Misawa

We couldn’t be in the same country and not visit our friends up in Misawa – we were stationed with them in Las Vegas but now they’re stationed up at Misawa Air Base in the northern part of the main island of Japan. It was roughly the same cost and time to fly or take the train (when you take into account travel to the airport and getting through security) so we decided to take the Shinkansen – because it’s just a cool way to travel! We took the train from Tokyo station and it was about a 3 hour trip to Hachinohe where Alicia and Nick picked us up, then another 30 min drive from there. We got some great views on the way up there! The Hayabusa train that we took is the fastest Shinkansen – it goes up to 200 mph (you can see Chris’ watch – we clocked it at least 197 mph at one point).

We had a good afternoon chilling out at the house and catching up and Nick made us a really great homemade meal (much appreciated given that we had been traveling for a month at that point!). Unfortunately just after we got there Chris got pretty violently ill so he missed out on dinner – but thankfully only lasted about 6-8 hours. If one of us was going to get that sick, I’m glad we were in a home and not a hotel. Also having easy access to the base shopette for meds was handy (versus trying to deal with all of that in a foreign pharmacy). The next day we went to the winter fair on base and hit the BX to stock up on a few things, then Chris took a nap and recovered so we could go to our planned dinner that night. Taiyo snuggled by Chris while he was recovering 🙂 (mostly I think Chris was in Taiyo’s spot on the couch but Chris accepted the snuggles lol).

Dinner was at a place called Yoshino’s – it was really good! Only open on the weekends and by reservation only. It’s a teppanyaki grill with seating for 8 people total – and it’s basically out of this guy’s house. As it turns out, it was just the 4 of us that night so we effectively had a private meal! It was very tasty. Chris and I got the seafood option – 2 types of fish, shrimp, and scallops (plus garlic fried rice … yum!!).

On Sunday we ventured out to see the Showa Daibutsu (giant buddha) at Seiryuji Temple (https://japan-navi-journey.com/column/569/). While the Kamakura one is much older (800+ years versus this one built in 1984), this one is much bigger – it’s the largest seated buddha in Japan at 21 meters tall (the one in Kamakura is 13 meters tall). It was lightly raining when we got there but not terrible – and the rain cleared up while we were there.

On the way back to the car, we got hot canned corn soup from the vending machine to warm up. If you haven’t had this, it comes out of the vending machine hot so it’s perfect for a cold day (and it’s so good!)

After the temple, we stopped at this great gelato shop called Namiki on the way back (I got Matcha and Royal Milk Tea flavors – 2 of my favorites!)

One the way home, we stopped at a Japanese thrift store and had a lot of fun checking out what they had to offer!

The best part of this visit was just feeling at home with friends. We got settled in quickly and had fun playing games, watching movies, and just relaxing and hanging out. The kids taught us all the tricks for this tabletop shuffleboard game (although I never really got very good at it!). And Hazel and I watched a bunch of dinosaur videos from when we went to Dinosaur World in the Blue Mountains.

I think my favorite game was That Escalated Quickly. Alicia had this card and when she read it, I totally thought she made it up! What are the odds of an OBGYN getting this particular card?

And of course one of the favorite activities for everyone was making cookies!

Showing Alicia our new gadget – a phone holder tripod that folds up like a card in your wallet (and I got the bluetooth remote to make selfies easier).

Speaking of fun gadgets, Nick also has a 3D printer and it was so cool to see how it worked! (this was a puzzle cookie cutter – not sure how well it will work on cookies but it was fun to watch it develop). I see one of these machines in our future …. (my favorite 3D printed item in the house was the “poop” toilet paper roll holder – that’s my kind of humor!!)

Sunday night we all went for Yakiniku (Chris’ first experience with this) at Gyu-Kaku. Very tasty and fun to be involved in cooking your meal on your table.

After all this good food, we had to hit the gym at least once! After the kids went to school, the 4 of us adults went to the base gym for a workout and got to see a bit more of the base – including seeing F35s taking off! I miss that about Nellis.

Then we headed off base for more food 🙂 We had some excellent ramen at Thunder Ramen (Ramen Kaminari Do) before heading back to the house to get cleaned up then Nick & Alicia dropped us off at the train station for our trip back.

Until next time friends!