Natsu Adventures: Travels, Tastes and Turning 23

At the end of June, I took a day-trip with Keiko and her mother to Omagari (her mom's hometown in Akita prefecture). We visited three homes of relatives, and I was the first foreigner to be in each house. They were all so kind and welcoming. At the home in the picture below, they served a wonderful homemade meal of rice grown in their own field and fried-tofu pockets filled with cold noodles.



The third house we visited was the house passed down in the family (through the oldest sons). Six generations have lived in this house:




Below is the barn/shed next to the house. It's made without using any nails:

On the way home, we stopped at Tazawako, the deepest lake in Japan:

To celebrate the Fourth of July, I had my high school class over to my apartment and we made s'mores over my gas stove. Some other treats were tortilla chips and salsa (they'd never had salsa and chips before), cherries - American and Japanese varieties, fresh pineapple and Kool-aid.


My birthday celebrations lasted about four days! I had to teach on my birthday (July 5th), but the night before, my friends from church threw me a "nagashi-somen" party. Somen is a type of noodle often served cold in the summertime. We rigged up a slide from the entrance of the church, with water flowing from the garden hose. Then we "served" noodles and more down the shoot. We enjoyed the challenge of catching mini-tomatoes, boiled eggs, cucumber slices, chopped up (edible) leaves, thin slices of scrambled egg, raw fish and even little single-serving fruit jello packs.

Birthday cake!

After my classes on the 5th, I took the bullet train to Akita city and met up with Hannah and Kirsten. We hung out and celebrated my birthday til I left on Monday! Here we are with our friend, Yuka, who we met when she was working at Starbucks.

Some guys were practicing for the Akita Kanto summer festival. The Kanto, candle-lit lanterns hung on a bamboo frame, can be as tall as 13 yards and weigh as much as 110 pounds! The men balance the Kanto on their shoulders, foreheads (shown here) and lower backs while walking!


On Monday I returned to Morioka to celebrate my birthday with the Miyakawa family. Mrs. Miyakawa's birthday was that day (the 7th), so we celebrated our birthdays together by going out to a nice buffet for supper.


After supper, we went to Izumi's apartment (the middle daughter) and had a variety of fruit. Check out this kiwano! It tasted like a cross between a banana, kiwi and cucumber.

Here's Mifumi "grooming" Chacha the cat with a lint roller :-)

A few birthday presents: the shirt (also with a pair of shorts - to be worn around the house), bag (goes with a kimono or summer yukata), and a delicious gift melon!

The cute sandals I bought to wear with my yukata (no pictures of the yukata yet, but I'm going to wear it to Morioka's Sansa festival in August, so you'll see pics then).


Miho, the mother of two of my English students, making a stained glass lamp. In August, I'm going to make a sakura night light :-)

Last weekend the Sorensen family came from Sendai to visit me! Here we are in my apartment - and William in my bathtub:

Kim and I enjoyed Starbucks coffee jello frappuccinos!


We went to Kenji World - an indoor water park with a beach-like wave pool, water slides, RAIN, a flowing river pool, and more! On our way there, we spotted this beetle vending machine in the middle of nowhere. 300 yen ($3) for a male and 100 yen ($1) for a female! They are a VERY popular pet here (no joke!):