Konnichiwa!

We are in Japan!  A twelve hour flight fro Chicago on Japan airlines got us to Narita.  Flight went by surprisingly fast, I was a bit disappointed as I still had a movie I wanted to finish. Oh well fourteen hour flight back!  We were upgraded to premium economy as the JAL flight was over sold.  Good and bad news - good in that Michelle and I had more than enough leg room, bad in that the seat didn't move back, it sort of slid down and the legs came up, sort of like a lazy boy, but not the most sleep worthy position.  I am spoiled and nit picking, I will admit.

After a couple of train trips we arrived at our friend Makiko's place.  I really like her place it had a vibe between a dorm and house. Her room was a IKEA loft style kid's paradise.  Her closest was uber organized, though given the space allotted, it has to be.  One funky thing though the toilet and shower are in two different rooms...not adjacent rooms, two different rooms!  The room with the toilet has a sink but no soap, this is so far seems to be the norm.

From Makiko's we tried to book hotels to our first stop - Yamagata and found that most was sold out and what was available was crazy expensive!  Kendra, you may throw in a huge "I told you so" right here!  So we turned our plans and followed one of Makiko's friends' - Nonoco, home to her parents (she wasn't a total stranger, Michelle met her one night when she visited Ottawa).  Nonoco's parents lives in Hanamaki in northern Japan.  I was quite excited hoping to see Cherry Blossoms!

Boy were we lucky!  Blossoms every where in Hanamaki!  Sooo beautiful!  Below is a pic of my first encounter with Plum Blossoms in the parents garden.  FYI I am not eating the branch! 

As soon as we arrived to Nonoco's parents house we piled into a car for about a 50 min ride to the spring blossom festival!  We may have talked about the blossoms a bit too much but it was fully worth it!  Every where you looked trees over flowing with cherry blossoms and something like 2km  walkway with cherry blossom trees on each side!

What kind of festival would it be if there weren't street food!  They had all kind of protein on sticks from chicken to fish!  

I wished we tried the pancakes below, but only so much room!  Besides this is only Day 2 in Japan!

There was a demonstration on how to make mochi (or rice cakes as they call it)  This involved one guy pounding the heck out of the mochi while the other guy turned it over and added more water.  

The final product ready to be cut and folded...

We tried mochi made only 30 mins ago and OMG sooooo good!  Topping were green tea bean powder,  red bean paste, and black sesame paste.  Yum!

Next day we accompanied Nonoco's mother as she ran errands to Morioka.  This was a much bigger city than Hanamaki but still a mix of urban and farm.  Along the way we stopped at a couple of shrines.

We noticed these funky vending machines, want to take a guess what it dispensed?  Hope you guessed rice!  Yup there are rice vending machines!!!

Took a quick drive by pic of an approximately 400-year-old (hence the propping ) cherry tree growing out of a granite boulder in front of the district courthouse in Morioka. 

Following the errands we made our way to an onsen.  This whole time I thought oh well I am sure I can wear a bathing suit though I was told everyone was in their birthday suit.  Ummm...nope no bathing suits, just out there in boiling water as you are.  So yeah Michelle and I pretty much have zero boundaries to cross now!

Post onsen we went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner...my first (and hopefully not last!) Japanese tempura.  Just like in Canada they pretty much batter and deep fry anything...shrimp still my favourite!

Outside was my first look at the plastic food, in this case plastic miniture food!  Super cute

I forgot to mention Nonoco's parents run a photography studio!  Our last thing before leaving was a photo shoot in kimonos! This was so much more complex than I thought, so a whole post to follow at some point...for now...