Hachimantai Green Hotel Kazuno

... where the mountains reflect off of it just like a mirror but it was very grey looking while we were there and a bit disappointing, especially after seeing my roommates photos from a different visit that have a amazing optical illusion to them.  There were some cute Akita dogs at one of the gift shops at the lake and they looked so sad and lonely, I wanted to take one home sooo bad!  Then we went and ...

... I soaked for a while longer, a couple of ladies joining me along the way, then returned to the inner pool until I figured I was well pickled and perhaps a bit woozy from the warmth. I headed up to the room, where the futons had been laid out for us, and Chuck was busy journaling away. A quick post to the website to let folks know I was alive, and POOF, I was down for the count. Kaoru came by to let us know she had returned, chatted for a bit, then headed to bed herself.

... Turns out western foreigners may skip the place, but the Japanese do not. Luckily it was slightly before the full sakura bloom and it was a weekday, but the place definitely had a lot of tourists. Turned out it was during their cherry blossom festival--they have a 2km 'tunnel' of cherry blossoms--and all the fried food stands were out. And best of all, a lot of the old samurai houses were open to the public to explore, though many tended to focus on the blooming weeping sakura in ...

... lac, que la surface de Tazawa-Ko ne gele jamais, meme en hiver ! Nous avons passe 2 belles journees a nous promener autour du lac avec le beau temps et a profiter des Onsen, sources chaudes naturelles. Notre auberge avait d'ailleurs son propre Onsen. La culture du bain, O-Furoba, est tres presente au Japon. Meme s'ils n'ont pas leur Onsen prive, ils remplissent une petite baignoire ...

... tous en costumes ! Tres interessants ! Dans une maison de Samurai on a eu la chance de tomber sur un mariage ou les maries revetaient des costumes traditionnels. On n'a pas manque de faire des photos dans tous les sens ! Gros bemol de ce village, la foule de Japonais et en consequence les centaines de boutiques de souvenirs dans tous les recoins... Heureusement il y avait quelques petites collines aux alentours qui nous ont permis de nous echaper quelques temps.

I stopped off here on the way to Hokkaido to break up the journey. It was actually a bit of a let down as I seemed to arrive on a holiday and there was nothing open and I couldnt find the temples and museums I was looking for! There were some nice ice sculptures though and I had a good hike up a very steep hill. It is very mountainous here and quite beautiful.

... look out of the warm train window as the snow blanketed everything. Got on the next train just in time, this train was bound for Hachinohe and went back under the sea through the long tunnel to 'mainland' Japan. Then we got the bullet train, which seemed even faster after being on slower trains for a while, back to Morioka. We had some takeaway sushi on the train which was very nice as our first experience of it (although we went vegetarian, just in case). Once ...

... spooked by this point and almost dragged Chris back out, I think Chris was finding me rather amusing. We managed to catch the setting sun through the red leaves outside. We popped by the 'Demon's hand-prints' on the way back to the ryokan. However we didn't spent toooo long there as even with quite some inspection, we really good not see anything like hand-prints in the rocks. After a quick stop back at the ryokan we ...

jai oublier de dire dans mon autre message que ici, a morioka, la ville est jumelee avec une ville nomee morioka en colombie britanique. Alors par un pur hasard, en me promenant dans la ville , je suis arriver devant un epicerie et puis il y avais des biscuits feuille d`erables et du sirop d`erables de la beauce.. un peu plus de 16.00$ le 250ml. bon apres m'etre fait demander gentiment de sortir parce que je n'etais pas un resident de l'hotel ...

... Cantonese? Mandarin? Wu?), but my immersion in it was enough for other Chinese guys to come talk to me. Apparently, they're all studying polymers -- not much of a conversation starter. I suggested a few other fruitful topics, including plasters, road surfaces, and recycled milk carton pulps, but they would have none of it. Our last adventure was an enormous hill where a gondola takes tourists up the wooded slope to a castle on weekdays ...