Cherry Blossom Festival

Spring has arrived in Misawa! Well, to be a little more accurate, Spring is trying to arrive in Misawa. We still have some Winter days that are trying to sneak in, but lately Spring has been winning.

Last weekend was the Cherry Blossom Festival in Hirosaki. Hirosaki is about 2 or 3 hours away from Misawa, and I didn't want to drive out there, so I signed up with a few other girls to go on a group trip through ITT. I think Chris prefers to drive places on our own, but I like ITT trips. I like being able to jump on a bus and watch a movie until we get to our destination. I love not having to worry about where to park. I love the fact that I don't have to worry about vague directions that rely on landmarks or funny looking bushes or strange signs or counting stoplights to get me where I need to go. And perhaps most importantly, I love being able to plan a picnic that includes wine drinking without having to designate a driver (have I ever mentioned that the BAC limit in Japan for drunk driving is 0.02? It's 0.08 most places in the States). 

Note: I have no idea why, but none of the pictures are loading correctly today. I've tried everything I can think of (in case you're wondering, that means I tried to load the pictures twice, then gave up). Maybe it's just my computer, but if you also can't see any of the pictures on this blog, check out my Facebook album instead. 

My friends, Alison and Kerry, on the way into the park.

My dear friend Laura... How is it that you can go 7 months with your husband deployed and not know how to open your own bottle of wine with a regular corkscrew? This is unacceptable.

We are some classy ladies.

We took a small break from our picnic to see the sights. It wouldn't have been right to leave Hirosaki without a picture  on the bridge.

Another mandatory Hirosaki picture.

I really enjoyed the festival food. This is a green tea coated banana with sprinkles. Delicious.

This might be steamed rice dumplings with sweet red bean paste on top. Maybe. That was our best guess. Not quite as delicious as the green tea banana.

Why not put an entire quarter of a pineapple on a stick and call it festival food? I can't think of a single good reason!

This little bit of heaven is my new favorite festival food. Take a cob of corn, remove the corn in slices, dip it in tempura batter, and deep fry it to a golden brown... the Japanese are so advanced. I'm telling you, this was paradise.

Also good, but down one place in my rankings after trying the fried corn, purple sweet potato fries, sprinkled with sugar. I may have to go eat dinner before I can finish this blog post. My stomach is growling.

The rest of our picnic we enjoyed from beneath our umbrellas due to the light sprinkling of rain that was threatening to become more serious. Fortunately for us, the rain didn't get more serious, so we were spared from having to set up a shelter using only our tarp, leftover festival food sticks, and ingenuity.

We tried to get a group picture by propping the camera up on a tree root. Maybe the camera tipped, or maybe this was the camera's very intentional portrayal of how tipsy we were. But what a fun day, and what a short bus ride home when you're able to sleep the whole way!

Clean up

Misawa is lucky. We are far enough away from Fukushima to avoid dangerous radiation. We are on high enough ground that we avoided the tsunami. And we are perfectly positioned to be helpful to our neighbors. 

Since the very first week after the Earthquake, Misawa has been able to send busloads of volunteers into the local community to help with clean up. At first it was just short trips right outside the gate to the local beach. Now, in addition to the local trips, there are trips venturing further and further south to villages and towns that have been completely devastated by the tsunami. 

These are a few of my friends that went on a trip last Friday to help clear out a rice field. They posed for this picture when they got back. Since March 11, Misawa has been able to send 1,848 volunteers, on 46 different clean-up trips, for a total of 21,254 volunteer hours. 

I've only been on one clean-up trip. It's hard to get away during the week since I'm working, and the weekend trips fill up pretty fast. The day that I went, we had two busloads of volunteers that went to a local strawberry farm. 

This strawberry farm once held two greenhouses made of metal piping and heavy clear plastic sheeting. Inside, the strawberry rows had been lined in plastic to keep the weeds down. When we got there, the plastic and metal were buried under a couple feet of heavy, damp silt. I took this picture during our lunch break. If you look closely you can see all the shovels waiting for us to return to our work.

The work was frustrating, because the more plastic we dug up, the more plastic we uncovered. It seemed never ending, and there were at least 70 of us. I can't imagine the farmer trying to do it all alone. 

Towards the end of the day my friend and I started walking back and forth through the field picking up pieces of plastic and metal that others had unearthed. Every time we crossed the field we filled our barrel.

Outside this house was where we gathered for our lunch break. The water had come so high here that it took out the entire side of this house. If you look closely, you can see the waterline right below the horizontal brown trim. 

This was the farmer. He had all 70 of us gathered up so he could take a picture. Seeing his appreciation made our frustrating day seem worthwhile.

As we walked back to the bus (which was parked facing the road, just in case we got another tsunami warning) we got another glimpse of just how much work there is to be done to clean up our local area. The park on either side of the road was full of trash that had washed up in the tsunami. It was a sobering end to our "feel-good" day.

Aftermath

The name of the game now is conservation. The base is still running on very limited electricity. That means anything that is not "mission essential" is pretty much closed. Lots of stuff is still running off of generators (including the hospital). Stoplights on base were just restored yesterday. School has been closed this week, and when it opens next week they aren't going to run electricity to the kitchen, so the kids will be eating sandwiches. I have the thermostats set at 64. All of my appliances are unplugged when I'm not using them. I'm being especially good about turning lights off in rooms I'm not in (Mom would be so proud:)). I'm only showering every other day... okay... part of that is laziness, but I'm happy to be able to justify it:).

Fuel is also being used very carefully. Right now, only vehicles with a quarter tank or less are able to use the gas station on base. Up until yesterday the lines to get gas on base were averaging about 2 hours long. The situation is much better now, but everyone is still being really careful to use as little as possible.

Phone lines and cell phone coverage were a little spotty at first, but it seems to be better now. Up until yesterday the active duty pharmacist (the only other pharmacist on base) was sleeping at the hospital, because there had to be a pharmacist on call, and she was unreachable on her cell phone. Because there are only two of us currently in Misawa, they've authorized me to work overtime (an extreme rarity) so I'll be working this weekend.

We are completely safe here, and I think we all realize (or should realize) how fortunate we are to have electricity, food and gasoline available. But it has been stressful for a lot of people, and I think that's why they are offering a volunteer departure plan.

I'm planning on staying, and I'm happy to do so. First of all, I don't want to have to worry about trying to transport my dog, and I don't want to leave him behind for somebody else to take care of. Second of all, I like it here, and I don't feel that I'm in any danger that would make me want to go. Third, and maybe most importantly, I am very much needed at work right now. I am thankful to even have a job, and I'm especially grateful that I can help out right now when the pharmacy staff is stretched thin.

Earthquake

I was at work when the earthquake hit. I held on to the counter, because the shaking made me dizzy, but nobody was diving under tables or anything... I think we expected it to just taper off like all other earthquakes we usually get. But it just kept going and building in intensity, for at least a minute or two. Then the power went out. We still thought it was probably going to flicker back on at any time. Then we started getting aftershocks every few minutes and I think that's when we realized that it wasn't our everyday earthquake. They evacuated the med group at that time and I went home.

That night (Friday) all the girls on north base kind of stuck together (mostly out of boredom). We hung out at a friends house until dark when we realized we needed to find some flashlights pretty quickly. I think we all really expected to have power up that evening. We had multiple people from the squadron checking in to make sure every one was accounted for, even going door to door when phones went down.

Saturday they opened the commissary. I actually really needed bread, because I do my grocery shopping on weekends, and my bread was molded... so Alison and I braved the commissary lines. It was insane. The only light was what was coming from the refrigerator cases and cash registers. The rest of the store was dark because they were working off of emergency generators. They opened at 9am. At 9:08, when we arrived, the line wrapped the entire perimeter of the store. It took over an hour to get our few groceries.

Saturday evening I started hearing rumors of major destruction throughout Japan. I didn't believe them. Oh, and one of our friends went into labor. A month early. With her husband deployed. (Mom and baby are fine now, although baby is in the Hachinohe hospital because he was premature). Saturday evening, all the stuff in the fridge had to go outside where it was hovering around freezing. It started to get just a little bit cold in the house. Also, Saturday evening there were people going door-to-door passing out updates on what was available on base. That's when I realized that there were phones set up to call the States.

Sunday morning I took a freezing cold shower by candle light, because there are no windows in our bathroom. I also finally got a call out to the folks using phones they had set up on base for 5-minute morale calls. My dad asked me about the situation with Fukushima nuclear plant. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Sunday afternoon it started to warm up outside so my friends and I grabbed some of our thawing meat and had a barbeque. We were enjoying chicken, pork chops, flank steak, baked potatoes and grilled asparagus (one of the best meals I've had since Chris has deployed) when the power came back on. We got phone and internet a few hours later. In total, our power was only out for about 48 hours.

When I finally sat down to watch the news, I cried. We had heard rumors of devastation, but it was easy to think they were all rumors until I saw the pictures on television. We are incredibly blessed here in Misawa. I have nothing to complain about. Absolutely nothing.

There are a lot of rescue efforts being channeled through Misawa right now. People are also signing up in large groups to help clean up the local area. There's a group of volunteers that goes out every day and everyone always comes back exhausted, filthy, and happy they were able to help. 

Here are a couple of pictures of us "roughing it" when we were without electricity. As you can see, we did pretty well here in Misawa. 

That's marinated flank steak and asparagus ready for the grill.

Huck kept trying to run off with the milk... I guess it's our fault for letting him play with empty milk jugs.

Chris, you would be proud. Everything was grilled to perfection, if I do say so myself.

There were only three of us girls to eat all this... We did our best:)

A few pictures from Iraq

How rude of me! I've been posting tons of pictures of what I've done, and none of Chris's pictures! Here's a bit of what he's been up to...

This was from quite a while ago, after his first ever combat sortie. He flew this flag to commemorate the occasion.

This is Chris and his flight lead off of the wing of the tanker. There's an awful lot of desert down there...

Unlike the shorter training missions here at home, Chris's missions are several hours long, which means several air-to-air refueling opportunities. This is a picture the boom operator took while Chris was refueling.

Relaxing with the guys after a long mission...

I'm such a proud wife. And if Chris came home tomorrow I would give him a great big kiss, even if he didn't shave off his deployment mustache...

...But I really hope he shaves off the mustache:)

Skiing - Naqua Shirakami

I've decided to embrace skiing. Prior to this year, I had only been skiing once, when I was 17. My neighbor, Laura, loves to ski. So I started tagging along with her. We went last weekend with a couple other girls to a really small place nearby so that I could kind of get the hang of it. This weekend, we went to Naqua Shirakami, a larger resort about 2 and a half hours away.

It's takes a full 2 and a half hours only because the roads look like this.

And these are the toll roads! I can only imagine what the smaller roads look like!

Actually, now that I think about it... I imagine the smaller roads look a lot like this as well... or they're closed.

So, two and a half hours later, and we reached Naqua Shirakami. We strapped on our skis, took the 15 minute gondola up to the top, and skied down to some INCREDIBLE views. Mountains, lakes, snow covered trees... it was gorgeous. I decided that I would try to bring the camera on the next run.

But first, we had to get some lunch...

Part of the reason I have decided to embrace skiing is for the ramen. There is nothing better than a gigantic, steaming bowl of ramen to warm up to after a long day of skiing (or, in our case, our first single run down the mountain). This is Miso Curry Ramen. Ramen noodles, pork, cabbage, onions and corn, flavored with just the right amount of curry. Oh, and yes, there is a big pat of butter on top. That helps too.

I was so happy with the ramen that I didn't even notice the snow coming in to totally trash our visibility. Major bummer. I had hoped to take lots of pictures of the amazing views so I could share them on the blog, but I didn't want to bring the camera out in all that snow for a few pictures of pretty much white-out conditions. Sigh. I guess I'll have to try again on the next trip.

So we took a picture inside, then I put my camera away and we enjoyed the rest of the day skiing.

Another amazing thing about skiing in Japan is all the flavors of ice cream you can try. Starting from the top left, there is blueberry, something (not chocolate) and vanilla, strawberry and vanilla, almond and vanilla, green tea and vanilla, cookies and cream (with real cookie bits!), banana, pineapple, grape, tiramisu, vanilla, caramel, melon and mango. I would have jumped all over the cookies and cream, but I had a sore throat and a cough, so I went with some hot lemon tea instead.

Hot lemon tea, from a vending machine. Yes, in Japan you can get hot AND cold drinks from the same vending machine. Wow.

So... ramen, hot tea, ice cream, and lots of ski runs... We had a great time, and I have almost zero pictures to prove it. On our final run down the mountain, the weather broke, and I got to enjoy one more beautiful panoramic view from the top... again, with my camera in the lodge. Bummer.

But I really did go skiing! Honest!

Misawa Winter

I haven't been blogging much lately... mostly because I haven't done anything interesting:) So far, my winter has consisted of snow shoveling, snow shoeing, walking the dogs in the snow, cleaning the snow off of the cars, and other less than interesting snow related things.

This year, the snow didn't really start until January. All of December, I was being lulled into a false sense of security. I thought to myself, "I don't know why people are complaining about Misawa winters! This is nothing! The temperature rarely drops below 20 degrees, and all we get is flurries! Why in the world did I have to get a 4-wheel drive vehicle with snow tires for this?"

Then January came.

The first week of January I spent about an hour and a half each day clearing my sidewalk and parking spaces. I'm not a particularly slow snow shoveler, I just had to shovel several times each day, so the shovel time added up. This picture is probably a half hour after I had just finished cleaning off the cars (again).

I spend a lot less time shoveling now... but mostly just because I've lowered my standards:)

The other issue with lots of snow is that there is often too much snow on the sidewalks to walk the dog. So I dug out the snowshoes we got last year for Christmas (possibly the best Christmas present ever), gave Chris' snowshoes to my friend, Alison, and we started snowshoeing in the golf course by our houses to get the dogs exercise.

Lowen and Huck don't seem to miss our walks:)

It's nice to have an entire golf course to ourselves.

Watching the dogs swim through the snow makes me appreciate having snowshoes.

I've decided I love Misawa winters.