Morioka City Hotel

... later a prince drinks too much of the water and also is turned into a dragon.  It is said that the heat from their love making is what keeps the lake from never freezing during the bitter Akita winters but in all reality this is because it is a Caldera Lake.  Anywho that is about it for this part of the blog.  The next will be about Kakunodate the Samurai village we visited later that day. Stay Tuned...

... infrequent in this part of the country--down to Tsuruoka to climbs some stairs at a sacred mountain tomorrow. Same old, same old. Incidentally, though the trains are rare, the journey down the northwest of Honshu is really beautiful with huge tracts of rectangular rice paddies, the vast ocean--technically it faces Russian but you can't see land--and lots of mountains behind everything. It's like a very badly played game of hide and go seek. Tomorrow: Haguro-san and Naruko Onsen -mike

... 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.

... shrine covered all over in gold and mother of pearl, quite a breath-taking sight. After seeing the Golden Hall, we followed the route around the complex and found a small shrine where we had a go at writing some Japanese characters on a wooden stick to leave there. The whole area had lots of trees whose leaves had turned red and orange, which made for some good photos. By this point, it was pretty darn cold, so we headed back to the station and on back to Morioka.

... out again to fin some food. After finding it a little tricky to find anywhere, we headed back to the station to find one of the restaurants under the station. We aimed for a place called Osaka Osho which had a nice point friendly looking menu and both tucked into some steaming bowls of ramen. Then back to the inn, putting the heater on full blast and snuggling under our huge duvets, surprisingly comfy on the tatami floor. Kate and Chris

... suis partie faire le tour de la ville a la recherhce d'un starbuck cofee. entre temps je suis arriver par hasard au ruines de l'ancien chateau de morioka. la ville a transformer les fondations en un mega parc. Avec l'eclairage et les feuilles de toutes les couleurs, c'etait beau, mais encore une fois, les photos ne sont pas terrible. J'ai finalement trouver le starbuck coffee de morioka, je suis venu dejeuner ici pour profiter du wifi gratuit.

apres 4 heures de train, je suis arriver vers 14:00 a hakunodate, un village entoure de montagne qui contient un quartier de samourai. Dans ce quartier, il y a des anciennes maisons de samourais, ce sont plus des anciens domaines que des maisons. sur chaque site, il y a plusieur batiment, le tout derriere une palissade de bois. c`etait ben beau, mais comme la ...

... inflexible Japanese rules, so we found another that said it would be a minimum of 480 yen for anything up to an hour. So what we did was just use for 5 minutes, then told the staff that the computer did not work and they then said we didnt have to pay anything. There is a way around most inflexible rules. Before boarding our train we wanted to grab a bite to eat, there was a food court luckily beneath the station. We found a Kaiten Zushi for a few fishy ...