Coast to coast: Day 7

I'm home!

And worn out.  (For a good reason, though.)

I was woken up this morning by what I thought was the alarm on my phone, but when I grabbed it to shut it off, I saw instead that it read EARTHQUAKE.  Seconds later the building was swaying.  My room was on the eleventh floor so it rocked quite a bit.

Ever since 3/11 (2011), the phone companies have made a big effort to use phones to provide early earthquake alerts whenever possible.  Usually they come only seconds before the tremors (like this morning). Today's quake registered a magnitude 6.8, and struck in nearly the same place as the big one four years ago.  In Akita, it was more like a 4 or 5, but it was stronger in the places that I'd been only a few days ago.

It happened at about a quarter after 6, but I was able to relax enough to get in one more hour of sleep before I was up for the day.

I checked out of the hotel earlier than I usually do, left my suitcase in a locker at the train station, and took the train to the north part of the city to Koizumigata Park. On the special rapid train I took on Monday, all of the passengers were given a pamphlet that included information on various tourist sites at all the different stops, which is how I found out about this park. I'm so glad I read about it; the park wasn't mentioned in other Akita City tourist information, but it is definitely worth the visit.

 

Much to my (pleasant) surprise, it was much larger than I'd realized.  I'd thought I was just going to see a pond and maybe a small surrounding garden, but the further I walked, the more pathways I found leading further beyond the pond.

And, I got to do one of my favorite things to do at a Japanese garden...

Feed the fish!

Boxes of koi food are sold with the garden's name printed on the front.
The piece of paper taped to it is a fortune.

Information on Koizumigata Park:

Transportation: 17 minutes by train from Akita station, 240 yen one way
Entry: FREE! (or 100 yen if you buy a box of koi food)
Website: http://koizumigatapark.jp/ (Japanese)


Back in the downtown area, I had two hours to kill before getting on the shinkansen (bullet train).  I walked around, did a little last minute souvenir shopping, picked up a sandwich and a green tea donut, grabbed my suitcase from the locker, and then headed for the train platform.

It felt so good to sit down!  I had a four hour journey to rest, have lunch, and of course enjoy the view on my way back to Tokyo.

Home at last.

Coast to coast: Day 6

Today was much more laid back than the rest of my trip has been...in fact, I was kind of thankful that a forecast of rain would help me to trim down the list of places I would consider going.

I gave myself permission to sleep in.

And ate pancakes for breakfast. (With hot almond milk.)

First on the agenda was the Akita Prefectural Museum of Art, which I had intentionally put off yesterday because I wanted something to do indoors today.

A new exhibition just opened on Sunday: "In the Countryside: Akita landscapes, children, and women". It was an fascinating collection of black-and-white photographs, mostly from the 1940s and 50s, showing the day to day life of the people that lived in this area.

I loved the pictures, and wish I had a way to put them up here for everyone to see. I spent a long time wandering through hall, thinking of what it must have been like to live here then, and about how much modern convenience has changed the way we live, the way we think about labor, and even the things that we celebrate. I don't know what the photographer had in mind when he took the photos, but it made me think of how much gets taken for granted in my everyday routine.

After I left the exhibition I spent a little time walking through the shops in the blocks near the station.  Bought my return trip ticket for tomorrow and then found some yummy local souvenirs that I'm looking forward to bringing back to Tokyo to share.

Spent the middle of the afternoon relaxing in my hotel room, and then went out again in the early evening to take the train a little bit north of the downtown area to the Akita Port Tower Selion, which has a free observation deck 100 meters up.  Thought I'd try to go see the sunset from the tower, although today was so overcast I knew my chances were slim of seeing colors like I saw yesterday.

I arrived much earlier than I expected to, but was delighted to discover that there is a quaint little greenhouse in the building adjoining the tower.

A nice way to pass the time before taking the elevator to the observation deck.

I was still an hour before sunset.

I love observation towers, and at the same time they drive me crazy: I'll find a nice angle for a picture, but the window will be too dirty or there will be a weird glare from the lit-up emergency sign in the hallway behind me...

After a few tries, I eventually got a few nice photos of the port and also the mountains bordering Akita to the east.

Looking up the middle of the tower from the first floor

I was up where the blue lights are

Stayed until the sun went down, even though it was too cloudy to tell where the sun was; the sky really just went from grey to darker grey. Stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the station to get some produce for dinner, and came back to the hotel.

Tomorrow I head back to Tokyo, so tonight's task is seeing whether I can fit everything back into the suitcase...

Coast to coast: Day 5

Today I took a special rapid service train called the Resort Shirakami. I stumbled upon information about this train around the end of last year when I was planning my January trip to Hokuriku. The line is said by some to be one of the most beautiful train journeys in Japan, and since it's in my favorite region of the country I decided I wanted to try and make time for it.

For about three hours of my 4.5 hour trip, the train travels along the northwest coastline of the island of Honshu (Japan's largest island), and the big picture windows afford breathtaking views of jagged boulders, turbulent waves and wide open sky. We were also treated to a shamisen performance, which is a type of Japanese music that I love--it is an instrument native to this region and it is a part of the culture that is still strong today. Along the way, the land on either side of the tracks is spread with rice paddies, where Akita prefecture's famed komachi rice is grown.

One of my last views of Mt. Iwaki

I arrived in Akita City in time to do some late-afternoon sightseeing at the city's Senshu Park, a quick 5 minute walk from the station.  Visitors come here to see Kubota Castle, azaleas in full bloom, and a Japanese-style garden.  A group of retired men finishing up a picnic in a corner of the Japanese garden had had enough to drink that they shouted greetings to me in English as I walked by.

From the park I headed to check in at my hotel and settle in a bit before going out again.  My last excursion for the night was to the Kawabata district, which the tourist office says is "for dining and evening entertainment", so I thought it might be an interesting place to try out a little night photography with my new camera. (A downtown "entertainment" district is usually not my cup of tea in the evening otherwise...)  It was a little less interesting than I expected, so I'll have to find something better to take pictures of tomorrow night. :)

The view from the window of my hotel room

In a public space near the train station, young men practice for the
Akita Kanto summer festival.  These poles represent ears of rice and are
balanced on the hand, shoulder, forehead (shown here), or lower back.

Entrance to the entertainment district

~~~

Yesterday it occurred to me that I should've had a map with these posts so it's easier to see where I've been...so I've cobbled one together with Google maps, and come up with this:

Key:
Day 0: night bus departs Tokyo.
Day 1: Hiraizumi, a little to the south of Morioka.
Day 2: Morioka
Day 3: Hachinohe
Day 4: Aomori City and Hirosaki
Day 5: arrival in Akita

It's a rather horseshoe-shaped trip.  But for the remainder of my vacation I'm staying put--no more hotel changes or lengthy train trips, until the bullet train back to Tokyo on Wednesday...

Coast to coast: Day 4

I'm at the halfway point of my vacation, both geographically and time-wise, and (good news!) I'm on the mend from whatever I had that made me feel so crappy yesterday.

Squeezed a lot in today, although fortunately I didn't feel rushed.  After checking out of my hotel I had an hour to kill so I bought a little apple tart and then went to a cafe to get some hot milk and charge my iPod before heading out of town.  Enjoyed a leisurely 90 minute ride up to Aomori City, a port city that I visited for the first time three years ago.

View from the train window about an hour outside of Aomori City

Aomori wasn't one of the stops I'd originally planned on, but when I realized that traveling to Hirosaki meant a transfer there, I decided to get off the train for a couple of hours.  The weather was beautiful and I wanted to walk around a little.  I went up to the observation deck at ASPAM (Aomori's Tourist Center), a giant pyramid-looking building which *actually* is meant to be in the shape of a letter "A".  Spent a while enjoying the blue skies and the view across Aomori Bay.

My next and final destination for the day was Hirosaki, another city I'd visited 3 years ago. Hirosaki is famous for its park filled with cherry trees that are usually in bloom during Golden Week (the week of national holidays during the first few days of May).  This time, I'm a week too late to see everything at its peak, but I was still able to track down a couple of trees with a bit of pink left:

I was also able to see the castle, which I'd thought I wouldn't be able to do since I'd read that they're readying to move it to another location in the park in order to do renovation on its stone walls. I'd heard the work was going to start as soon as cherry blossom season ended, so I was surprised to see it still intact.





I stayed in the park for about two hours, wandering around taking photos.  Funny story: the first time I was here I stopped to listen to a shamisen (a Japanese 3-stringed instrument) performance and an elderly man approached me and asked if I wanted to come enjoy a picnic with him and his colleagues.  Long story short(er), I ended up spending the entire rest of the afternoon with 7 friendly salarymen.  The two that were closest to my age took me on a tour around the park and one of them took a whole bunch of photos, promising to e-mail them to me. But it turns out he must have been drunker than he seemed because I never heard from him again and I assume he forgot. (I wonder what he thought later when he found all of these pictures of me on his camera...) So this time, it was my goal to get some shots of the places I didn't last time.

The trees lining both sides of the river are cherry trees--this whole place was pink a little over a week ago...

Isn't that mallard gorgeous? He looks like someone painted those colors on him.

Eventually, I made my way back to the benches at the top of the hill to wait for the sun to go down behind Mt. Iwaki (different from Mt. Iwate, from Day 2). I only ended up with one photo of this mountain on my last visit, and it was pretty overcast that day. It was well worth the 45 minute wait for this sunset:

A lovely way to end the day.  Tomorrow's the highlight of my trip: a 4.5 hour train journey down the coastline to my next (and final) stop!