Here in Japan, summer is “matsuri”, or festival, season! There are festivals in towns and cities, from small as in Downtown Misawa to huge in cities like Sendai and Akita. The best festival this year, however, was the one that Forrest’s daycare threw for the kids! Forrest was given a special outfit with his name on it, and when he came there were 12 stations set up! Each station had a game or activity, that when completed, Forrest would get a stamp. Once he got all the stamps, he got a fun prize. The games and activities all had little prizes too. Forrest had a field day!
Pokemon is taken very seriously in Japan. Though Pokemon Go may have died down in the states, it is very much alive and well here. In our nearest “big” city, Hachinohe, the art museum has a limited-time exhibition for Pokemon art intricately handmade in traditional Japanese art styles. Going to the museum was a blast! Leanne and I went there on a date while Forrest was in daycare.
Every year in the summer, there are tons of festivals (known in Japanese as matsuris) in Japan. Right when we got back from Hokkaido, there was a festival in Misawa! We got ready in our festival gear and headed out the door!
Forrest’s class picture was up at the festival! Here Leanne is pointing to Forrest.Can you find Forrest?Forrest loved running through these!
One thing we learned at the festival is that Forrest loves to dance! We couldn’t get him away from the music!! He also invented a new dance that appears to be a cross between a rain dance and the chicken dance. Video posted below!
Hokkaido is the island in the northern-most part of Japan. We’ve been to big city Sapporo before the “Yuki Matsuri”, or Snow Festival, that happens in the middle of winter, but we’ve never seen the rest of the beautiful island. With 5 days off, we decided to make the most of our time and see as much of it as we could!
When we landed in Sapporo, we were greeted with the ongoing Summer Festival! Seriously, do they just party there all the time? The current festival was a beer festival, broken up into 5 parts. The first part was all the Suntory beers, second was Kirin, third was Asahi, fourth was Sapporo, and the fifth part was beers from around the world.
We stayed the night in Sapporo at a hotel with onsen, free nightly ice cream and ramen bowls, and free morning Yakult yogurt drinks. The next day we took off for Noboribetsu, a city known for its volcanic activity and fantastic onsets. The hotel we stayed at had 5 different types of onsens! These included a ferrous sulfate onsen, salt onsen, sodium onsen, and a sulfur onsen. Each has different minerals that provide different healing properties.
Hokkaido is known for its curry soup, and it did not disappoint!
In Noboribetsu, we went to “Hell Valley”, which has tons of active volcanic activity. No wonder the onsets here were so great!
Noboribetsu’s “Hell Valley”
Next up, Otaru, a city known for its European like architecture and canal. Here we went to a Brew House to try the local craft Otaru beer, the canal of course, a music box museum, hand-crafted glass stores (glass blowing is a specialty in Otaru), and shopping on the side streets.
Side streets in OtaruSomething’s not quite right with this guy.. Very cute fish though!The Music Box Museum in OtaruThe crabs at the Otaru fish market were bigger than Forrest!Ate super fresh seafood at the local fish market in Otaru.
Next up, Furano, a city known for its flowers. When we went, lavender was in full bloom. One of the places we went to in Furano was Ningle Terrace. This is a cute woodsy area with tons of little handicraft shops, all of which are log cabins. The atmosphere was so beautiful, and here we found Forrest’s favorite dessert: baked milk.
Ningle Terrace in Furano
Huge flower farm in Furano.Lavender and melon swirl ice cream. Forrest loved it!
Seeing Hokkaido in the summer was such a great experience! Hopefully we will get to continue to explore even more of Japan while we are here!
Our hotel in Chiang Rai was so fun, with a really beautiful outdoor display for the season.
Today we went to the White Temple, which like the Blue Temple has intricate and ornate design, with the exception that nearly everything here is all white.
Leanne refilling the bowl. Creepy…
Outside the White Temple were some neat things to explore, including a walk through cave.
Today we temple hopped around Chiang Mai. First we had a nice big breakfast of mainly the seasonal fruits (passion fruits, watermelon, cantaloupe) but we have been perpetually full since the food tour on 2/1. Then we got coffee and of course thai tea at a local café. The thai tea was perfect, and the coffee was sweetened with coconut milk and coconut pulp fresh from a coconut!
The temples were so grand and opulent, with massive buddhas in all sorts of positions, including one that was laying on his side relaxing. There were many monks too. One asked for Forrest. We thought he was going to give him blessings as he did for me and many other people, but it turned out he just wanted to hold Forrest. Forrest loved being held by the monk and the monk loved holding Forrest. He literally sat being held by the monk for about 10 minutes, playing with the prayer beads, and giving the monk smiles. Leanne asked to take a picture of Forrest and the monk, and afterwards the monk asked for Leanne to take a picture also, with his iPhone! Then the monk whipped out his iPhone for the picture.
The night ended with the night market that seemed endless. The night markets start at 5pm and go until midnight, with endless rows of little shops and street foods. I got chicken satay with peanut sauce, Tom Kha Gai soup (made right in front of me!), basil stir fry with shrimp, and washed it all down with coconut water fresh from the coconut (with the pulp as well). To finish off, of course I got mango sticky rice.
