Shinto Shrine

We went to this Shinto Shrine, I was incredibly gorgeous! Shinto and Buddhism are the two main religions here in Japan. They are not two competing religions they coexist peacefully… the saying is the people in Japan live Shinto and die Buddhist...
This is the entrance outside of the shrine, there were white papers tied to everything. We were told that when the white papers where tied to things it mean they were sacred… the tree to the left of the big rock had papers tied to it because it was over 400 years old
This is us right inside the gate next to a carving of some beast. There was this statue and one just like it on the other side, they are supposed to eat any evil or bad spirits and keep the shrine free of them.
There was so much carving and detail, it was really pretty
The three monkeys.. see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil
This little guy was guarding a little mini shrine, I had to take a picture, I love his bandana’s
Me and Derick next to a couple giant Hatchinohe Horses, these sculpture are everywhere in this town although most are much smaller.
cool stuff...
more cool stuff...The entrance to a Shinto shrine is marked by this red gate called a Tori gate... you see them EVERYWHERE here.
Before you enter through the tori gate you are supposed to cleanse the bad spirits from your body by using the ladle to wash your right hand then your left hand then swish the water in your mouth, spit it out and wash your right hand again... I had a hard time deciding if I should participate in any of the things, I decided the cleansing ritual was okay and did it out of respect of the people who had come there to worship so as not to "bring my bad spirits in" but I did not ring the prayer bell and do all the prayer ritual which alot of people did. And I did not buy a fortune... I don't really know whats kosher with all of this non Christian religion stuff.

Fish Market

We went to the fish market in Hatchenohe (I am not sure on the spelling of that) anyways… Hatch is a pretty big town about 30 min. away. They have a large very reasonably prices home furnishings store we go to, a Toys R Us and two KFC’s… so they have stuff… including stinky, slimey, fishey things… I felt like I smelled like fish for two days after this…
You’ll notice the clams and fish, octopus legs… some of the venders you point to which leg you want on an octopus and they go lob it off and wrap it up… uggg… I have opened my mind to eating fish… but not like this, I mean heck if somebody wrapped up a cow leg I couldn’t eat that either…A box of rays that I almost stepped in while I was busy surveying the least stinky route to take… thank goodness Derick caught me at the last second… I think I would have died…
We got there pretty early and they were still setting out their goods.. this guy was throwing curled up crabs into icy water… I assumed they were dead and leaned in for a closer look, this crab is not dead and as soon as he gets in the water springs to life and tries to escape… right at my face… I literally screamed bloody murder in the fish market and every person in there looked at me and started laughing… I peed my pants a little.
Whole octopus for only 1000 yen ($10.00)… what a deal… I passed
Lots of stuff that stunk
Lots of really really big crabs… which just look like spiders on crack to me and give me panic attacks.
When you have to bring the fish out on a dolly don’t you think that means its too big?? Do people actually buy the whole thing, why don’t they just cut it up… it was staring at me…
There was a room at the fish market where they were having a bonsai tree show (this was much more interesting to me) and all of the bonsai trees in the show were azaleas!!! Super cool, these trees were ancient, probably hundreds of years old.
This is was the other part that I especially enjoyed… there was a baked goods sections with all of these packages of delicious deserts and snacks, and on the packages were little Tupperware containers of samples (YES!!!) it was going very well until I ate one cracker that started off sweet and delicious and then took a horrible turn to salty and fishy and I looked at the package… it was a sweet cracker covered in dried pieces of s quid.. the dried squid got all stuck in my teeth, I almost died… the second time that day…

New House: Moving in and Unpacking

The movers came Monday with all of our stuff, we had 7 crates full, this is the first 5… Its a lot of stuff but at the same time its not…
This is the first four crates dumped in my front yard… yaaayyyy…
This is my garden in the front of my house… it is so cute! I have peony, clematis, celosia, fuchsia, lilly of the valley, seedem, ornamental grass called bronze curls, and some other stuff I don’t know what its called! But its super cute!!!! The hard part about planting a garden here is you cant read any of the labels because they are all in Japanese, so I can only plant plants that I know already how to take care of or that I know their name so I can look it up later on the internet.
More garden
This is the front of my house… this is only one day after my stuff arrived so I haven’t had time to plant anything in the planters yet… but don’t worry, I will get there!
**These were all taken one day after the movers came so its not really done yet, don’t worry I will update them when things get done for real**
If you go in the front door and turn left this is what you would see leading you into the kitchen
This is my kitchen
This is looking the other way down my kitchen
This is the living room, that doorway on the left goes to the kitchen
This is the other side of the living room and the door on the right goes down a hall back to the front door, so my front door kitchen and living room all make a big loop.
Sorry you cant see the upstairs yet… its way to messy!

Grocery Shopping & more Shimota Mall

A lot of grocery stores in Japan are attached to shopping malls, so there are some grocery pictures and some mall pictures here
This is their ice cream selection… the tiny serving cups in the states is their normal here… and a tiny Hagen Dazz (I dont think that is how that is spelled?) as you can see is 248 yen which is a little more then $2.48… expensive… thank goodness for the commissary!
They have green tea everything… including ice cream! I really want to try some... I just haven’t, I will let you know how it goes!
This is the main aisle in the grocery store with all the other aisles coming off of it, of coarse I cant read any of the signs so I mostly just wander aimlessly with my mouth open
This is our friend Mike Parker and he is holding a solid block of ice, it costs $3… I don’t know what that is used for or why you cant just make your own…
This is a typical bakery in a grocery store… they always smell amazing and I always pick out one thing Derick will buy me and I get to take home and try… I have never been disappointed.
This is an international food store in the mall… Mac N Cheese: 303 yen (over $3.03)
Bertolli Pasta Sause: almost $7!!!!!
And SPAM on sale for almost $5!Another Bakery in the mall, everything is so perfect, all the fruit looks fake, but its not!
Here is a close up of the cupcakes… how cute!
This is the inside of the mall, pretty normal looking
Here is Kimono shop, this on is 290,000 yen… that would be $2,900.00… and somebody told me these are not even the expensive ones….
My friend Yazmin, she has a “large” size shoe next to hers… hmmm… that’s not gonna work
This is some game in the arcade with lots of noice and lights and people shoot coins into it but then balls roll around the tracks and I really had no idea what was going on… it looked pretty intense though
These were in a candy shop like Mr. Bulky… it just seems so wrong…
We spent 15 min watching this lady to try to figure out what these were but we never could figure it out… everybody wanted some though, there were white ones, one rolled in brown powder, some in a black sauce, some in a brown sauce, some green ones… what the heck!

The Ocean

This is our first visit to the ocean, it was cloudy and windy and kinda cold, but I didn’t care, it was Friday and I wanted to see the ocean, so we drove the 5 kilometers that we live from the ocean and stared driving up the coast… I had heard of a beach a little to the north and I was determined to find it! We did find it, without any problems. It is called Miss Veedol Beach (named after the plane that flew from Misawa to Washington: the first transpacific flight) anyway there was a replica of the plane and a tower…
This is our new car looking down from the tower… It is a Subaru Imprezza… it is a good car and I think it will serve us well here in Misawa (everybody says they do great in the snow)Me and Kona messing around on the beach… the water was freezing and the sand was cold to but even that could not stop me from dipping my toes in!
It was so much fun and super romantic!
This was the little outhouse/bathroom near the beach… it was a much nicer hole in the ground then any American holes in the ground I have been to…. We had so much fun that we decided to go back the next day, which turned out to be sunshiny and gorgeous!!! I went from wearing a coat to wearing my swimming suit, the water was still cold but the sand was nice and hot! We met our friends there and had a good time playing with Kona and throwing the football!
Kona loved the ocean, she got in pretty deep considering how strong the undertow and rip tide are, but she kept drinking the saltwater, even though I brought her a bowl of fresh water and when we got home she just stood there looking pathetic and all of the sudden she puked salt water all over the kitchen, it was really kinda funny
I was so happy that I got to wear my swimming suit!
This is the sort of makeshift pier built to slow erosion or the rip tide or something… I don’t really know
This is the view of the mountains from base, that is Mt. Hakkoda, it has great hiking in the summer and apparently phenomenal powder skiing in the winter!!! YES we are THAT close!!!! So excited!