Japan Life: Month 11 Recap

October 15 – November 15

Places we Traveled:

Akita, Aomori, Hitachi, Okinawa (main island)

JR East Joyful Train Trip! So, train culture is a Big Deal in Japan. So much so that JR East, the main railway company that operates in our area, has a WIDE selection of “Joyful Trains.” This is the name they decided, as a company, to give their lineup of trains that “push the limits on train design.” For example, there is a Pokemon train that is bright yellow like a pikachu. There are three different steam locomotives for you to choose from. There’s a “FruiTea” train that is “based on the concept of a travelling café” and serves desserts and drinks made from Fukushima Prefecture’s produce. We chose the relatively tame “Resort Shirakami” train, a 5-hour route that winds its way from Akita to Aomori tucked between the Sea of Japan and Shirakami-Sanchi, a World Heritage Site. An entire long weekend trip planned around a 5-hour train ride was SURPRISINGLY very fun. Highly recommend. Also Akita City and Aomori City are both very nice!

I made a llama! I’ll be honest, this seems like a really long time ago. I crocheted this small llama and like, it isn’t really that impressive, but I like it. I’m getting better at making fun little creatures like this.

We hosted a Halloween BBQ! Ok, in reality, I asked my Japanese teacher to book an outdoor BBQ area in a nearby park and I set up a Facebook invite letting other families on work assignment here know that they should come eat some meats. It was really fun to prepare some trick-or-treat baggies for the kids and I think a very successful outdoor safe-ish event.

Okinawa, a week-long vacation! I’ll definitely dedicate a longer post to this trip, but to give the highlights: we rented a camping car, got drenched by a waterfall, ate a bunch of tasty foods, saw some whale sharks, and ate our weight in Blue Seal ice cream. NOT TO MENTION Andrew saw wild coral in the ocean, littered with fishes, for the very first time!!

Autumn came and went in Utsunomiya. I like to take walks around the Castle Ruins Park to get out and about during the day (yes, I share many of the same hobbies as like, a nice grandma) so I spent a lot of time observing the leaves slowly changing here.

I didn’t get any mysterious rashes, is that a peak? Idk. Grateful for the lack of rash tho.

To be totally transparent, when we weren’t taking cool weekend trips or on vacation, we spent a lot of our time doing pretty standard, boring stuff. Like, I made up an arbitrary grocery budget challenge to entertain myself. I’m really personally proud for going 5 weeks cooking for two on 20,000 yen (~$200), but I don’t think that’s, uh…blog-worthy content? All that to say, don’t be tricked into think we are constantly jet-setting and taking fun trips. I’m really grateful and content in the boring moments I get to share with Andrew. And then I save up cool pictures and stories to post on the internet.

Hitachi Seaside Park – I’ll be honest, I regret going here. This park is very famous for Kochia (summer cypress), a kind of small shrub. In mid-October the little shrub turns a bright reddish-pink (fuchsia-ish) color. Since we live relatively near the park, it seemed like a good idea to check out the phenomenon. What a mess. We showed up around sunset (golden hour photo op!!) and the place was butts to nuts. There was a line stretching around the park to attempt to regulate the number of people in the Kochia area at any given time… Ugh. Not our best choice in pandemic times… And like, the shrubs are still just shrubs??