'09 Beef & Garlic Festival

I love October in Japan...not only is the weather amazing, but there is a festival dedicated to two things that I absolutely love: Beef and Garlic! Another reason I may love it so much is because it's advertised as a "Texas Bar-B-Q deep in the heart of Aomori!"

This year the festival was on the first weekend of October and we headed to Takko Town with some friends to partake in some great food and fun! The set up is great, you roll in with your ticket and exchange it for boxes of sliced beef, garlic and veggies...then buy a couple more trays of beef...and head out to the grills. They toss a big lump of fat on a hot grill for you and everyone just dumps their trays of food, grabs some chopsticks and starts cookin'!

We got lucky and were able to catch a prime spot - a grill right next to the entertainment! We laid out a mat and brought out some chairs to make a day of it. We had a great time eating and hanging out with friends.

The local garlic queen and the garlic queen from their sister city of Gilroy, CA were also there. Katie had a great time dancing with them both! There were traditional Japanese dances, a line dancing team from Misawa, children's carnival rides and even a "Garlic Santa?" Well, I'm not sure exactly what he was, but it was an interesting costume!

We had a really great time and were sad to think that this may be our last Beef and Garlic Festival. Below are videos of a traditional dance...and a not-so-traditional dance. Enjoy!

Catching up!

I know we've already got a "Back in Japan" post, but I need to take you back a couple of months now...

While Katie and I were in the states this summer we were lucky enough to be able to spend a week with Trevor's parents in Florida. We had such a great time shopping, going to the beach, playing at the park and just being tourists! Katie loved spending time with her Oma and Opa and talks about them all the time now.

One cute story of something that happened while we were there, was that Katie almost had Laura convinced that she could tell time! :) (I may get some details to this story wrong since it's been a little while, but on the whole the story remains unchanged...)

There's a clock in the living room that chimes on the hour and Katie really took notice of it. While eating breakfast one morning, the clock begins to chime and Katie says "it's 7 o'clock!" And, sure enough, it was. Later while sitting at the table again the clock begins to chime and Katie says "it's 10 o'clock!" And...sure enough....it was! By this time Laura looks at me and says, "are you sure this child can't tell time?" Even I was unsure at this point. Did she actually think to count the chimes? Could she really read the hands of the clock? Later that day the clock begins to chime again. Katie says "it's 6 o'clock!" Come to find out, the first two were just lucky guesses. This time it was not 6 o'clock. :)

Here are a few pictures of our time in Florida.