Food We Ate : Ekiben From Akita Station

After spending two nights in Akita on Day 3 and 4 of our vacation in Japan; it's time for us to head back to Tokyo. Taking the shinkansen from Akita to Tokyo is another excuse for us to enjoy the ekiben sold at the station.

Ekiben covers are always interesting. I think I should start collecting them (and add more junk to my current pile of all Japanese-related junk!)

What we got for lunch, enjoyed whilst zipping through the country, viewing the breathtaking scenery out of the shinkansen window.

I wasn't too crazy about the bento in the first photo, with what seems like dried fish or something in it, preferring the latter - the one with salmon and ikura (salmon roe).

You know what I'd like for a bento now? Those lovely anago bento and oysters bento we tried in Hiroshima. mmmmmm........

OLA: Finding Treats on the Way to the Shores

our little Saturn on the way to the end of the shores

Last week we postponed this trip for the Cranberry Coast. But another sunny day in the cold of a January winter came along and off we went to meet the Pacific Ocean again. This time we passed through the cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam before getting to Ocean Shores. Once more, we found so many special things! Bill and I may have stumbled upon a career of finding treasures in all the places we go to.

a bird cage in Aberdeen

Downtown Aberdeen, the hub of Grays Harbor has added some twenty bird cages that contain metal replicas of mythical endangered species such as … Then, right where the Chehalis and Wishkah rivers meet, there is the largest compass in the world (40 feet in diameter) called The Compass Rose. It shows both true and magnetic Norths, offering a great vantage point for the shipping commerce passing by.

The Compass Rose in Aberdeen

Then just a block from the Visitors’ Center, inside a muffler shop sits an amazing statue done by the wife of Bob, the owner. It is of Kurt Cobain, the leader of Nirvana, the multi-platinum grunge band that redefined the sound of the nineties. He was born in Hoquaim but moved to Aberdeen. At age 27, just two years after marrying controversial Courtney Love of The Hole and a year after their love child was born, he put a shotgun in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and left a suicide note with the words "I love you." 

Kurt Cobain at a Muffler Shop in Aberdeedn

Bob says that it is because of his gruesome death due to drug addiction that the city has not given the statue a place of honor. But he told us about another amazing statue, this time of a fireman, which his artist wife made for the heroes of 9/11. They hauled it across the country on their truck a month after the tragedy and it sat at the Ground Zero fire station for months before reconstruction work started.

The Hoquiam Castle

The Hoquiam Castle was the next surprise. This beautiful 19th century Victorian-style mansion is listed in National Geographic's America's Great Houses. The building of this stately home overlooking the town of Hoquiam began in 1897, completed in 1900, by lumber baron Robert Lytle who acquired his fortune from his electric saw mill, the first of its kind on the west coast. The castle is now a bed and breakfast and right beside it stands the family home, the beautiful yellow Lytle House.

The Lytle House

Sharkys at Ocean Shores

Not far after these two towns, on a stretch of land on the southern tip of the Olympic peninsula shielding Grays Harbor from the Pacific is Ocean Shores. Westport was not as visible from the Shores that day but we still had fun, especially after almost being eaten by a shark at a gift shop!  And guess what color their fire hydrants are? Yellow! We also found a three-eyed yellow propane tank, yellow roof on a fishing boat relic marooned on the streets, and theme homes decorated with buoys (although not all yellow!).

whoops, the mothballed power plants 

a propane tank in Ocean Shores

On the way back to our Elma campground is an astounding view of) 2 nuclear power plants mothballed at a cost of $2.25 B, Plants 4 & 5 of WPPS (Washington Public Power Supply system. No wonder some call it whoops!  Although we found all these treats on the way to the Shores that sunny winter day, we do not really want to start another career. What we know is that there are millions of treasures in this wonderful world of ours, if we only had the time to look, cruise, and be part of the Z generation! 

a home of buoys in Ocean Shores

Next Stops:  Olympia, Tacoma, and Mt. St. Helens, Washington

Musashi Mitake Shrine

A comment from Floating Camera Tokyo made me dig through my archive for some old Mount Mitake photos. Hope he had fun going up the mountain and share with us all the awesome photos taken there!

Musashi Mitake Shrine is known as a symbol of the mountain worship and the Shrine is said to have been founded 2,000 years ago. It is is believed to have been established during the era of Emperor Sujin. 

 Found along the way, whilst climbing up the steep slope up to reach the shrine.

I posted about our trip up Mount Mitake in several posts (yea, I can be rather exhaustive, not to mention long-winded in my trip reports):

To Mount Mitake We Hike!

Mount Mitake Scenery (I)

Mount Mitake Scenery (II)

Musashi Mitake Shrine On Mount Mitake

Mossy Splendour At The Rock Garden On Mount Mitake

Bugs, Bees and Buds On Mount Mitake

My entry for this week's #11 Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan. Keep it going!

Food We Ate : A Simple Konbini Bought Dinner

Our trip to Japan on Day 4 last year saw us going to:
A fruit farm and enjoyed our time plucking delicious fruits
then, going on a trip on the Resort Shirakami train for an awesome seaside view route from Akita to Hirosaki;
and taking a sleeper train; Akebono on our trip back to Akita

Arriving quite late back to Akita Station after the Akebono train ride, there weren't much option for us to find places to eat dinner so we decided to check out a nearby Sunkus (a convenience store) for something to eat.

Looks yummy, right? Raimie was rightly famished and enjoyed his dinner a lot! He even ate my portion.

What can you get for a meal at a konbini in Japan? Well, a lot of variety, that I can say. From rice to noodles to pasta to sandwiches. Also, if you'd like to try oden, and  too chicken from trying them at a stall or an oden place - why not buy them at a konbini to try and have a taste? Read about our adventures going to try oden in Asakusa last year at : An oden adventure in the back alleys of Asakusa.

The invasion of pirates . . . all about Tampa, Florida

I put this post up once a year around the timeof the Gasparilla festivities in Tampa.
Tampa is where I have lived all of my life
and I feel blessed that I was born in this part
of the world that is perfect for me.
The Captain and I are planning to explore Tampa
with our cameras in the coming weeks so that we can feature all the things that make Tampa special.
Since we have annual passes to Busch Gardens, my
posts usually focus on the awesome theme park.
There are so many aspects of the park that I haven't
even covered yet.
Many of you have asked about Busch Gardens and  I'm
working on a general post about Busch Gardens.  In themeantime, check out a video I created from one of
our visits.



There is much more to post about . . . subscribe to
my feeds or post my Wordless Wednesday button on
your blog.  Gina's Wordless Wednesday always includes
a linky so everyone can participate.


TAMPA . . . The word "Tampa" is a Native American word used to refer to the area when the first European explorers arrived in Florida whose meaning is sometimes claimed to mean "sticks of fire" in the language . . ."The place to gather sticks" . . . which also relates to the high concentration of lightning strikes that Tampa Bay receives every year during the hot and wet summer months.

HISTORY
Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon first arrived in the Tampa Bay area in 1513, but the Spaniards focused their attention on settling eastern Florida and left the western areas alone. 
In 1824, only two months after the arrival of the first American settler, four companies of the U.S. Army established Fort Brooke to protect the strategic harbor at Tampa Bay.
Tampa owes its commercial success to Tampa Bay and the Hillsborough River. When phosphates were discovered nearby in the late 1880's, the resulting mining and shipping industries prompted a boom of growth and wealth that lasted through the 1890's. The Port of Tampa is now the seventh largest in the nation; today phosphate shipping is supplemented by trade in shrimp. A pleasure cruise line operates as well.
In 1886, Vicente Martinez Ybor established a cigar factory in Tampa. From the steps of Ybor's factory, José Marti, sometimes called the George Washington of Cuba, exhorted the cigar workers to take up arms against Spain in the late 1800's. Hispanic culture enlivens Ybor City which covers about 2 square miles between Nebraska Avenue, 22nd Street, Columbus Drive and East Broadway.
The military has also had an ongoing role in Tampa's development. The city was the primary outfitting and embarkation port for U.S. troops bound for Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Today the U.S. Operations Command is headquartered nearby at MacDill Air Force Base.

WHAT MAKES TAMPA UNIQUE . . .
DIVERSITY

One of the things that makes Tampa unique is the Gasparilla celebration, a festival similar to Mardi Gras with a pirate theme . . . best to check out the video . . . click here.


As far as I'm concerned, this is as close as I'm going to get to living in paradise.  Our winters are usually pleasant . . . there are warm breezes, gone is the humidity, the daily afternoon tropical thunderstorms or threats of an impending hurricane and only the occasional cold day and night (what I call cold) . . . this is winter in Tampa, the best time to visit my part of the world. We occasionally get a freeze at night, but it never snows and cold fronts usually move fast and last a day or two, then back to warm and sunny Florida weather.

No matter what you are in the mood for, you can find it here, there is lots to do . . . you can relax and dine at a waterside cafe, take a streetcar ride to Channelside for shopping and back to Ybor City for a delight all to itself.

Ybor City is an experience that takes you back to another era, known as Florida's Latin Quarter, wrought iron balconies, globe streetlights, brick-lined walkways and the majestic architecture of cigar factories, social clubs and other unique buildings. It provides a glimpse into an era rich with culture and history . . . famous for Spanish Flamenco dancers, Cuban sandwiches, hand-rolled cigars, shopping at Centro Ybor by day and when the sun goes down, party at the many restaurants, nightclubs and bars that line the streets of Ybor City that are so reminiscent of New Orleans.

For those into sports, Tampa is home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning and winter home of the New York Yankees and served three times as Super Bowl host.

Tampa is one hour away from Disney World and the home of Busch Gardens, where you can ride world known roller coasters like the Montu, Sheikra, Gwazi, Kumba and many other attractions, one of the most awesome zoos in the world and gorgeous gardens to walk through. Check out all to do at Busch Gardens by visiting their website, which is a treat in itself . . .

Busch Gardens website

Cross Tampa Bay and you will find white, sugar sand beaches, sport fishing, jet skiing, parasailing . . . there is nothing like walking the beach at dawn or watching a spectacular sunset on the Gulf of Mexico.

There is also an abundance of state parks, botanical gardens . . . a nature lover's paradise.

Famous people from Tampa . . . Ray Charles, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, his brother Aaron Carter, Hulk Hogan, Lauren Hutton, baseball players Dwight Gooden, Gary Sheffield and Steve Garvey, singer/songwriter Stephen Stills . . . and me!

OLA: Taking you to Cranberry Fields Forever

a Berry Bog on Cranberry Coast

For the first time in many days, sunlight drenched southwestern Washington’s fields! Although it was forecast to be a high of only 43*F, Bill and I quickly seized the opportunity and drove our little red Saturn west towards Ocean Shores where the Pacific meets the southern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. At the Visitors Center in Aberdeen, the Olympic Gateway, we were convinced to go south instead to a different coastline.  So, ‘let us take you down where we're going to…cranberry fields forever…’ 

the tallest lighthouse in the state of Washington

Westport, a commercial fishing town

The first town on the Cranberry Coast is Markham where Ocean Spray brings all the berries for processing and transporting to the different parts of the USA. At the western end before going south is Westport, the big commercial fishing town of Washington. Actually from there you can see Ocean Shores at the other side of Grays Harbor on the mouth of the Chehalis River.  The fishing town boasts of the tallest lighthouse in the state and a Maritime Museum showcasing several huge skeletons of whales. 

skeleton whales in the Westport Maritime Museum

Ocean Shores from the Westport side

Driving south on Highway 105 we reach Grayland (pop, less than 2,000), site of the Annual Cranberry Festival. There we found many cranberry bogs that were started by the Finnish farmers nearly 150 years ago.  Cranberries are a fruit crop that is grown in wet, marshy areas called bogs.  They grow best where there is a cool growing season and no extreme cold.  They are found mostly in the provinces of Canada but in the US they are grown in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Washington.

Washaway Beach from a washed away tree

coastline changes since 1891

Next on the loop is a special little surprise with a lot of camera moments. North Cove is a small town famous for the Washaway Beach. The sketch on the left shows you how much of this 2-mile stretch has been clawed away by the Pacific Ocean since 1891. A little further east is Tokeland spit named after Chief Toke. It is where you will find the Shoalwater Bay Casino, the friendliest little casino on the coast. There is also a small Marina, an RV Resort on the Willapa Bay and a historic hotel built in 1855.

a house just teetered on Washaway Beach

Willapa Bay is also the source of 15% of the oysters consumed in the United States. So the next towns you encounter after leaving the Cranberry Coast from Tokeland are Raymond and South Bend. The latter is dubbed the ‘Fresh Oyster Capital of the World’. All around town are hills of oyster shells kept for new farming beds. Pacific oysters have been grown in Willapa Bay for over a century and the 10,000 acres devoted to the farms there harvest an average of three to four million pounds per year.

an oyster shell hill in South Bend

2 of 200 steel sculptures in Raymond

A little north of South Bend, upwards towards Aberdeen and then Elma, at the beginning of the end of our day’s loop is the small town of Raymond.  It is known for its Wildlife-Heritage Sculpture Corridor, about a mile of enchanting steel sculptures of wildlife and people along Highway 101, State Route 6, and throughout downtown Raymond. Incorporated into the Raymond landscape in 1993, the two hundred sculptures were designed by local artists to reflect the area’s great heritage.

the strange space ship at a little corner market

the house that 40 sausages built

The Cranberry Coast brought us many little surprises like a little store that sold 40 different kinds of sausages, including, of course, cranberry sausage and the little corner market in front of which is a strange space ship! We started the day thinking we were going to Ocean Shores.  That trip is postponed for another sunny winter day. We enjoyed taking you down to where we finally went to cranberry fields forever, where the land turns bright red, the coastline always changes, and seafood reigns supreme.

another beautiful sunset on the way home