先週の週末、Ryanと私はFacebook Reportingツアーをやりました。今回、青森市のビジネスホテルと野辺地町のホタテ漁労を行ってきました。
Our first stop was a business hotel called Green Park Hotel in Aomori City.
最初に、青森市のグリーン・パークホテルと言うビジネスホテルに行きました。
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| In front of the hotel ホテルの前 |
Business hotels are meant to be more economically priced than other fancier hotels. They're similar to motels in America, but they're a little less sketchy and more catered towards "businessmen". In order to make the hotel more tourist-friendly (read: foreigner-friendly), they wanted us to review the hotel. They out us in pairs and had us go through a model check-in process. They let us go into a room and see what it was like.
The person at the front desk was pretty friendly and even spoke English to us, which was awesome (he did seem a bit nervous to speak it haha). We managed to get to our room just fine. Overall, it was a small room, but it was pretty clean, cheap, and came with quite a lot of amenities (free TV, refrigerator, free wi-fi and Ethernet cable, bathroom toiletries, and a $5 breakfast!). The English directions/guidebook/etc in the room was pretty bad though...there were many typos and some stuff that needed to be translated wasn't (wi-fi, phone call rates, breakfast information, tourist information, etc). The bed was a little hard, but we were told that Japanese people tend to prefer hard beds since they sleep on futons on the floor at home. Last, I didn't really like that the hotel itself is catered towards "businessMEN". There were even some porn TV channel magazines in the room, which I thought was pretty distasteful, especially if they wanted to market themselves towards the traveling tourist or businessperson, who may or may not be female. Japan still needs a bit of work on the gender front... :/
Other than that, it seemed like a nice and decently cheap hotel.
普通のホテルよりビジネスホテルの方が安くて便利なホテルです。アメリカのモテルとだいたい同じものですが、モテルの方が微妙なものです。外国人にアピールをしたいので、ホテルの感想を考えるためにいろいろなことをしました。例えば、にせチェックインをしました。ホテルのフロントスタッフは英語で話すことができてビックリしていました（嬉しかったが、ビックリしていました。。。笑）。ルームにも行けました！ベッドはちょっと硬かったが、部屋はいい匂いがあって、結構古いのにすごくきれいでした。いろいろな便利なものがありました（ＬＡＮケーブル、wifi、テレビ、冷蔵庫、５００円朝ごはん！）。一つのちょっと気を付けることがある、ビジネスMANだけではなくて、ビジネスWOMANと他の観光客（男も女も）います！もっとユニセックス・ルームがあったらいいと思います（例えば、微妙なテレビチャネルガイドがなかったらいいと思いますが。。。）。
でも、それ以外、安くていいホテルでした。
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| The small single room ちょっと小さいシングルルーム |
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| Small bathroom which included free shampoo/conditioner/soap, as well as other bathroom amenities not shown (like toothbrushes, cotton swabs, shower caps, etc.) 小さい便所です。シャンプーやリンスやボディソープや他の便所の便利なものが無料でした！ |
Then, we bused to Noheji-machi, where we rode a boat, were able to pick scallops to take home, and ate a ton of grilled scallops!
その後で、野辺地町に行って、船に乗ったり、ホタテ釣したり、たくさん焼きホタテを食べたりしました！
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| They took us out on the ship to where they fish for and farm scallops. They catch the scallops and then keep them in tiered nets where they grow for 3 years. We thought that we were gonna fish for scallops, but they just wanted to take us here. I was a bit disappointed (I wanted to catch scallops!), but I guess they weren't even supposed to be out there since it was a festival season or something...so I guess it's ok. 船に乗って、ホタテ釣の場所とホタテのファームの場所へ行きました。ホタテを捕獲して、ネットの中に置いて２－３年に待って、大きくなります。 |
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| They start out this size!!! They're so cute! 生まれるとき、こんなに小さいホタテです。かわいい！！ |
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| If you zoom in, you can see the growth cycle of the scallops from 3 months to about 3 years. ズームできたら、ホタテの成長サイクルが見える！ |
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| They let us pick live scallops from this table ホタテ釣のテーブルです！ |
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| One of our boxes of scallops Ryanのホタテの箱 |
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| He looks mad, but he's actually very happy to eat so many scallops.... なんか怒っているそうですが、たくさんホタテを食べれてすごく嬉しかったです！ |
Later, we went home, shucked all of the scallops in the box above and tried our hand at fried scallops!
帰ってから、ホタテを洗って、ガッツを取って、ホタテフライを作ってみました。
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| They were delicious. すごく美味しかったですよ！ |
We had so many that we went over to the new JET next door (who was super busy cleaning his place) to see if he wanted any. He was more than happy to take a break and have dinner...glad we could make someone's day :)
Anyways, that's all for today. Next month, we're going on another trip to Hotokegaura, on the very northeastern side of Aomori. Stay tuned!
そんなにたくさんがあって、二人で食べれませんでしたので、となりの新しい（アパートの掃除をしている）ＪＥＴにホタテフライをあげました。休憩を取ることができてすごく嬉しそうでした。うれしくさせてよかったです。
じゃあ、いじょうです！今度、北東のほとけがうらに行きます。楽しみにしています！
