The third day of our trip we headed back home, but on our way we drove to the Abukuma-do caves.  The caves are right next to the Hoshi no Mura (”Village of Stars”) Observatory, but we didn’t have a chance to go to the observatory.  ; ;  But the caves were really cool!  I got some really great pictures, and it was quite a hike through them.  And since the caves and observatory were on the side of a mountain, there was quite a spectacular view of the surrounding country side.  I fiddled with my new camera and managed to take a “stitched” photo which made a big panoramic shot.

After that we headed back home, but we stopped at a Starbucks in Fukushima city.  Across from the Starbucks was a neat little Indian restaurant that I couldn’t help but take a picture of.  ^^  Wow that’s a lot, but it was a  lot longer then any of the trips I’ve been on so far.

Abukuma-do Caves

 

The drive back

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The first place we saw on our second day of the trip was Goshiki-numa, the 5 Colored Ponds.  We started off at the foot of the trail which has a nice visitor center and restaurant.  Bishamon-numa, the first pond, which was a beautiful blue and we saw some people feeding ducks.  ^^  I couldn’t believe how vibrant the color of the water was, very cool stuff.  Then we hit the trail and walked for a bit and came to the next pond, Aka-numa, which was a very creamy green color.  We were getting pretty warm out by then, but it felt really nice in the shade.  Then we walked for a bit more and came to the next one, Midoro-numa, which was a crazy reddish and green color.  You can definitely tell that there is some iron in that water XD

Along the way we saw some families enjoying the trail too, and some of the kids had nets and little insect viewing cases.  Bug collecting is very big here from what I can tell, the popular insects to catch are these gigantic beetles that scare the crap outta me XD  They sell them in some pet stores, and I can’t imagine having one of those in my house, blah.

Well, then we headed to the next pond, Benten-numa, which was a bright blue color with a bit of a creamy blueness around the edges.  Very interesting.  And then we were off to the last one, Ao-numa.  It was a creamy greenish blue color, with more on the green end then blue.  Between Benten and Ao-numa we passed a nice little bubbling brook.  I love that sound, its so soothing ^^

Then it was a little more of a walk to the end of the trail, where there was a rest center and bus stop.  The bus stop is for a quick ride back to the trail head, and I have to admit we took it.  But we didn’t have the time to walk back because we wanted to see some other places that day.  Oh, I’d like to note that I used past-tense for all the lake colors, because apparently they change color over the course of the seasons, so even though they were a particular color when we went they don’t stay that way all the time.

After that we to the Noguchi Hideyo Museum, which is dedicated to a famous Japanese doctor who helped cure Yellow Fever and Syphilis in South America and Africa.  When he was an infant he fell in a fire pit which severely burned his hand and quite a bit of his body.  When he was a teen he was sent to Tokyo for surgery on his hand which gave him the use of his hand back.  After being healed so dramatically he devoted his life to medicine and became quite a distinguished doctor.  He won many awards and found the vector for Yellow Fever, saving many peoples lives.   But unfortunately he died while in Africa, working on a cure.  He’s on the 1000 Yen note, which is a pretty big honor.

Then we went to a Glass Museum and saw some lovely pieces.  Then we headed back to the hotel , which I’ll talk about a little because I really liked the place.  It was pretty cheap too, for the niceness of the accommodations.  In the driveway they had a van painted like the Neko-basu (Cat Bus) from My Neighbor Totoro.  That’s such a great movie, and I’m pretty sure every Japanese person has seen it ^^  If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it, it’s such a happy kids movie. 

Well, inside the main building, they had this wonderful eclectic assortment of stuff.  They had these really nice wall paintings of trees and flowers, and right off the dining room there was a big koi pond.  There were some crazy big fish in there XD and some pretty colored ones too.  What was really neat was they had a bunch of wood walk-ways going all over the place with picnic tables stationed throughout.   We called it a night after that, we were pretty worn from being on our feet all day.

 
These are from the town where the Hideyo Noguchi museum is at.

The Hideyo Noguchi Museum

The Hotel X-Teru

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Last week K and I went to Fukushima Prefecture for a couple days.  We had a fun time and saw some really nice stuff.   It was kinda rainy on the way down, but it made some cool looking misty mountains.  When we got settled in we went to a Denny’s for dinner.  We hadn’t eaten at an American franchised restaurant here yet except for McDonalds and that’s the same wherever you go.  They had some very “non-American” dishes on the menu, which K and I thought was kinda funny.  Since you go there for an American feel, but can get traditional Japanese meals.  XD  But they had some yummy looking deserts, the regionally famous fruit is a momo (peach), which I might add is my favorite fruit ^^  Oh man did that momo crepe look good.

Well, that’s it for today, I’ll write about the second and third day of the trip over the next two days.

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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)

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