yay Tom and Jerry!

It’s not a parade without the Goodyear blimp!

I hope to get pictures I took of the Tanabata festival here in Misawa developed soon. That was about a month and a half ago, but they’re on a disposable camera I’ve had in my car and I haven’t gotten to the shop while they were open yet XD (yay mid shift)

I signed this post up for the SanrioTown Travel the World event - http://blog.hellokitty.com/traveltheworld