When school first let out in June this year, our family made a list of things we would like to do during the summer. There were twenty things listed, most of which we accomplished. Some of those completed were: go to the Misawa city pool, visit Kenji World indoor waterpark, go to Horse Park, run through the sprinklers, play in the backyard kiddie pool if it is not moldy, hiking in the Hakkoda mountains, swim at Tanesashi Beach. Well, summer was almost over and we had one more good weekend for a road trip, so we decided to go see the snow monkeys just north of us a bit.
These are not monkeys.
We changed our minds and decided to visit the wild horses instead. At the tip of the Shimokita Peninsula is Cape Shiriya. This is the northeastern most tip of the big island of Honshu. You can’t get any further than this.
This is what it looks like on Googlemaps.
And this is what it looks like for real.
Good place for a lighthouse.
We met this friendly rock there.
Horses roam wild there too. We stopped and said hi to this little guy on the road. He doesn’t like grapes by the way.
We could see the rest of his family through the trees, so I took a quick picture . . .
. . . and we kept driving, hoping to see some more out in the open. But we didn’t and they weren’t. So we turned around and drove back, then we turned around and went back the other way again, then we turned around and went back one more time and stopped near where we saw that little guy in the first place. I parked the car and took all three kids with me on a little expedition. Here’s where we climbed over the bank and into the forest where we found . . .
Snow Monkeys!!
Just kidding. Here’s what we really saw, way up close. I’m carrying Mark while trying to keep Katya and Alex close to me, because after all, these were wild horses, and you never know when one of them might feel threatened by three young children and their camera-wielding bald-ING dad. I put that camera to good use too.
After hanging out with Mr. Ed for a spell, we went to another locally famous landmark, the garage door. Not much to see there, so we passed it on by and went to Osorezan instead.
Next stop: Ozorezan. Think Yellowstone National Park (the sulfur smell and steaming, yellow rocks minus the geysers) plus holy Buddhist shrine.
Lyana reminded me yesterday that a picture is worth a thousand words, meaning I should post more pictures and less talk. So here’s a map of Ozorezan and I’ve placed numbers on it that correspond with the next 20 pictures. (wow, that’s a lot of pictures for one post). Enjoy. 
1 – haven’t learned how to say, “hold the camera steady, depress the shutter button halfway to allow for auto focus, then press it fully to take the picture” in Japanese. Result: slightly blurry pic
2
3
4
5 – ???
6
7
8
9 – looking back towards main buildings
10
11
12
13
14
15 – adding a rock to the pile (don’t know the meaning of the rock piles everywhere).
16
17 – monk in the making perhaps
18 – times 2
19 – monk gangsta
20 – happiness on a cone
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Checking out the view from the observation deck. Had to drive to the top of the mountain for this view. Lesson of the day: fog looks the same from above as it does from below.
This where we were on the map; by the map.
You’ve made it this far through the longest blog post ever, so the least I could do is show you the beautiful view . . .
Konbanwa,
Rob
