C1-Cargo JSDF Flight

Thanks to S's being in reserve JSDF (Japan Self Defence Force, like Singapore SAF but unlike Spore, military service in Japan is not compulsory) and participating in Misawa Air Base activities, we were invited to board the C1- Cargo military plane. Shit... the moment I woke up, it was raining..... and it looked like it would continue to rain throughout the morning... My father in law was saying we might not board the plane after all like last year, maybe just tour the plane that's it. 

In the end we managed to board the aircraft, it was much smaller than commercial plane, seating capacity probably around 50? We took turns to enter the cockpit and I had never entered a cockpit while the pilots were in operation. So many buttons and gauges.....Did not take long since long queue was forming behind me. 

After a while, I had a little motion sickness (small aircraft so the motion felt stronger) and I sat in my seat thereafter. Brought my father in law to Oirase sushi for lunch and he loved the food. Yay!!

In the bus waiting

Inside the military aircraft

Each of us get turn to view the cockpit while the pilots were busy setting off

Its pretty compact

S in his work uniform since he met us the moment he left work

Nothing wrong with the English but if you understand Japanese, this is impolite form. Not the typical polite phrase meant for customers

Flying around Misawa

Oirase lunch! 1000 yen premium set from the one coin book

Free for us! The chef recognised us as regular customers and maybe he was being apologetic for not able to cater to our extra orders. It was one man show that day,

Takko Town Beef & Garlic Festival 2016

This year is our very first time attending Takko Town Beef and Garlic Festival. The journey was so far! Around 2 hours of driving and since everyone was heading the same way, we were stuck in the midst of the mountain road, I had lost count of how long we waited. Not to mention upon our turn to enter the car park, we were directed to park at the peak of the mountain (nowhere near the festival) and to take bus to the festival instead. Not to mention the bus driver taking his own sweet time oblivious to the full packed of passengers waiting for him inside. The last family (American family with 2-3 kids and whole brunch of stuff) looked pissed when they realised the bus was packed and we eventually drove off without them. 

We reached the event place around 12pm i think but some of the stalls already sold out their food (the festival was supposed to end at 3pm), the main event of grilling the whole cow was also sold out (I only saw the bones left) and there was nothing left for me to take pictures lol! At this time, there were long queue of cars waiting just to enter the parking lot. We ate variety of beef from the stalls and its was interesting to see large scale of people grilling the food with the pits. You have to buy the tickets (2000 yen) in advance which included a raffle ticket, a souvenir bag, mixed vegetables, garlic meat sauce, Takko garlic, a package of beef, chopsticks, and a small paper plate. 

We left a hour later and walked to bus stop only to realised the bus just left and we waited 20 minutes for it. There's another bus went a different route and it came every 5-10 minutes. At this point, S's anger was accelerating rapidly from the moment the staff told him the next arrival bus will be 20-30 minutes later and the other bus kept making frequent stops in front of us lol. 

S commented that the festival was poorly organised (1 entry to the carkpark, there were another limited edition cars show near the Beef & Garlic festival hence 2 different of events but only 1 entrance.), our carpark at the peak could not be helped since no more lots but the frequency of the bus was too slow. They also underestimated the number of people turning up for the festival, some of stalls that sold beef were sold out and its was only 12pm. The festival supposed to last til 3pm....

This should be our first and last time to attend the festival lol!

while waiting in the long queue, even the lamp post resemble like garlic!

finally we reached!

Miso tofu, too hungry just buy whatever had no queue

Beef beef beef

400 yen per stick

Never seen the original plant of garlic!

beef again.... what you expected from Beef festival!

So cool, you have to buy the bbq ticket (2000yen?) in advance in order to use the pit

400 yen scallops! Kristi are you drooling?!

Either its garlic or beef pizza, forgot about it

Garlic contest for the best garlic

Our carpark was on the peak of the mountain

Loss of Health insurance card

Remembered I blogged about the recent volunteering trip at Aomori right... Few days later, 5 days to be excat while we were just relaxing at home. S's hp rang and it turned out to be a call from Aomori City Police....... My Japanese health insurance card was dropped and someone picked it up and tried to open an account (not such if its bank or what). The staff found the person suspicious and called the police. !!!!! Up until we received the call, I did not even realise that the card was missing! When I rushed to my bag to check, it was indeed gone. 

I must have dropped it when buying bento box on that Saturday morning since I stuffed my money in the cardholder (in case I did not bring my wallet, I still have money in my cardholder). We made our way to Aomori right after the call, with S reprimanding me. Unfortunately this year I am really careless, first with loss of S's credit card during the Osaka trip and now this again. 

I never thought someone would use my health insurance card to open any account, it has no picture (in Singapore, only our identification card and driving licence with our picture are allowed) so I did not consider the seriousness of the issue before. Not that I lost it because it was not important, it simply slipped out and I did not realised at all. 

S said I have to get rid of my bad habit of being lazy to carry my waller and tried to stuff all the important cards and notes of money in 1 card holder. :(  Really thankful to the staff that alerted the police! Japan is not so safe as we think.

Volunteering @ Aomori City Part 2

While giving out the flyers, I had a short chat with Aomori Tourism personnel and he told me there is a Singaporean in Aomori under the JET (Japan Exchange Teaching Program). I saw her when we shifted to ASPAM building. She is born in Singapore and migrated to Australia when she was 15 so its been a long while since she was back to Spore. We exchanged Line contact but did not contact further. Should have got her facebook that day :(

Through my sensei, I also received a name card from a lady in charge in exchange program for high school students. She was looking for Singaporean living in Aomori to give speech for Japanese high school students that were going to Singapore to stay for a short period of time. She seemed really happy to meet me lol! Asking me all sorts of questions like how long I go back, when the last time i went back, where i stay in Singapore (actually I was thinking if I answer, you wouldn't know anyway and it turned out to be true lol!), do I know this secondary school (forgot the name, think they do exchange program with that particular school)....... 

I was also amazed by my sensei's ability to eat sweets and desserts throughout the day. She had her Mac Donald milkshake in the morning, ate apple and pumkin pie in the afternoon then I saw her eating gelato after our ramen dinner. Jaw dropping!

Dinner time before we left Aomori!

The night view was so stunning

Special edition of Halloween ice cream!

I took back the leftovers and the Karaage tasted so crispy~!

Volunteering @ Aomori City

Was invited by my Japanese sensei to help out at Aomori city and handed down leaflets to those that alighted from the cruise. Like usual, I was clueless what I was supposed to do. Annually the huge cruise Diamond Princess will arrive a day in Aomori Harbour and we were to hand out leaflets and get them interested in Japanese style bento (Lunch box) making session. They could make their own onigiri (rice balls) and select the various dishes, had their name written in calligraphy and a picture of them with their bento. 

We went to harbour and started handing out the flyers, after a while we realised all of them had their lunch on the cruise and majority were Japanese. We were targeting non Japanese actually. It was a tough job, the wind was strong and sands often got in our eyes or face. You also have to face rejections most of the time but since I used to work in customer service/sales, I am quite used to it even though I do not like it. Once in a while when I encounter Tawainese tourists and spoke to them in Chinese, they asked me for directions and tourist attractions details but I had no idea! Just referred them to the information desk and translated for them lol! They were praising my chinese..... hehe of course!

My sensei's friend (the overall in charge) was impressed with my proactive approach since the rest of us were too shy and meek to approach the tourists like me. We were targeting 30 but only 8 came :( Oh well we tried our best! My sensei commented it was the toughest volunteer work she had ever done lol! Usually its not that hard haha!

The bento making experience flyer

all the us to hand out flyers

The Japanese lady in white is a well known chef that often appeared on TV and she has a cafe in Hachinohe.

Glad to see there's customers! was worried none appeared after standing in wind, sun, sand for 2 ++ hours!

Your Name (君の名は / Kimi no Na wa)

This Japanese anime movie is making huge waves in Japan now and has been topping the charts even though its been shown for close to 2 months. Even we had watched it in theatres twice! The story-line told a tale of 2 high school students swapped their soul into each other and began to live a life that both wanted. One day, the boy stopped being able to swap into the girl's body. He went on a mission to search for the village she stayed only to realise the whole village was destroyed by catastrophe 3 years ago. Not going to say more about plot and if the movie is ever out in your country, you have to WATCH it! Not only was the story captivating, the scenes in the movie are breathtaking and the artist illustrated even to the minor details of  shadows and sunlight ray reflected by the buildings etc.

All scenes in the movie are a huge topic in Japan now and many movie fanatics went to search the actual places of the scenes. This was not a easy task as I heard the movie took many places for reference and combined it together. There was also a trend of couples getting married after watching the movie. Indeed, it make you ponder and appreciate the happiness you have and if you haven't find it, maybe you might have misplace it unknowingly....

Trailer

上白石萌音,she is the voice behind the lead female character, Mitsuha Miyamizu (宮水三葉). Did not know she would sing so well!

Lake Towada Part 2

Drove down to Oirase Gorge and took a stroll around. With S we will usually just walk, take in the fresh air and enjoy the scenery. With the girls, they really paid attention to the trees, mosses, stones shape.... One of them started noticing the mushrooms like fungus and it became our focus point of the stroll! 

Even though I been here 2-3 times annually, I had never pay attention to them before. It was like taking the same path everyday back home, to work, to school but once you change your focus point or converse with different friends, the perspective also changes and something new is discover. 

After that we went to have dinner at yakinku restaurant, what a fun time and I made 2 new friends!

Oirase Gorge 

We discovered all sorts of mushroom like fungus?

They were listening to the tour guide explaining to the tour from far lol!

Realised the wood has hair growing! (moss actually)

Took many fungus pictures but decided to only load a few since might be too boring for uguys

chocolate soft cream with rice cereals in the bottom

walking distance from sky plaza

chatting and chatting

Yakiniku !

Apple Pie @ Lake Towada

My new Japanese friend invited me along to take a road trip to Lake Towada. One of her friend had not been to Lake Towada and was keen to try to apple pie. It was a long way up (2 hours) and the cafe was actually located in Akita border. We were hungry and ordered curry and apple pie. It was my first time hanging out with them and we basically spoke in Japanese. Only one (the one that invited me along) was good in English to explain to me. Of course my Japanese was not good enough to understand what they were saying completely but it was fun and the topics we chat very pretty funny! I had a great time with them! Hopefully able to hang out with them next time!

Finally reach the cafe

Swan boat available for rental as well

Its huge, warm and delicious!

They also have apple curry but I ordered beef curry hehe