Japan sure does love its festivals! This weekend, there was a festival right outside the Base. So much food, activity, and cute things to see and buy!

Leanne found a fish stick! But, like, a literal fish stick.

Takoyaki! This is octopus inside of fried dough with japanese mayo on top. Really, really good.

Shaved ice is really big here in Japan. It’s not quite snow cones since it’s more fluffy but it’s a very similar concept. They put this milk sugar sauce thing on top that’s so delicious.

They had a section for live music that had a massive Uncle Sam. Interesting!

The festival was really fun! We’re planning on going back tomorrow.

Say hello to Tora, which means tiger in Japanese.

This is my new car. The navigation system is all in Japanese, which isn’t ideal, but it can definitely navigate me to the nearest udon noodle shop (tested this one, and it works)!

Guess how much all these plates of sushi cost, plus 2 drinks and dessert?

Yesterday, Leanne and I went to eat shabu shabu, which is an onomatopea for “swish swish.” You get a hot pot of a couple different broths and thin slices of meat as well as vegetables to cook in the hot pot.

The best part is the meats are brought by a robot cat!

The answer to the sushi question? $19.99! No tipping in Japan either. The yen conversion rate has been good to us!

While doing kimono shopping this morning at the Shimoda Mall, one of the other shoppers from base mentioned that there was a festival today. About 20 minutes north of Misawa is a town called Tohoku where fireworks were to take place over the huge lake in our area, Lake Ogawara. We headed over!

During summer festivals, many Japanese people will year yukata, which is a light cotton outfit meant for housewear, errands, and festivals. It’s certainly not mandatory though and totally up to you! Some people wear more traditional outfits, some don’t, even within the same family. One amazing facet of Japan is how seamlessly the old can live with the new.

The fireworks display was absolutely gorgeous.

Luckily for us, we aren’t coming to Japan without guidance. The base has a lot of tours of different kinds with bilingual staff to help translate and navigate Japan. Today we took a kimono shopping tour in the local Shimoda mall.

Now we can look great and fashionable for all the many festivals!

Coming to a new country can be hard because you don’t know many people and don’t speak the language. Fortunately we are on the military base where we knew some people coming in. Our friend Ricky introduced us to Ryota, an Emergency Medicine phsyician in Japan who speaks fluent English as he’s studying to practice medicine in Australia. Ryota is hilarious and very outgoing. He invited me and Leanne to dinner with his friend Haruka to a local Chinese restaurant. It was really fun getting the Japanese take on Chinese food. According to Leanne it’s still not authentic, just like American Chinese food is not authentic, but it was really different from what we have in the States and also really good!

We ate and ate and ate. Haruka is a General Surgery resident studying for the USMLE to come to the US. It’s so interesting how people in Japan want to leave to go to other countries. We love it here so much it’s hard to imagine, but I guess we often want what’s new or different and get used to what we have.

The japanese yen conversion rate right now is awesome if you’re American. What would be a night out at the best sushi restaurant in town (Takara Sushi in Misawa) for 2 people in America would be at least $120. Here? Only $40!

Getting the reservation was a bit tricky. For such a futuristic country, they are still stuck in the past. Reservations are made by telephone here and no one speaks English. With my very limited Japanese, I called. The guy on the other side of the line said a bunch of Japanese I didn’t understand. When he was done I said “two people, 7pm, all good?” in Japanese. My confidence was not too high when all I heard for a good 5-10 seconds afterwards was just silence. So I tried again.. “Sorry. Two people. 7pm. All good?” After another 5 seconds of excruciating silence I heard Google Translate in the background and the older gentleman on the phone responded in heavily accented English “today?”. Hai! Yes, today! I made the reservation! Note, I wanted the reservation to be 6:30 but didn’t know how to say that, so I settled to eat at 7 instead.

When you get in, there is an aquarium behind the sushi counter where they keep the live fish and shellfish they use to make sushi.

The sushi was really delicious and fresh. We ate so much and we were pretty full. I made sure to let the chef know his food was delicious. He must have liked that because he gave us a special dish extra, on the house. That dish? Shrimp. But not any shrimp. Shrimp freshly taken from the aquarium behind the counter, with the tail removed and the head still on. He put two of these in a cup and.. the legs and head antenna were still moving. The shrimp was so fresh, it was still alive…

Umm.. so now what the heck do we do? The chef gave another table with Americans the same thing, so we looked to them for guidance. The fact they were doing the same thing as us (mainly freaking out, taking pictures, and looking terribly confused) did not help at all. We furiously texted anyone who might know. Our friend Kyline suggested we ask the chef to grill it or put it in a hot soup. If I had the Japanese to ask, I still couldn’t because this was a raw sushi restaurant. Yikes. We found a guide online on how to eat it.

First, we waited as long as we possibly could until we were fairly sure it wasn’t moving anymore. Of note, we faced the shrimp toward the chef because they were staring at us, and it was emotionally very difficult for us. Not wanting to insult the chef, we followed the guide I found on Google and proceeded to eat the shrimp. It was okay, but not something I would order, I think. Not that I ordered it this time, either.

Japanese is a beautiful language. The sounds are exotic and flow so nicely. Japanese people think of English the same. As one might see anime shirts with Japanese characters written on them in the US, Japanese people will have shirts with English written on them here. But.. some things are lost in translation. These are some of the best ones I saw in the mall. Enjoy!

Japanese culture is truly fascinating. Old and traditional lives with new and modern side by side. It’s not unusual to see a woman wearing a kimono and traditional Japanese sandals in a mall where others are wearing jeans and t-shirts. Politeness and respect goes beyond what anyone from the US would reasonably expect. You’ll never get honked at no matter how slow you drive, people will stop whatever they are doing to help you, and everyone leaves their car doors completely unlocked (with the keys inside) because crime rate is essentially zero. But one of the most interesting facets of Japanese culture is gambling. Gambling is.. illegal in Japan, yes, but it’s everywhere in loopholed ways.

Take this vending machine for example. See the 0000-9999 on the bottom? When you buy an item from this vending machine, you’ll see four numbers pop up, one by one. If all four numbers are the same (e.g. 7777), then you get a second drink for free! Gambling on a vending machine. But it doesn’t stop there. Not even close, this is just a small taste of gambling here.

This claw machine has a Spider Man figurine on a shelf close to a hole where it would fall and become your prize. There is a claw above it. You have one chance to move the claw horizontally, one chance to move it vertically, then you release the claw and hope it moves the toy to the hole. Every chance is ¥100 ($0.70) but boy oh boy do the yen disappear quickly!

The holy grail of gambling in Japan, however, is absolutely the Gacha machines. For ¥200-400 ($1.50-$3) you can get a type of toy from a machine. You know it’ll be one of the 4 or 5 options on the front of the machine but you don’t know which one. You can use these to make collections of these little toys.

Thse are the Gacha machines. As you can see, they all have completely different toys in them!

Some are cute characters from video games, anime, or well known brands like Hello Kitty.

Some are sorta practical like this cute cat pencil holder.

Some are just plain weird or disturbing like this tentacle ear plug thing. Yeah… no thanks.

Leanne is totally addicted already. These Gacha machines are everywhere! In the doorway of restaurants, in businesses, by benches in shopping malls, and there are even whole stores just dedicated to Gacha machines that get frequently rotated out to new collections.

So when you come to visit us, have a coin purse at the ready!

Our friend Ricky has been here for a year prior to our arrival and he’s an avid golfer. While I’m here in Misawa, he will be my golfing sensei. Our first lesson was on the driving range with the goal to just swing and hit the ball. Here I also made a native Japanese friend Ryota. I’m fitting into the culture here at Misawa AB and it’s not hard with all the supportive people around. The community here is absolutely amazing.