Hanami, Anyone?

*** I am still having trouble with posting to my blog, so maybe this time it will work?

I wrote this over two weeks ago:).

After a busy morning full of making big kids’ lunches, sending them out of the door, trying to do exercises with my “injured leg” (that’s a story for another time), running to three different stores, feeding Mark lunch, blowing bubbles outside for Mark, talking to friends, blowing more bubbles, playing Candyland three times (!!!) with Mark and entertaining him in various ways (see below)…

…I decided that we should have an out of the ordinary Family Night tonight (it’s Monday night). It was not even 2 o’clock and big kids were still at school, so I had plenty of time to prepare. I figured since Robert was leaving for California on Tuesday and will be missing the peak of cherry blossoms, we should have a Hanami on our own, although the flowers on cherry trees are just barely starting to open.  If you remember,  hanami is a party beneath the sakura during daytime or at night. The one at night is called “yozakura”. People set up huge tarps and reserve their picnic spots early in the day, then enjoy their food under the blooming trees.

I made some yummy Crispy Caribbean Wraps, broccoli, carrots and salad, packed it all up and headed over to the clinic to pick up Robert. This is what Robert looked like when he walked out of the hospital. 

Pretty military looking. I had never seen him wearing gear before, and the kids loved it!

We drove for 5 minutes to Chuo park outside the main gate. We also call it “Train Park” because it has an old steam engine as part of the play equipment.

Everyone loved dinner. Mark was our broccoli dinosaur.

Katya barely managed to eat one piece of broccoli (washing it down with lots of water as always, since it’s so gross, according to her-haha).

Alex had to be told to STOP eating broccoli because he had to share with everyone else in the family (that was after he ate two huge raw carrots in the car).

Swinging was fun except this was the only kind of picture I was getting of Alex the whole time I was asking him to look at me. Seriously…

Okay, that’s a better one—Alex pushing Mark on the swing.

Katya was just walking around being pretty (well, running around, to be exact, but it sounds funny to be “running around being pretty”).

And here is my Captain W. Happy that he is going on a week-long vacation to California (i.e. dental conference) tomorrow.

It was a beautiful evening. Still chilly but beautiful. Spring is definitely in the air. A couple more days and sakura will be in full bloom! I’ll make sure to take some pictures.

Staying up way too late tonight…..Have a great Monday! It’s almost Tuesday here.

Ogawara-ko Beach

I am a bit delayed with my blogging because of a strange Live Writer problem, but I think it’s all back to normal now.

As soon as crazy Misawa snow melted, we were ready for new adventures. Look at the date on the pictures below—April 21st. Merely three weeks before then, we had a huge snow storm dump on us several inches of snow. Nothing could stop the spring sun from warming up Misawa, so although it was still chilly, spring was slowly showing its face.

This particular Saturday we wanted to do something active together. Everyone in our family really enjoys biking. So we decided to go on a bike ride for a couple of hours. I must say Misawa doesn’t have great biking trails. I mean, I remember our Maple Grove parks in Minnesota and we don’t have anything like that here.

We do know of at trail, called Misawa Cycle Road, which goes through rice fields connecting a baseball field with Citizen’s Forestry Park. So this particular Saturday, we decided to bike this trail. The trail, I believe, is around 7 km one way, but we decided to shorten it by driving to about midway point, parking and then biking.

Robert, I, and Alex rode our bikes, Katya rode her scooter (we were resisting saying “I told you so” several times) and Mark was enjoying the view of Japanese nature from the trailer. We biked over 4 km from the place we parked our car to the Citizen’s Forestry Park. When we got closer to the lake Ogawaro, we left our bikes “somewhere in the forest” and walked over to the beach.

It was a beautiful day, so the kids immediately started digging in the sand.

 

Huge carrots for a snack (Alex is holding one in his hand) and fresh air=perfect.

“Can I plant some carrots, right here?”.

“Elephant Cage” is in the background.

“This year, my parents decided to skip Malaysia..but I think this Ogawara-ko beach will do”.

Apparently in the summertime, this is the place to be.

When Robert took this picture, he said that this area looked like it was taken from the 70s.

Wooden Kokeshi dolls.

They could have stayed there all day, but we still had to bike back. 

Our way back to the parking station was non-eventful, besides the smelly fields we had to pass. Kids didn’t whine one bit, which was very impressive.  By the end of our adventure we were quite tired—after all we almost biked 10 km…

The irony is that none of the pictures above shows us actually biking. And none of them shows our bikes... So for all you know, we could have just made the whole story up.

Have a great Friday, everyone!

Two Saturdays=two kinds of entertainment

This is what it’s like to live in Misawa. One day you are enjoying yourself experiencing authentic Japanese music:

And another day you go a little bit crazy with your kids and party with The Party Animals!

Kids preferred the latter performance.

The Final Piano Performance in Japan

One of the good things that I hope Katya will remember about Misawa is that this is the place where she learned how to play the piano.  We have been incredibly lucky to live on the same street as our good friend and piano teacher, who has been a great influence and encouragement in Katya’s life. Miss Bridget instilled in Katya love for piano, better than I ever would. Her positive attitude and kindness was something that kept Katya wanting to practice even if it seemed hard at first. For three years, she has seen Katya grow professionally and emotionally, helping her discover her talent for music. We are forever grateful to her.

This was Katya’s last piano recital in Misawa.  It was a great success! It was also wonderful to see so many of Katya’s friends perform—they were all great examples to each other.

Katya performed two pieces: “The Last Dance” (by someone whose name I don’t recall) and “Minuet” by Mozart.

For the past half a year we have been focusing on Katya’s hand positioning a lot. She is definitely getting better but needs constant reminders (good thing I know what it’s supposed to look like).

Please follow this link to YouTube to listen to her performance.

Katya's Spring Piano Recital

We will definitely continue with piano lessons in England but for now Katya will enjoy her spring-summer break. Although she doesn’t need to practice assigned pieces, she has been sitting down at the piano at least once this past week, just to play some old and new songs. THAT is what I am excited about—the fact that she loves to sit down and play piano without anyone forcing her.

We are sad to see Miss Bridget go…Wishing you all the best in your new adventures in the military.

Hakkoda Snow Wall-Saying “Good Bye” to Winter

A few months ago, I came across some pictures circulated on Facebook about really tall snow walls on the side of the road, created by snow plows. It was a mystery to me (still kind of is) how they make those super tall snow banks that don’t collapse. Those pictures were taken in Hokkaido, the most Northern island of Japan.

Well, living in Northern Tohoku is not exactly like living in Hokkaido, but this year, thanks to the enormous amount of snow that we have received, we were able to see a very similar sight, right in our neighborhood…okay…maybe not that close….just one and a half hour drive from our home.  This winter, we have received over 200 inches of snow—that’s incredible!
So, last Saturday, we headed up to Hakkoda mountains. The road we wanted to see is called the Golden Line. It’s a road in the mountains that is closed for the winter. Then on March 30 and 31st it’s open for pedestrians and on April 1st it’s open to traffic.

This is how high the snow was on the way there.

That’s not a minivan in front of us—it’s a VERY tall bus.

So we drove through this for about 20 minutes, got to the intersection where the Golden Line started and saw this….

Apparently, it had snowed an additional 40 cm the night before so the road had to close down.  We were very disappointed.

Robert and Mark were very sad….looking longingly at the sign…wishing they could actually understand what it said.

Then Robert decided that life is full of surprises so he made sure to smile for the camera. Katya was still holding back her tears.

Alex simply refused to accept the truth by not even looking at the sign.

We decided to not waste any time and snapped some more pictures.

Now THAT is how they make those tall walls. “Aha” moment of the day!

Funny picture but shows how tall the snow wall is.

This is to document that I was indeed there on April 7th, 2012.

“I wonder if I can write something on the wall…umm…hmm..it’s completely FROZEN!” .  That is how it stays intact—it’s solid ice.

“Let’s get out of here", said Mark; and we left following some random roads.

One of the roads was so narrow that two cars could not fit. This guy, a proud owner of a Peugeot didn’t want to risk it (we didn’t care much about our 15 year old car) and backed out of the road.

Some more snowy pictures on the way.

So after driving for half an hour or so we decided to go to this very old onsen called Tsuta. The water was incredibly hot for my liking, at least on the girls’ side. I had to sit by the cold water faucet to make it possible for me to survive-haha. The lady who works there said it’s because thermal waters are so close to the ground in that location, that’s why it’s so hot.

Boys, apparently, really enjoyed their bath.

The building was very old and smelled of wood.

Beginning of April and still so much snow!

Although we were bummed about the road being closed, we still made this day to be really fun. Robert and kids even came back to base on time to catch an hour of Japan Day, one of the fun annual events to highlight Japanese culture.
This was a good way to say our “good byes” to winter and snow. I am sure it won’t snow this much in England. And I am not sure if I’ll ever live in a location where it snows as much as it snows in Misawa. We love snow! But we are really ready for spring now!
Have a great day,
Lyana
P.S. Only three and a half months left till our big move.

Whirlwind tour of Hachinohe area-Part 2 of 2

Let’s see….where were we? Oh yes, our adventures with Robert’s family continue….

On Friday, kids had only half a day of school scheduled, so we simply took them out for the day so we could go on a daytrip. We had to borrow our friend’s big van to fit us all in and it worked great—lots more room.

If you live in Hachinohe, you know that this is the symbol of this city.

Seagulls….

We couldn’t help taking our visitors to Kabushima island and Tanesashi coast. Only 40 minutes away from Misawa, it’s a place that you should not miss. We have been to Kabushima a number of times, mostly in March/April.  Kabushima is a small, uninhabited gourd-shaped island 0.8 kirometers in circumference. Every year black-tailed gulls migrate to this iland in early March and start breeding. By June, their eggs hatch—that’s when I want to go again.

Kabushima Shrine is on top of the hill. It was not raining that day.

Did I mention before it was not raining that day?

Enjoying the view….. lucky me….

Good thing it was easy to wipe off from my coat-hahaha.

Picture time for Everett.

That’s the coastal area that got damaged last year.

A few minutes further along the coast Tanesashi beach meets the eye. Kids spent quite a while climbing over the rocks and playing in the sand. Grandma did too. Beautiful day!

And look at what James found—clam shells..

See? We everyone picked up quickly on Japanese picture sign.

Troublemakers.

We walked down to the ocean to Shirahami beach.

Found a part of a boat, perfect to play pirates…

And then playing tsunami… Only half of them stayed dry—it was not natural for the older boys to be non-adventurous.

Grandma and James.

I bet she is very proud of her wonderful kids.

“Good bye, ocean” picture.

By the time we were done with the coast, we were pretty hungry…and we knew the perfect place to go to in Hachinohe. That our first time as well, but from what people were saying about that restaurant, we were very excited. In Misawa, we have a buffet places called Viking. They have two bigger ones in Hachinohe, and that’s were we went.

Prices for lunch were excellent considering it was all-you-can-eat kind of deal. They had a dozen kinds of different meats, some Japanese noodles, rice, soups, salads, sushi and dessert. Oh! And you cook your own meet on the grill in the middle of your table. PLUS they had their own cotton candy making machine!

We were so busy eating..for almost 2 hours that we didn’t take any good pictures…we were stuffed. I don’t think anyone wanted dinner that night-haha.

On the way home, in order for us to get some exercise after our huge meal, we stopped at the Statue of Liberty Park in Oirase town.

I believe Grandma got quite a work out, or at least a good stretch for her joints.

James managed to stay on his feet the whole way down. Kids had so much fun again.

And of course, picture with the Tallest Statue of Liberty in Japan.

It was a busy day and we got to see a lot of beautiful areas. Everyone was exhausted and it was almost a good thing that the next day’s snow storm forced us to stick close to home. That last day before our visitors flew out, we were able to go to the Misawa Souvenir Bazaar and just hang out.

Very grateful that Grandma, James and Everett were able to come visit us!!!! It was a great week!