Back in the States...

I've only been in Japan for two months, and I already have to make a trip back to the States! I am now in Omaha, Nebraska for graduation this weekend. After graduation, I'll be staying with my folks in Dayton, Ohio until I can get the board exams taken.

Today I...
...Woke up at 5:30a.m. and it was still dark. (In Japan the sun rises at 4:30a.m. this time of year)
...Drove on the right side of the road.
...Re-learned that the blinker is on the left side of the steering wheel.
...Drove over 60mph... that's mph, not km/h;-)
...Could read every road sign.
...Realized for the first time how big and open America is.
...Went to Panera Bread for coffee and a bagel.
...Went to a mall, and tried things on that were big enough to fit me.

I'm definitely not in Japan anymore.

Oirase Gorge

After our snowshoe/hike up Hakkoda-San that I blogged about earlier, we drove back down to the valley and hiked along Oirase Gorge.



I love reading some of the English that I see around Japan... It's always a little off. On our map, "Oirase Gorge" was "Oirase Gauge". In the Hachinohe train station, Yew Tree Plaza is occasionally spelled "Yew Tree Plaza". This sign demonstrates my point... they did correct the spelling of "Longdisistance", but I think the damage has been done.



The trail is really beautiful and just follows a stream through the valley.



There are lots of really pretty waterfalls along the way. I've heard that fall is the best time to hike this trail. I'll definitely be back.



When we got back to where we had parked our car, Huck introduced us to a very nice Japanese family.

They wanted so badly to get a picture of the little boy petting Huck. All Huck wanted was to lick the little boy's face. :-)

Hiking/Snowshoeing Hakkoda-San

It's spring in Misawa and the weather here has been BEAUTIFUL. It's been sunny with highs in the 60's and 70's, and we couldn't wait on Saturday to drive out to the mountains and do some hiking. I checked the weather in Aomori city, near where we were headed and it was supposed to be around 60 degrees, so we grabbed some sandwiches and granola bars, packed our backpacks and started driving west towards the mountains. Chris insisted on bringing hats and gloves, and we threw our snowshoes in the truck almost as an afterthought. This is what it looked like behind our house Saturday morning... I just love the cherry blossom trees here.

As we started climbing up into the mountains, we started seeing more and more snow on the sides of the road. This is over a month after they first cleared this road in April, but there are still walls of snow about 8 ft high on each side. I've heard that in April, the walls of snow on each side of the road are about 30 ft high.

Even after seeing all the snow on the side of the road, we really didn't expect to see this MUCH snow at the trailhead. Turns out those snowshoes came in handy! Who would have thought we would be snowshoeing in May!?

We followed the bamboo sticks that were stuck in the snow. There were also some fresh snowshoe tracks, so we figured we were headed in the right direction.

As we climbed higher, the snow started getting thinner because the sulfur springs were running underneath.

We could hear the sulfur springs running under the snow in a few places. It only took me falling through the snow once for us to realize that maybe we should ditch the snowshoes and hike on the rocks the rest of the way:-). Thankfully, I landed beside the spring and not straight into the water.

It was a really fun hike, except that it smelled terrible the whole time due to the volcanic gases.

It was such an interesting hike, especially as we got further up the mountain.

This is something I've never seen in the states - these are unmanned huts that are pretty common along most of the trails here. This one had a little toilet area (Chris said it was more like an outhouse) and then an area for cooking and sleeping.

It was nice to have a place out of the cold and wind to eat our lunch. It was still pretty chilly in here (10 degrees Celsius according to the thermometer) but it was considerably warmer than outside.

These are the bunk areas... In this hut there were three levels of bunks on each side of the room, two kerosine heaters, several pots and pans, and lots of emergency blankets and supplies. It'll be fun to plan some backpacking trips here in the future.

While we were in the hut eating lunch, the fog lifted just enough to give us a great view. This wasn't the summit we were aiming for, but it sure was beautiful. This is just a few feet in front of the hut.

THIS was on the way to the summit we were aiming for. It's completely in the clouds. We don't do this often, but we decided to go back early. I was freezing, and we didn't want to hike all the way up there just to be in a cloud. We decided instead to get back down to the car and drive to another hike, one in the valley where it was sunny and everything was blooming. I'll blog about that later... right now I have to get going with my day:-).

Our Lake

Misawa Air Base is nestled up against Lake Ogawara. Our house, in the north area of the base, is within walking distance of the base beach. When the weather's good and the fog isn't too bad, the view of the mountains in the distance can be pretty impressive. These pictures are from last Saturday. When we got home from the cherry blossom festival we took Huck for a walk down to the beach.

Cherry Blossoms!!!

We went to Hirosaki yesterday and the cherry blossoms DID bloom! and the sun DID shine! It was perfect, in spite of the forecasts predicting otherwise! This is us in front of the moat that surrounds the castle (in the background).

Bridge over the moat - very popular picture spot. This place was jam packed with people taking pictures later in the day.

Everybody brought tarps, and by lunch time the entire castle grounds were covered with families and friends having picnics and enjoying one of the few warm days of spring that we've had so far.

Sakura = Cherry Blossom

Sakura tunnel

Festival stands...

We found a table by the river to eat our fried noodles.

There was lots of different food... Most of it was on a stick as you would expect at a festival.

But it was amazing how much variety you could find in stick food. Octopus on a stick, snails on a stick, clams on a stick...

chocolate covered bananas on a stick...

and of course sausage on a stick.

My favorite food though was the apple ice cream served in the shape of a flower.

or maybe the sakura flavored ice cream... it's hard to decide:-)