Friday, March 20, 2009

Friday Shootout- Houses Around Misawa, Aomori Japan

Misawa is a small city in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan. The surrounding area is mostly rural but there is some limited nightlife, around the American air base nearby. Tokyo is an hour away by plane, about 3 and a half hours by shinkansen (bullet train), and about 10-12 hours by car and maybe 8-10 hours if you drive above the maximum limit (around 80kph is the max limit in the expressway).

Misawa hosts a United States Air Force base, which is Misawa Air Base. The base is currently home to the 35th Fighter Wing, The conjoined home of the American and Japanese militaries.

We arrived here last summer of 2008 from Hawaii , (my husband's based station prior to Misawa) due to military relocation, he is a US military member. Being a military spouse, I'm excited to experience more of Japanese cultures, their life, food and discover different places around northern Japan (or farther) for a 3- year tour and I will be sharing them with you here in my travelog.

I'm joining Patty's "My town photo shootout" (a photographer from Maryland), for this week, although I'm late for the Friday's post :-) thanks Patty for inviting me.

Just bear with my photos as most of them are "point and shoot shots" while driving around Misawa.




























These apartments are in front of the house that we are renting right now. Our front view actually is the rice field you see in the above picture, we call this as our front yard :-)

These are the American type houses off base, my neighbors' houses




This is the house we are renting, it's a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom type with one car carage and one car port. We are in Japan but our house is still American style :-) A lot of Japanese home owners here in Misawa are renting out their houses (and some are still building new houses) to military members based on the Military housing requirements. We are the first renter in this house, they were still building this along with my next door neighbor when we arrived here and waited for about 2 weeks to move in.

The photo was taken during our first snow fall here in Misawa.
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16 comments:

  1. HalfCrazyMarch 20, 2009 at 9:11 PM

    Ooh, didn't know you're joining too! I'm gonna put up your link in my blog, then!

    Some houses are weird looking but interesting, especially that house with the green and slanting roofs for the stairs!

    I like the house you're renting, reminds me of.. a sunflower LOL. I like the style too. Wait, if I'm not mistaken, you guys are Filipinos renting an American style house in Japan?

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  2. dailyphotographerMarch 20, 2009 at 9:27 PM

    that is a pretty big nice yellow house you are renting. nice to get a glimpse of Japan from your posts, keep posting:D

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  3. MissyMarch 20, 2009 at 10:03 PM

    halfcrazy- we are Filipino-Americans now serving and defending US :-) my husband is a US military member. And we have the privilege to rent a house outside the US base which are exclusive for US military members only. The rent is pretty high that even local Japanese can not afford to rent it :-)

    dailyphotographer- yes, pretty big house compare to local houses here but it is just normal type of house in the US :-)

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  4. ReenaMarch 21, 2009 at 2:20 AM

    hi missy! :) i'll link this narin. i almost forgot you have this site. galing mag-manage ah! dala-dalawa. :)

    so houses in japan are made of wood?

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  5. MissyMarch 21, 2009 at 5:47 AM

    Reena- yes, most houses here are made of wood and I haven't seen any that are not :-)

    Yes I have 2 blogs to keep myself busy hahaha

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  6. aurbieMarch 21, 2009 at 7:27 AM

    Nice presentation. Great tour of your area. I love your yellow house. Thanks for joining us. Next week it is graveyards.

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  7. JoyMarch 21, 2009 at 2:16 PM

    Slightly different from how I pictured the houses would be. I do like your house! May I take a peek inside?

    Hey, thanks for listening to the show again. Hope to see you next Saturday! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

    Thanks for visiting Norwich Daily Photo and leaving your comment. Come back tomorrow!


    joy
    A Pinay In England
    Your Love Coach
    I, Woman

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  8. HalfCrazyMarch 22, 2009 at 1:45 AM

    Ooh, okay, cool. So you guys are not going back to the Philippines anymore? Your husband is an American? Didn't mean to sound so nosy, I just feel like knowing friends LOL.

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  9. GarandoMarch 22, 2009 at 6:42 AM

    Wow, I find those American style houses interesting, didn't expect to see those in Japan.
    Garandee's parents live in a very traditional house. One that has those sliding paper doors and all the rooms have tatame flooring. Oh, and there wasn't a single chair to be found. :D

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  10. AnonymousMarch 22, 2009 at 9:18 PM

    hey! you're from japan too ;-) i've never been to aomori, i'm based in chiba now. your house looks nice!

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  11. MissyMarch 24, 2009 at 5:26 PM

    Patty- thanks for dropping by, I will try to take picture of graveyards here :-)

    Joy- yes, the houses here are different compared to Tokyo, Misawa is a rural area :-)

    Halfcrazy- we're both Filipinos actually we're college sweethearts :-) every year we visit the Philippines since all my relatives are there. Try to visit my other blog to get to know me better

    http://hulascoop.blogspot.com/2009/03/hula-scoop-25-random-facts-about-me_01.html

    Garando- I wish we can rent that type of house here, I want to experience that feeling :-) but we have plenty of furnitures and they won't fit in a traditional japanese house hehehe. But good thing we have a toilet bowl which is only the japanese style inside our house hahaha

    caryn- thanks for visitng my site, where is chiba? is it in Tokyo??

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  12. UnknownOctober 15, 2009 at 12:38 PM

    I have the option of heading that way in March. Where's the best place to live in Misawa? I'm sure I'll receive more information about that soon, but I'm trying to research as much as possible now. Thanks.

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  13. MissyOctober 16, 2009 at 7:47 AM

    Jeffrey- right now, effective Sept. 1, 2009 you can no longer rent a house off base. Housing management will offer you either housing or tower unless there are no available houses/tower on base. I hope you will enjoy your stay here in Misawa. You can visit www.35fss.com to see some of the tours they offer. Thanks for visiting my blog.

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  14. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2012 at 6:57 AM

    I'm so glad to have read this blog here, giving me ideas how Misawa looks like. I'll be as well spending my next 3 years in the place with my partner. Hope to see more photos.

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  15. MissyJanuary 31, 2012 at 8:36 AM

    Anonymous- thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you will enjoy your stay in Misawa. The Japanese people are so nice and respectful ;-) it's just sad for us to leave earlier than our scheduled stay.

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  16. JackFebruary 21, 2012 at 10:05 PM

    Letting agents in Leeds

    Wow, I guess we can all keep dreaming right. Some beautiful homes here. Kind of interesting how wide of a variety there is of architecture.Thank you.

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