Eki-mae Hotel New Aomorikan

... 3;ｌｌ　ｈʍ 45;ｖｅ　ｔA 359;　ｗａｉ 5364;　ｔｉｌ&# 12288;ｏｕｒ　& #65358;ｅｘｔ　 ｐｏｒｔ　 ;ｓｏ　ｋᦆ 9;ｅｐ　ｃʍ 52;ｅｃｋｉA 358;ｇ．　　 5335 ...

... 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!

... Oh happy day. In Otaru we sought out a supermarket (not a convenience store) where the locals would shop. As those of you who know Asia would realise, supermarkets are generally in the basement of a building. So we found one with a complicated name (let's just call it 'supermarket') and went in to observe (and try to buy some Pepsi Max and lunch). There are lots of similarities to our local Woolies in Tuggeranong and some that make your toes curl a little ...

Well Golden Week started on Wed. the 29th and myself, Kira (from Oregon) and Anna (from NY) traveled to the northern prefecture of Aomori to the city of Hirosaki where there are 1,000s of Cherry blossom trees  of various types within the former castle grounds   which are now a park and museum  .  We had to go right away since it was almost time for the blossoms to fall and we didn't want to miss it ...

... 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.

... Hirosaki castle is surrounded by 2 moats, and rather petite to be considered a "castle" by western terms. One thing is very true about this site though... it is absolutely, unbelievably beautiful during hanamei. By the time we made it to the second moat, the mist had turned to a light rain. When we queued up to go inside the castle, the rain had given up on the "light" bit. Inside the castle were a few interesting cases of artifacts, but it was the ...

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...

We left at the crack of dawn, both of us feeling a little tired as we did not manage to get much sleep during the night. Jon was bitten by many mosquitos (or other type of bugs) and had loads of itching on arms , back and legs. We were heading to the otwn of Aomori which is situated at the top of the island of Honshu. As we took the shinkansen , the journey was very quick, though the last leg to Aomori had to be done by normal train as the bullet train line ends ...

... Tokyo, but only Daiei had a driver's license and drove all the way. It is one of the biggest festivals of Japan. The floats and rhythmic dancers called "haneto" were impressive. However, we were so stupid that we had not reserved a hotel. As a result, we slept outside without a tent and blankets, although it was still cold in the summer of Aomori.

On the next morning, we visited Mt. Osore ...