Misawa Main Streets- Friday Shootout

Friday Shootout- My town's main streets

Today I joined Patty of Crisfield and Reggie Girl of Newnan and the rest of the group for their Friday Shootout.

The main street of Misawa is located right across the Misawa Air Base, this road is popularly known as the "White Pole Road" but Misawa City recently announced in February its new name as "Main Street." The other major roads new names are, City Hall Street, Falcon Ave (POL Road), Veedol St and Battery Ave.

The following photos are "drive by snap shots."


Misawa Air Base Main Gate




Look at the building with the American and Japanese Flags, these buildings are right off the Misawa Air Base Main Gate



KDDI office and other business establishments, also right off the main gate of Misawa AB



HeroNet office is the company who provides internet service to Misawa



American Park is at the corner of main street just right off the main gate, this was recently built when we just came here last summer of 2008; last winter there were food stalls inside this park




Right across the American Park is the "Lalala Karaoke Bar" and the first floor is the "Tubes" Hawaiian Restaurant, this is along the traffic intersection coming from the main gate of the base which is still along Main St.




This is the night shot of the Lalala karaoke bar



Misawa Civic Center along City Hall Street



Along Falcon Ave ( known as the POL road)



Misawa Public Bus along Veedol Street, this reminds me of the Japanese cartoon movie "Totoro"



This is still along Veedol St, McDonald's restaurant


This is the street from the main gate of Misawa Air Base; this is full of food stalls during Tanabata festival


Finally I found a student, biking as he goes home from school


Train Park, right after the civic center; the trees along this park are the cherry blossom

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As you can see, there's not much to be seen here in Misawa. The main streets are not actually busy, there are few people walking mostly are old people. It's a small city with approximately 44,000 population. You have to go somewhere else or your stay here will be "boring" hehehe.
The nearest city is 30 to 40 minutes away here which is the Hachinohe.

I was wondering what would be the life in Misawa without the US Air Force base??

Friday Shoot Out- Graveyard in Misawa

Taken yesterday after the snowfall

Graveyard has no fences nor signs just in the middle of houses



One of the yellow houses in the background is my house, right across the ricefield is this graveyard



Across this graveyard are houses rent by US military families, I can recognize American houses because of the type of satellite dish installed to every house aside from their cars park in front of their houses (American car's plate numbers have "Y" on it), anyways I can not live or rent a house in front of a graveyard....it feels weird and creepy, no way! and besides I heard a lot of ghost stories here in Japan...so it's a NO NO :-)


Along side of the road


This looks like the person buried here was a Christian or Catholic because of the "cross"


This is creepy......Can you see the reflection of the white lady on the tombstone??? Take a closer look between the 2 bouquet of flowers, can you see the lady who's wearing white and standing?? That's me, taking this photo! Gotcha! hahaha

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I was a bit in a hurry yesterday to take some photos to join Patty for today's graveyard shootout, it's been a week and I haven't taken any photos yet, so I ended up going to just one place, just a stone's throw away from our house. It was freezing cold and so windy outside when I walked down across the rice field where this graveyard is. We thought that snow was over but not here in Misawa, it did snow last Tuesday and until yesterday; even this morning we even had some flurries, I hope this would be the last snowfall.

I remember the first time we got here, we went to a free tour around Misawa and there was one graveyard we went to, the tour guide said that 1 tombstone costs around $20,000+ ......whooah (??????), it is not only expensive to live here in Japan it's expensive to die too! And she even reminded us, in her Japanese accent, "Please, do not die here in Japan," she's so funny hahaha.

I noticed that their tombstones are mostly granite and marble stones that make them so expensive.

Misawa Air Base

This was taken on Misawa Air Base, Japan. These two airplanes are displayed in front of the commissary and bx (base exchange).

Shinto Shrine

This shrine is close to where we live off base but I haven't tried to go and see inside it. If you will notice on my previous picture with the title, the tree and the barn..... behind the tree is the shrine. This is the close up picture of the shrine. Not too much snow inside because of the big trees that are covering them.

According to wikipedia:

A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house ("enshrine") a Shinto kami, and is usually characterized by the presence of a shinden (神殿, shinden^?) (also called honden (本殿, honden^?)) or sanctuary, where the kami is enshrined. The honden may however be completely absent, as for example when the shrine stands on a sacred mountain to which it's dedicated, or when there are nearby himorogi or other yorishiro that can serve as a more direct bond to a kami.

The tree, the barn and the rice field with snow

This was taken yesterday morning, the sun finally did show up (and even today yahoo!!!). I have to shovel a bit of snow from our driveway and saw this view from our house and so I grabbed my camera and took this shot. I'm just starting to familiarize with my new camera and I was testing my settings here and I don't know if this is a nice shot, for me it was hehehe.

If you will notice behind the tree is a shinto shrine and you will also see the barn. The left side is the rice field. There are lots of shinto shrine here in Misawa and even I live close by this shrine I don't know how people worship there. I don't see a lot of people coming in and out there and there's no parking area too.

Ichou Park or Liberty Park

Ichou Park is in Momoishi Village in Oirase Town, Japan. As the town shares same latitude as New York City (Lat.40' 40" N), the Statue of Liberty was put in the park and is the highest of all the Statue of Liberties in Japan. The size is 11.5 meters high, 1/4 of the original size in New York and is lighted up at night, adding a fantastic atmosphere.

Directions: (using back road)

1. From POL gate, go straight until you see Universe Grocery Store, make a left on this Universe intersection.
2. Go straight, you will pass Eneos gas station on your left side and then pass Family Mart on your right side. Make a right turn when you see the Lawson Store on your right hand side. You will see the sign board, to Aeon Mall.
3. You will drive straight and pass rice fields (7-10 minute drive from Lawson) until you see the Shimoda Mall or Jusco Mall
4. Make a left turn on the traffic light before the traffic light intersection on going to Shimoda mall.
5. Go straight and make a left on the T-intersection.
6. Make a right turn when you see the Lawson Store on your right hand side.
7. Go straight and follow the direction on the signboard "Ichou Park", you will see on your left side the statue of liberty just follow the road leading to that park.

From Shimoda Mall or Jusco: (From the front side or main road)

1. Travel out to the main road of Shimoda Mall not on the back road. The main road is can be seen when you are coming out from the main entrance of the mall or from mister donut store side. Get off from the parking lot, make a left turn first and another left turn to hit the main road. You will pass Giga outlet (on your left side) as soon as you make a left.
2. Make a left turn on the traffic light after you pass Giga Outlet.
3. Go straight, make a right turn on the first traffic light.
4. Follow no. 5 to 7 directions above.
   

First Snow Fall- Nov. 19, 2008

Oh my first snow in Japan!!! My kids were very excited this morning when they woke up and they saw the snow they even took pictures with snow falling as the background lol. The base has a snow fall contest whoever can guess the first snow fall will win a snow blower. My guess is Nov. 29 so I lost :-) that's ok

Harvest Time

When I was walking early morning along the farm fields I noticed that a lot of rice have been harvested already and it's pretty cute to see a lot of haystacks lining up in the field. I wonder what are they gonna do after piling all those hays???

Misawa Ice Arena

Misawa Ice Arena is adjacent to Misawa International Center (MIC).

The first picture is the front view of the MIC.

The second picture was taken from across Family Mart, from the tire store that has yellow painted wall, this is the back view of the ice arena.

Directions: (same directions on going to Misawa International Center)

1. From Misawa AB's POL gate go straight and make a left on Universe Store

2. Go straight and pass Eneos Gas Station

3. Left turn on the next road after that gas station (before Family Mart)

4. Make a right on the T- intersection

5. Misawa Ice Arena is in that corner of that road

6. Parking Lot Entrance is on the right side

Misawa International Center

Misawa International Center (MIC) is next to Misawa Ice Arena you can hold meetings and other group activities here in MIC.

Directions:
1. From POL gate of Misawa AB go straight and make a left on Universe Grocery store
2. Go straight and pass Eneos gas station, you will pass rice fields on both sides of the road (or maybe a raddish field, whatever vegetables are those :-)) after you pass this field make a left, you may see Family Mart which is on the right side (but you must make a left before family mart)

3. If you pass family Mart you already passed the road.
4. After turning left, go straight and there is a T-intersection, make a right turn and you will see Misawa Ice Arena, pass the entrance of ice arena and right after that is the MIC entrance parking lot make a right and you will see MIC on your left side. MIC and Ice Arena are both sharing parking lots.

Note:

If you happen to pass the family mart you can make a left on the next road and make another left on the first road, and go straight and you will see parking lot on your left hand side.

By the way, this is where we sometimes hold our group worship service.