Ian & Kristina

Ian performing in the Yosare festival in Kuroishi, Aomori prefecture, Japan. Photo by our friend Chiharu.

Our friend Chiharu came for a visit all the way from Yamanashi! Here's us at Lake Towada. I look ridiculously windswept.

Pictures of Ian and I taken by our friend Chiharu at Oirase Gorge, Aomori prefecture, Japan.

Marilyn Monroe rice art in Inakadate, Aomori prefecture, Japan.

Rice art in Inakadate, Aomori prefecture, Japan. (2013)

Some pictures of us doing various things. Click the images for captions.

At the Dake Onsen festival, Ian also watched a puppet show of old Japanese stories performed in the local dialect Tsugaru-ben. And of course, ate festival food!

Dake Onsen at the base of Iwaki-san mountain in Hirosaki City, Aomori prefecture, Japan. The water here is filled with so many minerals that it stains the wood, and leaves your skin smelling like sulfur for quite some time after the bath.

Heading to the Yabusame show at Hirosaki-jo Park in Hirosaki City, Aomori prefecture, Japan.

Yabusame (horseback archery) in Hirosaki city, Aomori prefecture, Japan. It was raining pretty hard that day, but the show went on anyway! Amazing stuff. Do look for the horse that took off without its rider; still, it completed the course!

Our trip to Mt. Hakkoda, Aomori prefecture, Japan. Pictured: the ropeway up to the peak, a roadside stop for water, and the very famous Sukayu Onsen.

Last summer our friend Sachie took us up the ropeway to the top of Mt. Hakkoda! This is an incredibly popular spot during the fall, when all that green becomes beautiful reds, oranges and yellows.

Hirosaki Neputa, 2013. In Hirosaki, Aomori prefecture, Japan.

Some pictures of the float making process for Kuroishi Neputa, in which Ian and I participated. First the float designer plans out the structure, then fashions it out of a wood and wire frame. Electrical wires are run through and bulbs placed. Then a special kind of paper is painstakingly glued over the wire framing; it has to be shaped to give the float its 3-D feel, and you can't get glue on the paper surface itself or it affects the painting process. After the paper is applied, the artist paints the Neputa. See other Neputa posts here and here.

Last year Ian helped make a neputa with one of the local neighborhoods. They then invited him to stand on the top and yell the chants during the float procession. It was a ton of fun, but after a few days of this his voice was shot! Here he is trying to make it out of the float after the procession finished (you get to the top by climbing the internal structure).

The Kuroishi Neputa festival, held every year at the end of July through the beginning of August. Neighborhoods, schools, companies, clubs... all of them get together to build these paper floats, which are painted and then lit from inside. Last year and again this year Ian is helping one of the local neighborhoods make theirs.