Aomori Nebuta Festival August 2009

We headed down to the famous Aomori Nebuta Festival this year on August 7th. We missed the traditional parade this year, but got to see the parade of floats on the water. It was beautiful weather, complete with lots of fireworks during the parade!

Alex's birthday

We celebrated Alex's 6th birthday with friends on July 15th. Alex wanted a soccer theme, complete with a soccer pinata and soccer ball ice cream cake. It was perfect that mom didn't have to make one this year! Alex had lot of fun...as you can see by his sweaty hair!

Cherry picking with friends (June 09)

We went to Nagawa near Hachinohe with a few friends in June to go cherry picking. Our friends, the Maduras, were getting ready to leave after 4 years in Japan and had never been!

Alex and Nathan in the tree...

I had to get a picture of the Japanese lady behind Shannon...check out her outfit!

Japanese School Sports Day (from June 09)

Yes, I am very behind in posting new pictures, so I'm going to start with June 2009. Here are a few pictures from Alex and Ian's sports day at their school. Unfortunately, Chris was TDY in Alaska, so he missed it. The highlight of the day was the relay race between Alex's class and the other Nencho (oldest) class. Alex was the second to last runner and behind the other class when he took the baton, but he was so fast and determined that he passed the other runner and his class went on to win the race! It was lots of fun to watch. I never knew that Alex was such a fast runner!

Mindy's Memorial Day Hiroshima trip

I went on a base tour with friend Andrea to Hiroshima over Memorial Day weekend. It was a great trip. We flew down from Misawa to Tokyo, then from Tokyo to Hiroshima. The boys stayed at home with Dad! The night we arrived, we went to the World Peace Cathedral and attended church--in Japanese! It was a stone and brick cathedral, and was very pretty. They had some sort of school function going on that evening, and all the children and parents were carrying lit candles. Then we went to a local restaurant and had okonomiyaki for dinner, which you can read about by clicking this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki I didn't care for the dried seaweed on top, but otherwise it would have been really tasty!
The next day we hit all the memorials--A-Bomb dome, Peace Memorial Park, the Children's Memorial, and the A-Bomb museum. It was quite a solemn morning, and a great reminder of all the destruction people and wars do to each other. I'm glad that I had a chance to visit all of the memorials though, before leaving Japan.
Here is a picture of A-Bomb Dome.

This is from the A-Bomb Museum looking down through Peace Memorial Park all the way down to A-Bomb dome.

In the afternoon, we took a ferry to Miajima Island, one of the top 3 places to visit in Japan. There are wild deer roaming around, and there is a "floating" Torii gate on the ocean. Unfortunately, we were there at low tide, so it wasn't so much "floating" as it was jsut sitting on the sandy beach. Oh well! We also saw a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist shrine on the island.

The steps leading up to the Buddhist Shrine on Miyajima Island (below) and the Shinto Shrine (right)

The Buddhist Shrine at the top of the hill

Statues in the shopping district on the island.

The next and last day of the trip, we visited Hiroshima Castle and Shukkeien Garden. We had a wonderful local tour guidefor the whole weekend, and the trip was a great experience. Here is a picture in front of the castle.

Shukkeien Garden

Rainbow Bridge