With the day off we headed out for a new adventure, to the farmlands of rural Japan to pick fresh pears, apples, and grapes! When you get in, you get to pick and eat unlimited fruit for 40 minutes, then you get charged by the kilo for whatever you take home. The pears were so sweet and the grapes were delicious!

After fruit picking we went to a local “Jinja” or Shinto temple because they are really neat to see.

Right next to the main temple building was another cool looking building with the door open. Naturally we went inside to check it out. There was so much nice decorative art, an empty room with tatami mats that looked beautiful, and… a kitchen? Uh oh. And a lady who just stepped out of the kitchen. And she looks confused and concerned. Uh oh, and she’s shooing us out of.. omg we are in her house! Whoops! Sumimasen!!

Apparently in Japan, people live on the temple grounds and take care of the temple full time. Yikes. Well now we know for next time! 😀

This weekend is the Misawa Summer Festival. This happens at the end of August every year and this is the 99th year of this festival. Cities from all around make floats which are pulled through the streets. It’s hard to describe so I’ll post pictures and videos!

Leanne and I have really leaned into Japanese cuisine. Now, when Leanne goes to work, she takes a bento box.

This was a bento box I made for her for work tomorrow.

Tonight we ate yakiniku, which is grilled meat. The grill is on the table and the meat is brought to your table by a robot!

With some free time, we headed out to Aomori City. Aomori City is the world’s snowiest city, but luckily, right now, the weather is perfect. We started the day off with a delicious bowl of ramen.

Here we are at a local Aomori City ramen spot where they serve ramen in the local tradition. Aomori City is known for miso butter ramen, so that’s what I got! Afterwards, it was time to explore the city.

There are more than a dozen temples throughout Aomori City. We went to some of them while walking around.

All that worship made us hungry again. Aomori is known for apples since they grow really well here. We went back to A-FACTORY to try all the apple things. We got apple pie, hot apple cider, apple ice cream, apple jam, and, of course, some Aomori apples!

Once we got all filled up, it was time to see the biggest Buddha in all of Japan. He stands tall at 68 ft 10 in!

Misawa Air Base does events to keep morale high and one of these events is murder mystery night, which happens once a year. It was so much fun figuring out “who dun’ it” (we figured it out too!) and spending time with our friends Zari and Haruka.

Tomorrow, we will try to see lanterns for the Obon festival. I will keep you informed!

In Japan, karaoke is nothing like how it is in the US. In the US, it’s a big group event where one person sings in front of a crowd. It’s meant to be a bit embarrassing. In Japan, however, it’s a private event with only a few people per group and you get a private room. It’s customary to get a drink with your room and you rent the karaoke room for 1-3 hours. Lots of Japanese people use this to unwind at the end of the week, sing, dance, and blow off steam with friends or coworkers.

Leanne and I found a karaoke place near our house where we sang for an hour. It was a lot of fun! Leanne is camera shy but believe me, she can really sing!

Japanese Curry is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. We went to CoCo Curry House, a famous curry place right near the base to try it out! It was very different from Thai or Indian curry but good in its own right. Definitely worth trying!

Ryota, my friend I mentioned in a previous post, really likes to fish. He caught multiple fish, many over 40kg! He prepared them up for us to eat. It doesn’t get fresher than this!