Cottage Hotel Chocolat Aomori

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Just started this blog to try and remember all that we've done so far. It is day 10 here in Japan and the weather has been very hot and humid. It has been so hot that Skyler said that he wished the outside would have airconditioning! We've spent almost everyday going to ...

... in the south of Japan, but they're positively gigantic compared to these little northern munchkins. Why? Well, we reckon it's got to do with their lifestyle. They ride their little bikes and walk everywhere, eat little bowls of sea creatures and sea vegetables and rarely breed with the outside world. AND, they seem excruciatingly happy. They certainly put a lot of effort into promoting happiness. There are 'happy buns', 'happy stores' and smiley faces on each ...

... of them playing, I hope it works and you can hear the traditional style music  .  There is also a beautiful mountain that is located in area and there are amazing views of it from the park  .  Finally there were strange ducks swimming in all the moats that surround the castle grounds so I took pics of them, I've never seen a duck as pretty as they were so if someone can figure out what they ...

*just in case you missed it, I completed the 4-26 adventure... read that first! After taking one last bath, we grabbed a quick Viking breakfast, then headed back on to the bus. We hit Towada City, which had beautiful sculptures on a cherry tree lined street. It was cold, but not actively snowing, so we did a quick run down the street and back on the bus. The bronze horse sculptures are really delicately ...

... to sit in a hot spring surrounded by snow. Just like a little snow monkey! J After we all soaked off some of the last few hours on the bus, we convened in our room for dinner. It was a sumptuous event again, this time with a horseshoe crab accent. It was Kiku's birthday, so we gave her the gifts we brought over (Chuck made some glass orchids for her and Kaoru as a thank-you gift, they seemed very please) and we continued to drink and laugh into the night.

We carried on our travel in Tohoku (North Honshu) by stopping in a nice and small valley called Tono. This is a place famous for all its legends about small malicious water spirits (Kappas) and other mystical stories. We stood there enough to enjoy the valley by bicyle. We then headed further north to Morioka where the cherry blossoming had just started ...

... vapeur rajoute un petit air mystique... un repas gastronomique tres fin avec divers poissons (cru et cuit) fruits de mer et autre racine de lotus, le tout arrose de sake chaud, paracheve notre sejour dans ce petit paradis des sens ! (pas donne cependant... ;-) note : une subtile odeur de souffre nous a suivi durant toute la journee du lendemain...

... bottom of my feet, for God's sake). Still, it's nice to be a source of entertainment for my co-workers as I limp around the office. I've been reduced from a mildly out-of-shape man to an utterly feeble one who now rides his bicycle at the same rate as the 4-foot grandmothers who inhabit Akita and who all sell the same flavor of ice cream. Maybe I should do the same. Karaoke was more fun, although the 'music videos' they display behind the lyrics are ...

With my close friends, Hiro and Daiei, we travelled to Tohoku, north part of the main island of Japan in the summer of 1998. I was a graduate student at that time, but after the operation for retina detouchment, I took a rest for a while. We didn't have a graduation tour, so the travel was like that.

The main purpose was to join Nebuta Festival of Aomori. It took very long time to get to Aomori ...