Thursday 14 June 2012

A weekend adventure in Japan

I woke up early on this Friday the first of June. I was excited, we were going on a mini break on the bullet train to Aomori.

But before we could head off on our epic adventure we needed caffeine, so we popped into Maccas at the station near home. Anita was in desperate need to caffeine!?


We ditched my pack in a locker at Euno station as I'm off to the airport Sunday night. It was great to get rid of the load and travel light.


Finally we got to the bullet train. Very exciting.


We took the train to Sendai and had a stop at Utsunuiniya for lunch. This town is the home of gyoza so of course we had gyoza for lunch.


This little dude was outside the lunch place. I showed him I've got muscles too - and can eat lots of gyozas.

Our next stop was Sendai. This is a very pretty town which offers a little bus tour called the loople. I kid you not. I took a photo of the map to prove that we didn't make the name up ... cause it's something we would do!










Then it was back on the bullet train for our trip to Aomori. We did stop briefly at Fukashima but I'm not suppose to mention that in case mum panics. We didnt get off the train but i did hang out the doors and take some photos, which I have temporarily lost.

Aomori is a really beautiful coastal town surrounded by snow capped mountains. There are lots of 'a' things in the town and lots of displays based on the huge floats that are paraded through the streets in August each year. We tested out one display before we left the station.



The large bridge in town kinda looks 'a' shaped. I think that was planned.


We had dinner that night in a very small little bar place, part of a replica of olden time bars. The guy behind the bar told us he was Japanese Johnny Depp.


As the sun was shining on Saturday morning, we took the glass lift to the top of the giant 'a' building. The views were amazing.











Then we boarded the local bus and headed out of town to a gallery. There were some amazing artworks which we werent allowed to photograph, but the giant dog sculpture was the highlight.


Next to the gallery was a recreation of a town from the Jomon period.


These people were dressing up in the clothes from the Jomon period, so i took a pic of them to save us the trouble.


Our tour guide (and sister) Kathryn took us to a local fish market for lunch. It was so fresh and yummy - well except for the dish I thought was mushrooms but turned out to be very sticky sea urchin. Not recommended.

We wandered around town, spending much time in 'do not enter' areas. We got to see inside the warehouses where the giant floats are being made.








We also visited a museum housing some of the floats from past years. They are enormous and the artists are quite famous, at least in float making circles.














I have sooooo many photos of the floats. I loved them.

Anita and I modeled fish head wear in the shop at the museum. Not really sure why....


Dinner Saturday night was in a little local Ramen shop. It was THE BEST curry ramen ever.


We stopped in Morioka on the trip back to Tokyo. It was a good choice as it's a really beautiful town with so much to see. This local lady was looking very Monet-esque.


















We were stopping for a caffeine break when we heard drums and parade type noise. We wandered outside and saw an awesome parade.





These dudes posed for me just before they took over float-carrying duties. Shame they forgot to put their pants on.


After all this excitement it was time to head back to Tokyo, find my locker and grab my pack then run down escalators holding pack above my head, to catch the last express train out to Narita Airport.

Sayanara land of the rising sun. It's been a blast.

Posted from somewhere round the world...

1 comment:

  1. I still cry when I think of how good that scallop was at the fish market place. I think it was the best thing I've ever eaten in my life.

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