Aomori Washington Hotel

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... Beach which is right outside of our resort and also daily visits to the Chula-U hotsprings spa. It is ajacent to our resort so we can go there daily for free. I'll post pics as soon as I can find my camera usb cord! I hope I didn't forget it cause I can't find it!! LOL!

Otaru and Aomori are gorgeous. That's a given. There are cherry blossoms, the usual array of temples and shrines and lovely Japanese architecture. So we've taken a few photos to show these places off. Want to know more and you can Google it. Besides looking around admiringly, this chapter of the journey was also about food. We have become a little obsessed with finding out what and how the locals eat in this part of the world. We thought that people were really ...

... and let me know that would be really cool    After the blossoms we walked around the city and visited a old fashioned dye shop and bought some souvenirs.  Aomeri is known for it's apples (fuji mostly) and they make all sorts of apple treats, wines and juices.  We got lots of free samples and I bought a bottle of Sakura Liqueur (made from the cherry blossoms in the park) and Apple wine.  I'm going ...

... few gaijin, and English speakers were not common. Check out Hirosaki Castle for cherry blossoms if at all possible... even in pouring rain and cold, it was gorgeous, rivaling what we saw in Kyoto... but it's NORTH (nearly same latitude as Minneapolis). AND surrounded by or IN mountains... Plan for life, because damn, it comes at you fast and cold... but it's a small price to pay for the spectacular beauty.

... I know... but we were cold, wet, tired and not quite getting the "awe vibe" Really, the house is beautiful, but it was lost on us. The Shamisen concert was lovely, with nationally ranked shamisen players (they sound a bit like a banjo, with the face once made with snake skin... but, since they are an island, and don't have many snakes... they needed to switch to a hide they DID have available... cat skin. Oh, but don't worry, we were informed that our ...

... there we reached a small town where it is possible to visit Samurai houses (very touristic...). We stopped few days around Tazawa lake, the deapest in Japan (428m). We enjoyed the Onsen (hot springs) of the area and some hiking. After a nice rest around the lake we headed to Aomori to make our last stop in Tohoku. This town is not really nice as it was ...

Aomori est une ville neuve (car entierement detruite pendant la seconde guerre mondiale), logee dans dans une baie au nord de Honshu, avec un enorme pont suspendu et un immeuble ultra-moderne en forme de triangle equilateral, mouais... moderne quoi ! A quelques km au sud, un imposant massif (le Hakkoda-San) est repute pour la marche, le ski et ...

... him up on his offer of some fried bacon and eggs if it had been open. It was a quiet day that we spent here, from our early start in the morning, we both tired so after a light dinner we headed to bed where we staying at the Tokoyo Inn, which is a chain business hotel (there are no hostels in the town of Aomori) it had free internet and free Japanese breakfast (pickles, rice and miso soup) which we dont really like, so we had some yoghurt and muesli of our own.

... and left for the last destination, Aizu Wakamatsu in Fukushima.

We were kind of tired in Aizu, although I didn't want finish our travel. The main tourist spot is the Castle of Aizu Wakamatsu aka Tsuruga Castle. We took a long walk from and to the closest station, but it was O.K., because we hoped that the travel lasted so long. Then we had more than enough conversation before we came back.