July 15 – August 15, 2020
Places we Traveled:
Tohoku Region (4-day road trip), Hokkaido (10-day road trip)
Peaks:
- Tohoku Road Trip! In late July, Japan celebrates two national holidays: “Marine Day” and “Health and Sports Day.” For the holidays, Andrew’s office closes to give all employees a 3-day weekend. To take advantage of the break, we planned a road trip through the eastern portion of the Tohoku Region. Tohoku, literally “North East Region,” consists of the 6 prefectures that make up the northern part of the main island of Japan, Honshu. I’ll have to make another post for the details of our itinerary. For this recap, I’ll just say We drove north from Utsunomiya, through Sendai, and along the coast to Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture. The views along the way were incredible. The food and hospitality in this region both surpassed our expectations. This region doesn’t see a lot of international tourism, so it felt like we were able to see a “hidden side” of Japan during this trip.
- Rainy season ended!! Between the precautions taken for Covid and the uncommonly-long rainy season this year in Japan, I spent a lot of early summer indoors. During month 8 we started to see rainy season come to a close. Unfortunately, this just made way for so-humid-you-could-die season. Not ideal, but I was happy to get back to walking around the neighborhood regularly.
- Unofficial graduation in kintsugi classes. The kintsugi master I have been learning from has a pretty strict “learn to walk before you run” attitude. The goal of kintsugi is to restore the original strength and utility to the broken piece. The result is beautiful, but the beauty is not the ultimate goal. In my initial classes, the sensei limited me to learning how to repair small chips in pieces of pottery. Now that I have repaired a few pieces with minor chipping, the sensei has started to show me how to repair more complicated breaks.
- Hokkaido Road Trip. In early August, Japan celebrates Obon. Traditionally, Obon is a time to celebrate ancestors. Some believe that during this time, spirits return to our world to visit their families. To celebrate, many Japanese will travel to their hometowns to spend time with their families. It is also a popular time to travel for pleasure. Because of Covid, travel was (to our complete confusion) both encouraged and discouraged. Residents of densely populated areas with higher case-counts were discouraged from travel. Simultaneously, the Japanese government rolled out a travel campaign called “Go To” which offered significant discounts on domestic travel to promote tourism to strengthen the economy. Throughout this crisis, Tochigi Prefecture has had very low Covid case counts. We tried to walk the fine line of not spreading the virus but stimulating the economy by traveling to Hokkaido, which also had low case counts at the time of Obon. You can read my detailed trip recap here (part 1 & part 2). It was an incredible, unforgettable trip.
Valleys:
- We murdered our balcony garden by traveling for 10 days during the hottest stretch of summer. All of our herbs and tomato plants were fried by the time we got back. Our eggplant and bell pepper plants looked pretty rough when we got home, but they may bounce back (jury still out). Our hot pepper plants stayed strong. Hoping I can still turn them into hot sauce this year.
- Andrew’s work schedule was brutal this month. The four weeks leading up to Obon, Andrew was pulling 60-hour work weeks. I guess the silver lining here is he’s paid for all of his overtime? By the time our vacation rolled around, he really needed a break.
