Hirosaki Lantern Festival

Hirosaki Lantern Festival

We decided that this year we are going to get in as many local festivals as we can. We have had the opportunity to attend some pretty cool festivals and celebrations while we have been living in Japan such as the Nabuta festival but not so many local ones. Hirosaki is about a 2 hour drive from home and is a town built around an old castle, at the festival they have many lantern made out of ice that are lit with candles during the evening bringing a beautiful picturesque seen to the landmark. They also had a large group of small igloo looking structures grouped by the hundreds that you could see as you looked down from the hilltop which where kind of magical.

My Dad

I just wanted to include this picture of my dad skipping rocks with Ben and Jonah from last summer. Dad had his second heart attack on Sunday morning and has been in hospital till today. He had some exploratory camera work done to look at his heart and see what was wrong the surgeon found that one of the back blood vessels in his heart was so clogged it was only allowing about a needle size flow of blood through it fortunately right then the surgeon was able to place several stints in the vein to open it back up to about 1/4 of an inch. Dad says he feels like a new man and was so thankful that God was there guiding the surgeons hand. I am also so very thankful that my dad was being looked after as I am definately not ready to loose him yet!

The Big Budda

For the New Year we decided to do something very Japanese and go and visit a shrine. We went to the Big Budda it's about 75 minutes drive from where we live close to Aomori. It was a good day to go as there where lots of people around and the Monks where out saying their prayers to welcome in the new year. There was also a lot of snow on the ground making it a little hard to get around but a little more picturesque.

The New Year

After having a relaxing weekend we where able to hit the New Year a little more relaxed and at ease. We spent New Years Eve at Okanakiyama Ski Resort where able helped teach Paul how to snowboard. She was a regular drill Sergeant, kept him in line and I think scared him a little bit. On the way home we stopped at Shimoda Mall for some dinner and then continued on home where we stayed up playing guitar heroes until midnight (or in my case fell asleep on the coach)when we switched to the TV to watch the Japanese Boy Bands welcome in the New Year at The Tokyo Dome.

Gift Giving

Opening Presents

The whole opening presents thing got pushed till really late but we had a great time being together and arriving back at Misawa where we where able to appreciate all that we where give, by the way I received a zune which I am totally loving.

What a Mess

What did they do to my house?

Upon arriving home from Tokyo we where met at the front door by a roll of toilet paper, it wound it's way across the hall and then up the stair and continued on to Ben's room where the whole place had been covered. The Draper boys and Tiffany had a little bit of fun while we where away.

A trip on the Subway Tokyo

Life just slowed down

Wow, Tokyo was a world wind it was so much fun but so good to get back to Misawa and start to live a little more slowly. Thankfully there had been no snow while we where away so we had no shovelling to do as we arrived home just doctors appointments, shopping, laundry and cleaning to get through. Jonah's doctors appointment wasn't to eventful except for the fat that the boy cannot put on any weight and has managed to lose 5lb in the last six months so if anyone has any ideas how to put some weight on a teenager that isn't teaching him bad nutritional habits please let me know.

Nikko

The Drive Home

We decide to take the drive home from Tokyo a little easier than the drive to with a few stop offs on the way. We where able to stop in a City about 2 hours drive outside of Tokyo called Nikko, it's a very old Buddist town founded over 7000 years ago that contains 100's of shrines. It is very beautful but close to the mountains so there where lots of steps to climb and it was also very cold. We spent about 3 hours wandering around and then drove on to Sendai the half way point, we stopped off here, had dinner and did a little shopping. Sendai has an amazing shopping district that I hope to see again soon. We arrived back to Misawa at about 2230 hrs and all managed to make our way back to bed. I would like to thank my family, my brother Paul and Albert and Mary Lou for making thos such an enjoyable vacation

Tokyo at night

Last Day in Tokyo

We took our last day in Tokyo pretty easy and didn't get out of the hotel until way into the evening. We went by the temple and the kids got some swim time at the hotel pool then in the evening we went to Pallet Town, it's by the dock area of Tokyo and has one of three giant Ferris wheels you see shining in the Tokyo night sky. We where able to all climb inside one of the carts for the Ferris wheel and get a good view of the city from there. I have to say the best part of the trip though was the train ride through Tokyo, where before we had always travelled on the subway and not seen much of the city as we travelled from spot to spot the whole of this trip was at city level so we zipped our way through the city and around the skyscraper, we where able to see inside office buildings and living rooms and well as see has great the city looked it was a truly enjoyable ride. There are so many other cool things to do in the pallet district during the day time with children, it has a maritime museum, hands on science museum and a Toyota show room, we where able to spent some time in that testing out cars and playing in some formula one racing simulators.

Electric Light Parade

Disney start to finish

Day Four Christmas at Disneyland

We where able to spend Christmas Day enjoying the wonder that is Disney. We arrived at Disneyland at about 0830 along with about 20,000 Japanese people they place was crazy busy but full of the same magic that makes Disney so great. We where not able to go on a whole lot of rides as most of the lines took over 90 minutes of wait time. But we did do the pirates of the Caribbean, haunted mansion, small world, pretty much the standard Disney rides that are there at all locations. We had another great day and where able to watch most of the parades which although they were in Japanese where great. Our favorite part of the day was going to the Tiki Room and seeing the birds rap in Japanese.

Kyoto cont...

I was watching Memoirs of a Geisha last night with my brother and noticed the scene in the movie where the young girl was running through the line of Tori gate and realized that we had gone to that Shrine so I included the photo above along with a photo of the Golden Temple a beautiful building that needed to be show in colour so you could fully appreciate it.

A Day In Kyoto

Day Three Kyoto

Today we got up before the crack of dawn (about 0330) and started on our journey to Kyoto. Kyoto is a very old Japanese City, the original capital of Japan. Because of it's historical significants it was left untouched in the bombing raids of the second world war. It's about a 6 hour drive from Tokyo and packed full of things to see. We went from shrine to shrine and Temple to Temple. We where even able to find a Geisha(Kyoto is one of the only places left in Japan where they live). I will post the video of that another time.

Second Day in Tokyo

As you can see from the pictures below we spent out second day in Tokyo visiting the Imperial Gardens, we turned up on a really great day as it is one of only two days in the year when the Emperor addresses the Japanese people. He does three addresses from his home where he is sealed behind a glass enclosure.It was an incredible experience and we where able to be there for the first viewing. We arrived at the gardens at about 0900 where we went through security with Mary Lou getting her candy taken away. We then waited in the rain outside with about a 1000 other people till the gates to the inner garden where opened at about 0945 we then waited till 1020 for the Emperor to come on to the balcony and address us. It was crazy in a very orderly Japanese style, as we exited the subway that morning we where given flags to wave which we did as the Emperor showed up shouting a chorus of "Bonzi" with the other visitors.

Emperor of Japan

First Full Day part 2

After finishing at the Meijing Shrine we left to do some shopping. Right outside of the shrine is a large area where the teenagers hang out, they dress pretty weird and if you are lucky allow you to have your photo taken with them. We ending up walking to the Harishuku shopping district next, it was so packed full of people that you could hardly walk and breath. I did manage to get the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted. We continued to move on and managed to find our way to the Tokyo Tower. It's not as picturesque as the Eiffel Tower which it is said to be an exact replica off except I'm guess for the bright orange and white stripes. It was also very commercial, like everything else in Japan it's about selling you something. It was great to go up to the viewing gallery though and take a look at Tokyo, it was all alight for the holidays. After the Tower we finished our day off with a late dinner and birthday celebration for Albert at the Hard Rock Cafe. Visiting the Hard Rock at it's many locations is a bit of a tradition for Albert and he has quite a collection of drum sticks from around the world.

First Full Day in Tokyo

Wow, after looking through the photos from our first day in Tokyo I think I'm going to have to add this day in to parts I am a little amazed that we managed to get so much done in one short day. We started the day with a long lie in. The beds at the New Sanno are so warm and lush it was great to be able to spend a couple of extra hours in bed before we headed out for the day. Upon making it out of the room and onto the ground floor we headed out for breakfast and had a wonderful breakfast buffet, keeping our tummies full for the rest of the day. Our first stop was to one of the larger shrines in Tokyo The Meijing Shrine. We happened upon it on a great day and where able to see three wedding processions, who would have guessed that so many marriages would be happening in the winter. The Brides and Grooms where beautiful in their traditional dress. Ben managed to grab himself a few photos with a wedding guest and some typical high school girls, he's a bit of a rock star when it come to the Japanese girls and usually gets lots of giggles as he walks by.

The Drive Down

Day One. We start our drive down to Tokyo from Misawa-Ishi , six of us in a step wagon, for everything else in Japan these are pretty large family vans that can seat up to eight quite comfortably, how comfortably we will find out as we get to Tokyo. We manage a pretty good drive, about 8hrs covering 660km ( you can legally drive at about 80km/hr on the expressways). We arrive still friends and only get lost once ending up in the Giza district, which was beautifully decorated for the holiday season. We manage to make it to the Rappongi district where we had pre-planned to pick my brother up at the Mori Tower an overly large building in the Rappongi district you can walk around it has a 360 degree viewing gallery so you can see all of Tokyo from it. After picking the brother up we head on over to The New Sanno to stay for a couple of nights while we explore Tokyo.

It's been along time

It's been such a long time since I last added something to the blog, December has been one wild and crazy month. Anyway the good news is that my brother Paul came over for a visit arriving on the 19Th and we spent Christmas with him in Tokyo. We managed to keep a really hectic schedule and visited more places than seems possible. We became very familiar with the Tokyo subway system loving every minute of it. Our good friends Mary Lou and Albert where also able to spend the week with us. I am hoping to be able to update you on our antics on a daily basis as life gets a little less crazy.

Thanksgiving a Week and a bit late.

We had Thanksgiving a week late this year so I could invite my English Classes to join in with our family for the holiday it was so much fun. I teach 2 classes one with 4 Japanese ladies and the other with 2. All the ladies are 60+ years old and so much fun. They had a great time sampling the American style food and where very impressed with the amount of desserts we has to offer. They have take very well to my children and love to spend time with the family. We usually have a New Years (Japanese) party with them too where we get to share the local food . Albert and Mary-Lou where also able to share the evening with us, we sure love those guys and they have certainly made living in Misawa a lot better.