Saturday, May 01, 2010

Saturday - More blossoms and Festival Food

We decided to drive by our other favorite, nearby park - Swan Park - after we left Liberty Park.  We found lots of promise of Cherry Blossoms here too. We are going to HAVE to find time to visit parks this week. LOL

Zander ate most the food at the first park. There were food booths here too. I'm not sure if this is common in the spring/summer or if it is because of Golden Week. I suspect the later. We bought more yakitori - cooked this time and they gave me this. I haven't a clue what it is. I tried it. First, they patted their stomach. Then they patted the skin under their upper arms. I asked if it were fish, pork or cow...no....it's something that starts with a C.....it was free, we tried it. We're still not sure what it was. *See note below.


Jared Tastes Japanese Mystery Food

As we looked for a picnic spot, Jared remembered visiting the park with Nate and that there was a nice gazebo in the middle of the Water Lily park. When we'd visited before, it was all covered in snow, but we could tell what it was from the signs.




These were GREAT. Sort of a corn bread outing covering cheese.....corn dog without the dog. LOL




Misawa is beautiful in the spring......

*Kim reports the mystery food is konnyaku. (WHICH IS WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE!) It is made from a bulb of a plant called devil's tongue. Another word for the flour is "konjak". It has no taste. It comes in many different forms - some look like noodles. And no calories.  (THIS did taste - sort salty/fishy - but it was marinating in something...).

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Giant Cake

We've driven by this many times... I most usually comment...."We need to check that spot out sometime."


I pulled in today. It helps if the one making the comment is also the driver. ::snort:: WOW. Great selection of pastries, cakes, breads. She makes it all there in the shop. She also had a darling 5 yo.  I think we've found another favorite. Japanese bakeries are AMAZING. She's cheaper than my favorite bread bakery. LOL

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Saturday - Part 1 Liberty Park

We had a fantastic day! We decided not to deal with the traffic at Hirosaki castle during Golden Week. Instead we went back to liberty park.....


The trees around here as so CLOSE to blooming....

Zander picked Dandelions for me and his sisters


Got to the park and realized Stacia had a "foot in both countries"

This is a great "Third Culture Kid" photo

We hadn't been to Liberty Park since Nate was here...and there was snow on the ground then. It was a bit windy.......but very pretty. This week is Golden Week in Japan. I'll write more about that later. We knew there would be more people than usual....but neither park felt crowded. There were lanterns among the trees.

We plan to go back one evening soon and see the trees and lanterns. Another plus to this being Golden week was that there were booths of Festival food at each park. We had a new experience. I asked for the yakitori and the man gave it to us "raw". I said, "Um....can you cook it?" He dipped it in sauce and started to put it in the container. I pantomimed and pointed to the grill.  He briefly threw them on.....and there you have it...we had chicken sushi. Ugh. I bought one of these drinks to try. We like to try new things. I asked, "Oishi desu ka?" (Is this delicious?) and the honestly made a face and said, "No." ::snort:: We tried one anyway.  As we sat there the gentlemen came  up to show us how to open the bottle. He seemed to be saying that we should  punch the blue cap through the top. I did....
It exploded. Everywhere. They ran to bring towels and such to clean it up. I was covered in soda...the table was covered....It seems you punch the cap in it and HOLD IT DOWN for a bit, I'd slowly punctured it...and didn't have it firmly held down. LOL As we cleaned it up we knocked the yakitori over...the sauce and all....we were cleaning it up when Stacia started crying. The lady from the booth and I both looked at Stacia. She was COVERED in yakitori sauce! It was in her hair, running down her face. The lady was so sweet, wiping her face and telling her "Daijobu" and "Kawai" and other  terms of endearment.  What a mess.
The bottle has a cool shape and a marble in the neck....tasted like carbonated cough syrup.

Windy and the kids had headed to the beach when we headed to the park...but the beach was too windy. The kids were happy to find them at the end of our walk. They were happy to play. Love this big field.






What a wonderful young man, Nolan is becoming. I keep forgetting he's 11.


I'm so glad we decided to stay home and then decided to go check out some of our favorite spots.

Choosing Joy!
©2010 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...