West Coast is the Best Coast!

Awkward photo to start out with? I just can't help myself. We had THAT good of a time.

4th of July week we went on vacation with the Wonderful Watsons and the Awesome Glaziers to a place called Ajigasawa and Juni Lakes on the West Coast of Japan.

We knew Brett had these sacred days off for a few months so I was hoping for something "pretty good"  and what I got was FANTASTIC! I hope this blog does it some justice.

On July 4th we left for Earth Village playground.

Complete with a suicide slide it was a great way to start off the trip.

We decided to replace our car with this...

Riding to Church on Sundays will be so much more fun!

 Then we headed to Ajigasawa Village.

Arrival was interesting. My friend Jeana knows about 100 words in Japanese.  Me and Lyana, my adventerous-Ukrainian-travel-planning friend know about 3 Japanese words. However, what we lack in Japanese vocab we make up for in friendly gestures. Hence we begin our journey of making Japanese strangers into good friends.

Our first task was to find out if we could have a fire and if they sold firewood. After several "interactions"  the manager, whom I was afraid was so sick of trying to communicate, brought out a bundle of firewood. He then ran to get these two nice ladies who translated that the wood was "no charge for American" in honor of the 4th of July. They only had 2 fire pits for the whole campground, so we invited them all to come and roast marshmallows with us that night. They did and it was lots of fun. Turns out the mother & daughter (translators) and husband had been living up there for a long period since the Great East Earthquake. They are wary of the radiation so they are trying to find another place, northern, to settle.

 Near the cabins is a roller slide- YAY!

Katya and Mina

Also, we learned by the size and placement of fecal droppings, that monkeys inhabit the area. Ew.

CRASH! 

Having had lots of fun, we thought the girls were worn out. However, Mina wouldn't eat all day, so she decided to wake up at 3:30AM for breakfast and stay up until 7. Not fun.

We headed down the coast to find this structure of seaside that was formed by an earthquake/tsunami a long time ago.  

Here we are discovering the Sea of Japan... or the Korean Sea (depending on who you talk to ;)  ) 

That's MY girl!

Look closely to see carved shrines and some offerings. Next time we will be prepared to leave the shrine some red bull.

Daddy's girl!

Famous Helmet Rock

Can you imagine eating squid all the time? Yikes. I can take it a few times a year, but not enough to eat at a place that has this for a sign. Cute- but highly unappetizing.

 Marie... LOVES this girl. LOVES. We are going to miss her very much!

Then we headed further down the coast to swim at this natural swimming cove.

As natural as the cove is, it's surrounded by lots of concrete. We heard the Japanese mafia owns the concrete factory, so that's why you see it everywhere... hmmm...

I have no words for how beautiful it was.... except to say I have no words for how beautiful it was.

Then we went to settle at the Refresh Village, with Swedish themed cabins!

Marie was in love! It's like a "bunk bed room." She slept on top and Mina actually slept the whole night on the bottom.

Mom and Dad got to sleep up on the loft... 

in these funny boxes. It was like being a in can of sardines. Our 6'1'' friend Robert was offered his own cabin so he could "stretch out" by himself. Once again, we met a very nice Japanese man, willing to give us this for free, because he wanted Robert to be comfortable! Can't beat Northern Japanese hospitality.  

This is Mina having one of her daily freak outs. Sorry Mina, it must be blogged. 

 Lastly, our goal of the day was to view "A JAPANESE SUNSET ON THE BEACH!"

We went with all our might to execute this goal, but lo and behold all our maps were in Japanese...

So we drove... and drove... until we spotted this Japanese lady. Who somehow told us how to get to our destination. Very nice. She didn't say one English word, but we got her "gist."

No sunset though... too cloudy. Waan waaaa......

Apparently I'm still crazy excited though.

Oh well, back to the Swedish cabin.

Our last day starts with some ball, headed up by B man!

And we celebrate the 9th Birthday of Katya!  

She got a Harry Potter book! Funny though, I had the same look on my face when I saw the quality of lavatory in our cabin:

 Complete with a dryer! OOO LA LA !

 Now I know why they call it the Refresh Village!

Anywho... on to Juni Lakes...

Aokie Lake is small, and not very deep, but it's noted for it's deep blues and greens.  

Simply beautiful!

These pictures do NO JUSTICE~! It was like looking into a hologram!

 We had to run to beat a bus load of elderly tourists to get the best shots of the lake. So worth it.

Afterward we went looking to use some paddle boats, however, Alex who is 7, had been bitten in the night by something. His ankle was swollen upon awakening. Throughout the day it became more red and began to bubble with blisters. The owners of the paddle boats looked at it, and talking in very rushed Japanese, ran to get some ointment to apply to it. They talked fierce-fully about what it was, but of course we had no idea what they were saying, but glad for the help.

 But Alex still wanted to get out on the boats... and so did this guy!

Mina did not. It was time for her daily rage. So when she got back to shore the boat owners gave out snacks to feed to the Japanese carp and motioned me to entertain Mina with feeding them.

Them was some big-mouthed fish.

And it worked. Mina was calmed.

So calm she fell asleep in my arms on the way to Nihon Canyon (Japan Canyon).

By then the trip was over. We had planned to do an onsen (a hotspring) that was right next to the sea. However, they had a women's onsen and a "mixed gender onsen." The boys weren't up for that. And Alex's leg was bubbling more by the minute, so we decided it was time to call it good so he could see a doctor. (Don't worry, he's fine now).

This is the onsen. We were ok without. It kind of looks like a dump at first glance anyways.

We finished up our trip at Komaki Onsen (that means nothing to you now, but if you come and visit us, let us talk you into going- trust me, it's awesome (STEPHANIE!). 

 And Marie was sad. She loves hotsprings. She loves vacations. But most of all she was sad to not sleep in her bunk-bed cabin.

Life's tough!

And that was our great trip. We will miss you Watsons! We hope to follow you to England someday. We will see you again!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation...

A Couple Photos From the Weekend

This is the way Mina looks when she is playing in the sand.  So what she does is, pick up the sand with both hands...and...then...guess.  Guess what she does.  She drops it.  Then picks up more...and then drops it.

And this is the way Rachel and Marie look when they sled down the carpet hill at 99 kph.

Pensive.  Wondering what could have happened to that 70-foot dock that used to be out there. 

Sand sand it is everywhere.  Sand sand even in our hair.  Sand sand in our underwear. 

And at last, I give you Seagull Shrine.  Every seagull in Japan lives here.  Don't worry, if you need to go there to pray you can pick up one of their complimentary umbrellas at the bottom of the steps.

The Morioka Festival

First, a little background info. Since the devastating earthquake last year, the northern regions of Japan (called the Tohoku region) decided to create a festival that combines the 6 different festivals of the area. The result: one massive collection of polite Asians, standing in alot of different lines for food, entertainment, and the bus.... oh the bus... I'll get to that later.

So for history sakes, I will state that we came with the Wonderful Watsons, The Marvelous Markers, and the Bodacious Broughs. Good Times. If you know them you can spot at least 3 of them in this picture. This is us escaping the crowd just for a moment.

SO I can't really explain what we did that day unless I convey the enourmonsity of "The Crowd." I get that I'm "from Idaho" living in the middle-of-nowhere-Misawa-country-bumpkin-awesomeness, but THE CROWD was insane. Before the above picture was taken, our 4 large Mormon/American families were navigating the crowd that was lining up to see a parade. There was a sidewalk corner, no more than 40 ft in length, that took us 10 minutes to get through. What makes it weird is that we were the only one with strollers, and Japanese are very quiet in uncomfortable situations like this. So We're all pushing sweaty toddlers and infants through a crowd and I'm calling out "Brett!-Brett" so I don't get lost and lets just say I'm getting lots of stares. If you've ever pushed a stroller in a crowd you know that people in general think they just need to get in front of you so it caused for a few Asian toes to be smashed. Sorry! Gomen! Gomen! I tried to be a good American Representative, but if it turns out I started a war... sorry about that America.

Anyways.... after "that corner" half of the families seceded from Mormon/American Union and planted ourselves in a shady spot, far away from what would be considered an "optimal view" of the parade.

 It's alright, Marie had a great time running around with her buds and Mina was sleeping. Besides, people around us seemed to be warded off by the thought of bothering a sleeping baby, so we got lots of space, and at one point a very nice lady kept encouraging me to stand in front of her.
I was able to see the first act, that of the Lantern Festival- You can watch someoneelse's better view here:
The Lanterns

(and yes, it is worth watching).

Apparently, after this first act they dropped the lanterns so no one else got to see it, including our friends that we ditched :(   - who knew, laziness would pay off?

Mina is all legs these days. She is a perfect candidate for a monkey leash. I love how she thinks she is running wild with her monkey while in actuality she is on a rope controlled strictly by mom. Props to whomever invented that.

And who needs parades? We left after the first act and I had to find this "bowl of rice" to take our Christmas card photo with. I was feeling overwhelmed  with the festival until we had this picture taken, then I felt accomplished. Thank you small child who dressed up as a bowl of rice, you made my day complete.

Just another view here.

 Tamzin, Marie & Laura Beth. I think they were playing "Scooby Doo" here. Marie was honorarily inducted into T&L's game as they started calling her "Velma" (b/c she has glasses). Cute :)
Also, this is supposed to be a Castle... or the remnants of one? I have no idea, but we couldn't find the Morioka Castle. Just so you know.


And lastly, the bus line.... oh the bus line.
As we were done we headed to the bus line that takes you back to your car (we parked in a lot, far out of town) we saw the line was very long so we headed to the end of it. We tried to join what we thought was the end until the traffic cop pointed across an intersection. The line went from 3 people- wide on a city sidewalk to an ENTIRE ROAD CLOSED DOWN FILLED FROM SIDE TO SIDE WITH STANDING PEOPLE. THE. ENTIRE. ROAD. People, quiet, facing forward, calm as can be. As I walked by the people my soul WAS CRUSHED. My soul has never been crushed by the sight of a line before. Not even on the hottest day at Disney Land or at an Airport bathroom line after a long flight.

I will give them props. I thought it would take 6 hours to get through the line. I thought I would just lay down and die there, surrender myself to the Japanese city streets and start sending my children out panhandle so we could make a living as we created a new life in the middle of the road with our would-be Japanese neighbors. But no. It took 1 hour to get into a bus and a half hour to get to the car. We were saved.

    At least we got a great picture while we stood in line.

Well, at least one.

The moral of the story is Japanese are better than American's at standing line. Slightly less dramatic, maybe.

Tongue Tied

Little Mina's been tongue tied, which I didn't know was a real thing.  Her tongue has been sealed to the bottom of the mouth.  She had it snipped yesterday and was as brave as can be.  This morning she's been slurping and swishing her saliva around in her mouth because of the new feel.  Proud of you!!!