Rokkasho Salmon Festival

Last weekend, we attended the 23rd annual Rokkasho Salmon Festival. Matt purchased a ticket for roughly $18 for the opportunity to catch a salmon with his bare hands. Participants have 3 minutes to achieve this feat, and we now know that gloves would have provided some much needed traction between wet hand and slippery salmon. I really wished that I had taken a video of the event, but oddly enough, a simple Google search produced this video posted by a fellow festival goer. It happens to feature Matt's early attempts to nab a salmon.

 


There was live music and an entire seating area dedicated to grilling your own meat.

Oirase Gorge - Lake Towada (Fall)

On Monday, October 18th we took a day trip with Debbie (Ashley's mom) to Oirase Gorge and Lake Towada.  October is a very pretty time in northern Japan.  The colors both in the gorge and at the lake were great for sightseeing and taking pictures.

A waterfall in the gorge.

A little island in Lake Towada.

Fall leaves on the mountains surrounding the lake.

Hazel Ashley

Introducing Hazel Ashley Thoreson.  Human baby.  Born October 2nd, 2010 at 22:06.  6 lbs. 12 oz. and 19.25 inches.  I (Matt) check in at 70 inches and 155 lbs. and the doctors seem to think I'm doing just fine too.  Ashley is doing great, and Hazel is doing great - they are competing for who is the most great.  Not one worry right now.  "This is the blondest baby I've ever seen," said the tech taking her measurements. 

Hazel's House

After about twelve weeks in transit from Germany, our house hold goods were finally delivered to us in Japan, and I don't think there is anything quite like the impending arrival of a baby to speed up the process of setting up a home. Within a week of delivery, most everything was in its place, pictures were hung, and the house was clean. As I recall, it took the better part of a year for us to hang pictures at our house in Germany, so we were pretty darn proud of ourselves. Although we didn't get our hopes up about receiving our shipment of baby items from Iowa before the birth, we did, three days before Hazel was born. We finished setting up her nursery the morning of her birth, which ended up being a great distraction from early labor. Here are some pictures of Hazel's first home...

Dining room

Our first souvenir from Japan...a new (used,1975) Kawaii piano!! Fun fact: apparently kawaii = cute in Japanese.

Kitchen

 

Living room 

Hallway to the bedrooms

Guest room

Our room

Hazel's room

 

Catching up...

A couple of posts may have gotten lost in the mix since they were done out of order: (a) Misawa and Hachinohe tours, (b) Our trip to Iowa, and (c) Matt's trip to Oklahoma.

Enjoy!