Worth a thousand words...

Finally, we come to the last post that I will make regarding my trip to Japan. I know I am dragging this out rather long, but we took A LOT of pictures. It is also my hope that someone who is also going to undertake a trip to Japan will come across this blog - or at least the 3 posts that concern Japan - and find information or ask questions about it. That way my knowledge can become someone elses.

As far as things relating to the internship all is going well. I have completed paper surveys for anti-bacterial medications which have already helped me. I got about another 15 surveys over the last weekend by taking some paper surveys with me. Just yesterday I submitted the last thing I needed for IRB approval and spoke with the woman in charge of billing and she said we should be good to go. Now I just wait, but soon I should have access to the patients at 3 major hospitals in the valley. That should work out just fine...

Anyway, let's get on with the photos, I also have some video to post for which I am excited. So far I have not had an opportunity to post any videos.

So, at this point in our journey we are in northern Honshu Japan.
All over the place people had really neat and well maintained gardens.

This was taken from a cemetery cloes to where we were staying. I can't be sure, but I think that the ashes of the deceased are in the tomb. People will also bring personal belongings and favorite foods or drinks of the deceased person as offerings for their spirit. Most people are married in Shinto ceremonies, but buried in Buddhist cemetaries.

Here is a shot of me standing at the Tori gate of a Shinto shrine just down the street from the cemetery in the last photo.

This is a package of Octopus that we saw in the fish market in Hachinohe
Also from the fish market. You can't tell, but the crabs in this box are still alive and crawling around.

These are tentacles from a Giant Octopus. Even though they had been cut of from the main body of the Octopus they were fresh enough that they would dilate and react to touch. My hand is there to give an idea of the size of these things.

These are squid guts that I ate at the fish market. They were about as good as they sound, but it was rude to refuse if someone offered you something. I tried to be a good ambassador of my country by keeping it down; felt kind of ill the rest of the day though.

This was from a mall in Hachinohe. The floats that they build for festivals put any and all of our floats to shame.

While we were in Misawa - the place that we stayed for the remaining 2 weeks we were gone - we went to the Aomori Show Restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but so worth it. This is a picture of the apetizer a big plate of all kinds of sushi.
Japanese food is not for the feint of heart.
This is the rest of the meal from the Show Restaurant. Each level is a different course.

This is in a place called Oirasse Gorge. It is hard to over-state the beauty of Japanese landscapes.

Also in Oirasse Gorge. There is a legend about this spot, that a beautiful woman once lived under that rock and seduced travels so that she might murder them and steal their things.
This is me and my wife in front of a waterfall also in Oirasse Gorge.

This is a badger that we happened upon while visiting the area.

This is from 'Shipwreck Beach'. The name fits the place rather well, as you can tell.

(Unfortunately after trying for several hours I won't be able to post video after all. I am messing with file converters, but so far I have not come up with anything that works. I will have to post video later when I can get the thing working.)

This is the 100 yen sushi store. All of the dishes come across on a conveyor belt and you pull off the things that you want to eat. I am not sure of all the stuff we ate because it was all in Kanji.

This is the seagull shrine. Not sure of the real name, that is just what we called it because of all of the seagulls. I wish I could get the video to work, the noise is just deafening. If you have ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's movie, 'The Birds' it was A LOT like that.

This is Tanasashi Seaside Park. It is where we ate lunch, just a pretty place to look at.

And finally, we got to see some Snow Monkeys. They are so called because they live in the northern part of Japan where there is heavy snow. These monkeys survive by hanging out around hot pools during the cold winter months. This part was pretty cool, I had never seen monkeys before!



That concludes my photo adventures through northern portion of Honshu Japan. I really enjoyed this trip. I think anyone that can should go, I am definetly going to try to get back. Thank you for looking at all of my pictures, I know there have been a ton. Starting next week the features will be back and life will continue as normal, at least for this blog and for my internship.