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

Picture Hosting - PicTiger

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Kabuki

On Saturday we went on a tour to see a Kabuki show. It was a lot of fun, and a lot different then I thought it was gonna be. I thought I was going to be all traditional and serious, but in fact they kept with the original theme of the show, that it was for the masses more then a show for nobility. Before and after there was a drum and variety show that was so much fun. Since it’s just guys that play all the roles in traditional Kabuki they played on that by having a funny dance number with a dude in a woman’s ball gown did this funny dance number. Then this other guy came out in a dress but had giant red lips on and did a parody of the first guys dance XD Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures during the show.

The story we watched was about this guy who had been arrested before and just got out of prison and was heading to visit his sister. When he shows up the sister is now married and has a daughter (his niece). He gives his niece some money to go buy some pretty cloth for a new kimono and she runs off. Then the sister’s husband shows up and wants nothing to do with the man because of his bad reputation and kicks the guy out. The daughter shows back up at this point and is so happy because of the gift she got, so she shows it to her father and he takes it and throws it on the ground. That starts a fight between the two men, and it was a pretty nifty fight scene, then the father gets his butt handed to him, so he runs in the house and grabs a knife and they start fighting again. But the daughter tries to stop them and gets knocked into the fight and accidentally gets stabbed. Both the father and brother stop fighting and are so upset at the girl getting hurt. It’s a very dramatic scene while she is dying, but the men manage to reconcile their anger, but then the police show up and the brother offers himself up to them for killing the girl, and they take him away.

The theater that we went to is the oldest wooden working Kabuki Theater in Japan. We got to go on a tour after the show, they took us back stage. It was pretty cool, they showed us the trap door called the snapping turtle door because it resembles a snapping turtles head, and the rotating stage that is human powered, and the dressing room. The dressing room’s walls are signed by all the actors that had/have worked there. I got some pictures, some didn’t come out so well but others came out nice.

Here’s some history on Kabuki. It was originally performed by women who after the shows were prostitutes. So then the government banned women from performing in the plays because it wasn’t “conducive to good morale”, whatever that meant XD So then young males played the roles, and then prostituted themselves out afterwards, and then they were banned, and only older males were allowed by the government to act in the plays.

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The front of the Korukan Theater, it was built in 1910. The front is western style, but the inside is all Japanese style.

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The driveway up to the theater, very festive.

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The dressing room, it’s bigger then the picture shows, but all the walls are covered with the signatures of all the people who have acted here. There are some famous ones that they put a sheet of glass in front of so that they won’t get diminished.

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A little sign they posted about the rotating stage.

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One of the poles used to push the rotating stage by hand.

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A wider picture of under the stage, it’s really big, I was really surprised.

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One of the metal wheels that the stage moves on, it’s big.

Kakunodate Samurai houses

12 September 2007

We went to Kakunodate in Akita Prefecture on Saturday, it was about 3 hours away from Misawa. It looked like it was gonna rain all day, but when we got there it cleared up nicely, and in fact got pretty warm. We got lucky too, cause they were having a festival when we got there. The festival was very similar to the Nabuta, except that it was during the day and not lit up. It seemed like the whole town was in it too, cause there were tons of people dressed in costume. Well, the first place we stopped in town was the Ishiguro Samurai manor. It was really well preserved, and tastefully decorated. The first room we saw was a room where high ranking guests would be given tea and refreshments. The second room is one that they used during the spring and summer because it opened up onto the garden. Then the rest of the house was turned into a museum that displayed implements used during that time period, including some pretty kimonos.

The next place we visited was called the Aoyagi Samurai Manor, and was quite a bit bigger then the Ishiguro manor. Here’s the link to their site: http://www.samuraiworld.com/english/index.html The main gate was pretty big and architecturally impressive, apparently that is a sign of prestige in feudal Japan, and it “symbolized the social prestige of their owners. It was built after the family was given special permission by the lord of Kakunodate as a reward for their contribution to the domain.” The grounds are really beautiful, I’ve attached a map of the grounds that was on the back of the pamphlet they gave us. The main house itself has a thatched roof which I found interesting, cause it had plants growing outta it XD It’s cool though, cause they re-thatch it every year or so.

The armory was pretty cool, they had all sorts of weapons like spears, armor and swords on display. The folk museum was interesting too, it had lots of different folk art on display and a ton for sale. I got little usagi (bunny) and neko (cat) dolls made outta hand woven fabric, they’re really cute A lot of the “items on display have been designated as important cultural properties from the national, prefectural or municipal governments.”

OMG, the pond was crazy, it had a dozen giant koi (carp) in it. I mean these things were at least 2 feet long, and they kinda freaked me out XD

We didn’t eat at the restaurant there, cause we figured it’d be way overpriced, it did look pretty though. So instead we opted for some soba at a restaurant down the street. We had some cold soba that was really good especially since it was getting pretty darn warm outside by then. We walked around a bit more then, and stopped at a tea house, and had some very good tea made the traditional way with the whisk and powder. It came with a cute little sweet made from mochi and filled with azuki bean paste, which is a very common filling for Japanese sweets. From anime you’ll probably recognize taiyaki (see the pic below) which is filled with the bean paste. We didn’t have any taiyaki there though, but it’s a very common festival food. I’ve even found some sold at malls from vendors.
Well, I think that’s it for today. We’re not going on another trip till the end of October, but I keep trying to remind myself to bring the camera with me to the mall. I’ll see what I can do.

A pretty garden.

A comfy room.

Hand woven items.

Sword hilts.

A family shrine, it has white fox statues in it, but I’m not sure what the significance is.

Giant carp!

A well.