http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Japan , Iwate , Morioka en-us Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:39:56 +0000 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:39:56 +0000 Today I looked at apartments..one was very small with one room and a bath but it had a great view of the river. The second one was bigger with a good view of the river but it would be very hot in the summer. The 3rd one had no view except that of a parking lot but it was very big with 3 separate rooms and would be cooler in the summer. I chose the 3rd one as it is the biggest and I bought a lot o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-410365.html As you know Japan is known for its famous festivals which you can find just about in any town in this country and nearly every weekend Morioka is host to a few major festivals every year. The latest matsuri had women men and children all dressed up in colourful outfits parading down the streets with portable shrines and colourful floats all to the sounds of taiko Japanese drums. The floats w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-341782.html Lake Tazawako MarathonA lot of decision making and ideas to conquer the world come about after yoursquove had at least one nomihodai and a karaoke session. Running the Lake Tazawako Marathon was one of them My name was down for the 10km run and before I knew I was at the starting line ready to go I was a little nervous as running is definitely not my forte and waking up on the day of the marat http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-329954.html I'm writing this from about 100m below the bottom of the sea separating Hokkaido and Honshu. Today's just a pure travel day my next real destination is Matsumoto near Nagano. Yesterday was a nothing day didn't sleep well the night before the pictures below were taken the previous nights. Last night was stuck in the same dorm room as a snorer so again not much rest... stopping tonight in Mor http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-325908.html This is Moriokarsquos most famous lsquoMatsurirsquo festival and it has to been seen to be believed. Hundreds of locals and gaigin alike form groups and parade down Moriokarsquos main street Odori. It runs over 4 nights of singing dancing and playing a memorizing tune to the sound of banging drums. My bestfriend Renee arrived in Morioka on the 2nd of August and stayed with me for nea http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-318479.html My first day teaching at my new school in Daishin had me on the doorstep of probably the most generous and hospitable families I have ever met. As I was 5 hours early for my classes that day I was only new so thatrsquos to be expected I met my Japanese Teacher Chikako for the first time and she was telling about the family who lived next door to the school. After preparing my lessons she offe http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-295678.html One of the first Japanese words I learnt when I first moved to Morioka was Nomihodai It means all you can drink Itrsquos very important for a gaigin for know this word if they want to survive. Itrsquoll save you a lot of money if you ask any place you go to for Nomihodai. Yoursquore looking at spending about 1800yen 18aud for 2 hours or more. Usually you need to order a meal as well bu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-285705.html So we said our goodbyes and each jumped on a train heading for our prefectures which are like our states in Australia. I had 12 minutes to transfer trains at Tokyo 12 minutes Impossible I was in a mad state of affairs I ran around the station like a mad person finally found someone who could speak English to point me to the right direction and jumped onto a shinkensen waiting on the platform. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-280382.html Though we love Tokyo we were happy to be leaving its mad energy for a few days to head northwards to the small city of Morioka. We had talked about going as far north as Sapporo on the mysterious and sparsely populated island of Hokkaido but time was against us so we decided instead to head for Kakunodate a town a few hours north of Tokyo that still had its old Samurai quarter in a well pres http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-217638.html I made a late start to my journey to Sapporo and by doing this found that I had run out of time and couldnrsquot make it the whole way. I stopped off at Sendai for a few pictures then caught the next Shincansen train to Morioka I had a quick look around the main town then headed off to Aomori. I didnrsquot feel like hanging around there so hopping off the train was a bad idea. I caught the v http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-117288.html Hey EverybodyAs you all know Maddy just finished a very long trip around Japan then to San Fran and finally Canada leaving me in frigid Morioka... But she came back and we decided to head somewhere nice for the weekend we chose Nyuto Onsen an onsen is a hot spring. It's actually a little cluster of 6 hotels all having their own onsens the one we stayed at is called Kaniba onsen http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-47863.html Hi Yeah we have internet at home Although I can't promise that the postings will be more frequent. It does mean that we can now messenger talk for free online and we have a land line now so it is much cheaper to call us The pics are of the Hadakemeri festival I told you about last week. Things are great over here. Colin's job is going well and his main complaint is that he doesn't get to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-37604.html Hi Well I haven't gotten lost so far but I've only driven to the internet and I followed Yuriko in her car We are renting a car for the month It is a super cute white twodoor 4 wheeldrive manual Daihatsu Mira. Today was my first time driving in Japan and I love it Colin's company wouldn't let me drive any of the cars they lent us... Even though I've only used it to go to a place tha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-36071.html I realize this is a bit late but my excuse is that we live in Japan The plan was to write this up on the 4th after our Internet was installed but for reasons we still can't comprehend Yahoo the net provider had some difficulties and will not be able to install it until the 26th. So far 2006 has been a great year. Colin had a week off work and we had a car so we were able to see much more of J http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-35081.html Merry Christmas everybody A little late I know... I hope everyone is warm and toasty. Here in Morioka it's been snowing like mad for the past few days probably about 3 and 12 feet in the past 3 days and it's snowing just as hard today. I borrowed a car from a coworker while he's on vacation back to Canada so getting around hasn't been too bad although driving is slow I'm a Vancouver Is http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-32775.html Yes we are still in Japan. We went to a Spanish restaurant last night to watch flamenco dancing We have made friends with a Japanese lady Yuriko who has been showing us around and some of her friends were dancing last night. Fun times. I just had a second interview for Prince Eibei Gakuin a school family close to our house. I think I rocked it. This one was with the VP of the company and he http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-30584.html Wow I wish we'd tried this in Canada before everything on the computers was in Japanese We've been here just over two weeks and are settling in. We survived 3 earthquakes in our first four days only one was big enough to wake us up magnitude 6.9 I've had one job offer Colin's survived two company parties and we still have no clue when it comes to the Japanese public transit systemit is no http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Iwate/Morioka/blog-28760.html