golden week shenanigans

Golden Week is one of the most celebrated holiday times in Japan. Many schools and businesses close their doors for the entire week as everyone spends time outdoors with their family and friends. The week is made up of several holidays and festivals, some of which include the Emperor's birthday, Constitution Memorial Day, and Children's Day. In every park you see the fish flags flying and families picnicking.

Our first Golden Week in Japan was pink with all the newly-blossomed sakura trees populating the city. The week was also overcast and rainy for the most part, so we took full advantage of the few times the sun came out in full force.

One of these days happened to be a Saturday, so we started the morning off by visiting Statue of Liberty Park. We had visited this park earlier, but it was covered in about 20 feet of snow and was basically inaccessible. We took pictures of the statue from the parking lot and made our merry way. This time, the park was in full bloom and full of celebrating families. We hopped out and went to join in the fun.

The park was quite a bit bigger than we had thought when we visited in the winter. (Twenty feet of snow cover will make just about anything look like a barren field!) The park had a pond and a mill, several sport fields, a playground, and of course, the Statue of Libery replica.

At the park, we watched and took part in some of the activities. Devon joined in on the group jump rope tournament and we all had fun wandering and watching the festivities.

After the park we headed toward our next destination, which was the tulip festival in Karumai. We had heard excellent things about this festival and were excited to see all the brightly colored flowers. We arrived and were immediately taken in by the fields of flowers and the Holland-replicated working windmill. The whole event reminded Ben and I of Apple Hill in the fall. It was beautifully reminiscent and we were excited to be a part of it.

Also on the grounds was a huge, red suspension bridge. It looked quite a bit like a walking-bridge version of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, and we were excited to cross it and see the gorge below.

As we were on our way back across the bridge, Devon and I noticed that the sky was quickly turning black. This does not mean dark. The sky was literally turning black before our eyes, and we quickly ran to get off the bridge. I'm glad we did, because the lightning and thunder started within seconds of hitting solid ground. We decided to make our way back up toward the car in case it started to rain. Well, we didn't quite make it. The bridge was a good five to six minutes away from the car, and three minutes after leaving the bridge, the sky exploded.

We got rain, hail, fog, and crazy wind simultaneously. We ran for it and found shelter on the wraparound porch outside the restroom facilities with about 25 other people. Another minute later and the entire parking lot was flooding because of the huge downpour and typhoon-strength winds. This was definitely the fastest-forming storms I've ever encountered, and definitely one of the coolest!

We waited under the overhang for another fifteen minutes, until there seemed to be a break in the weather. All 25 people ran toward their cars, hoping to make it before the hail and rain started up again. We made it most of the way there before it started again, and were soaked and full of adrenaline by the time we piled into the car.

After that, we decided to call it a day so we drove back to the house, changed into warm pj's, and watched movies while drinking hot tea.

Welcome to spring in Misawa!!

snow and ramen

One thing about moving to Japan that we've been excited to experience is the festivals. Winter and Spring seem to be the times with the most festivals up here in the Tohoku region, so we haven't really gotten to experience any thus yet. We just missed the Chrysanthemum festival (it was the weekend we arrived so we were beyond jetlagged) and the salmon festival just happened to be the same day we had already planned to go to Aomori to visit the aquarium. Then came Christmas, which is more of a western holiday; and New Year's, which Japanese families spend at home. We are extremely excited about the upcoming Snow Lantern Festival at Hirosaki, but it's not until next month! Our time in Misawa has been relatively festival-less. So when we heard about a Ramen festival, we were excited!

Now, some have asked if events (or even school) is delayed when there is snow on the ground. In Misawa, nothing is cancelled unless there is a fluke dump of snow that measures in several feet. So even though we have received 24 inches of snow over the last 48 hours, nothing was keeping us indoors!

We bundled up and drove (carefully) to American Park. We got pretty good parking and only had to walk a few blocks to get there. On the way, we had some fun playing in the snow. At some places, it was up to our knees!

We got to the festival and were excited to see several ramen booths open. For those of you who have never had real ramen, there is pretty much nothing better to warm you up on a cold day. We love trying new ramen and this was the perfect place to find it!

We wandered around, watching people make ramen and eat ramen and try to stay warm in the freezing snow. It was a great time to people-watch! People huddled around to keep warm, and others congregated around the space heaters that were set up.

Finally, we chose our ramen. I went to a booth that made yakisoba (mmmm) and then put it in broth to make yakisoba ramen, which is something I'd never seen before.

We crowded around the space heater and enjoyed our ramen. The local news crew came by to cover the event and there was even a magician who had shows to entertain the kids.

While this was no Sapporo Snow Festival or anything as huge as that, we had a lot of fun watching and participating in the Japanese love of all things ramen.