Before I start on our late dinner...
May. 18th, 2009 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rkoldI should be catching up on reading LJs, but instead I'm going to share adventures from my Japan GW trip.
Originally, I had booked my flights to go to Doll Show, SCC 1+2 and Dolpa. However after talking to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ee970 I decided to skip Doll Show and instead take a tour of Tohoku. For those curious, Tohoku is the name for the prefectures of Northern Honshu (Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Akita, Yamagata and usually Fukushima, though Fukushima seems less Tohoku to me.) It's an area famous for onsen, fall foliage, mountains, and not being all that populated lol We had hoped to stay up there exploring from Fri night until Wed night but Erin sadly had to return to work, so I decided to continue my Tohoku adventures alone and return to Tokyo late on Thursday.
Since Erin has driven in Japan before, we also decided to rent a car. I greatly appreciate Erin being willing to do this for us and in the end I think it was a much better decision than to train it, since some of the places we went to have little to no train service or just very infrequent bus service. I would say that is probably one of the most challenging things about Tohoku.
Erin really wanted to visit Hirosaki and see the castle. I wanted to see sakura. We both wanted to spend time in onsen. Neither of us counted on rain, blizzards or Towada City not being anywhere near Towada Lake.
For those who didn't hear, I managed to finally get an upgrade from NY to LA even though I think technically I was not supposed to be able to because for some reason since it had the same flight # as the flight from LA to Japan it was supposed to be counted as 1 flight. ~.~ I find this ridiculous as you change planes! But I got my upgrade and slept mostly to LA since the movies sucked. The change in LA was easy, and while I hate economy in 747s it was not so busy so I was happy. After boarding the plane.. we sat.. for 2+ hours... as the TSA removed someone's bag in the most inefficient method possible. Of course this did not affect me alike all the military on my flight who were trying to get to Okinawa and missing their flights. I know the people going to the rest of Asia were mostly rebooked. Once we took off my flight was uneventful and Customs went quickly as no one had heard of the Swine Flu yet.
My plans for my evening in Tokyo were shot, so I returned hubby's Uniqlo jeans at the airport (figuring they would know a lot of English there!) bought a 4 day Flex pass and hopped a NEX directly to Ikebukuro. I was trying a new hotel in Ikebukuro as I had been hoping to go to Animate that evening, but it wasn't happening. I met Erin for a late dinner at a yummy Italian place next to her office.
Friday I knew was going to be busy, but luckily I had jet lag on my side. My plan was to: go to Animate and get my guides for SCC, hop a Tohoku line train from Ikebukuro to Omiya and at Omiya switch to the Shinkansen to Ichinoseki, change there for a local Tohoku line train to Hiraizumi and explore! I'd always wanted to go to Hiraizumi and it made more sense to go on my way North. From Hiraizumi I would go back to Ichinoseki and then continue the additional hour to Morioka where I was to meet Erin at 20:30.
Despite this sounding complicated, it actually all went off a hitch lol I think the hardest thing was I didn't make it to all the temples in Hiraizumi because Chuson-ji was much larger than I expected lol I'd love to go back. The other difficulty was the fact it was much chillier than I expected and I was wishing I had gloves.
Want to guess what series Animate is pushing right now?
The view from the shink going North
While it was quite warm in Tokyo, going to Hiraizumi was like taking a step back to Spring, including sakura
The steps up to the shrine in honor of one of the Minamotos. Hiraizumi was controlled by a branch of the Fujiwara family and at one point rivaled Kamakura for beauty and number of temples. However one of the Minamoto Shoguns asked the Fujiwaras to kill his brother. For a while they sheltered the brother, but eventually did kill him and in thanks the Fujiwaras were destroyed. Moral of this story: Don't get involved with feuding brothers. (the murdered brother is the one this shrine is for)
The view from the top and some of the last blue sky I would be seeing for a few days ;;_;;
Bicycling through Hiraizumi
Some sakura at the entrance to Chuson-ji
I had gotten the impression Chuson-ji was sort of small, I was so wrong, it's a huge temple complex still with long path through cedar trees.
The small shrine attached to Chuson-ji
Tiny shrines in honor of the zodiac
snow capped mountains in the distance.
a small mixed bloom momo I saw while bicycling back to the station
Transferring to get to Morioka was easy though I needed another locker because with 4 SCC guides my bags were incredibly heavy. I saw a branch of the Strawberry Cones Pizza Delivery Servicemuscatlove had once told me about but was having a hard time finding someplace to get dinner. Eventually, I found a tiny Italian place near the station. I met Erin and walked to our hotel. It was a mite chilly and I was learning a long sleeve T, hooded cashmere sweater and sweatshirt was just not enough for Tohoku nights. Our room had a weird set up with a loft bed and a regular bed beneath it. We both went to bed early since Saturday would be longer and the true start of our adventures. :D
Originally, I had booked my flights to go to Doll Show, SCC 1+2 and Dolpa. However after talking to
ee970 I decided to skip Doll Show and instead take a tour of Tohoku. For those curious, Tohoku is the name for the prefectures of Northern Honshu (Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Akita, Yamagata and usually Fukushima, though Fukushima seems less Tohoku to me.) It's an area famous for onsen, fall foliage, mountains, and not being all that populated lol We had hoped to stay up there exploring from Fri night until Wed night but Erin sadly had to return to work, so I decided to continue my Tohoku adventures alone and return to Tokyo late on Thursday.Since Erin has driven in Japan before, we also decided to rent a car. I greatly appreciate Erin being willing to do this for us and in the end I think it was a much better decision than to train it, since some of the places we went to have little to no train service or just very infrequent bus service. I would say that is probably one of the most challenging things about Tohoku.
Erin really wanted to visit Hirosaki and see the castle. I wanted to see sakura. We both wanted to spend time in onsen. Neither of us counted on rain, blizzards or Towada City not being anywhere near Towada Lake.
For those who didn't hear, I managed to finally get an upgrade from NY to LA even though I think technically I was not supposed to be able to because for some reason since it had the same flight # as the flight from LA to Japan it was supposed to be counted as 1 flight. ~.~ I find this ridiculous as you change planes! But I got my upgrade and slept mostly to LA since the movies sucked. The change in LA was easy, and while I hate economy in 747s it was not so busy so I was happy. After boarding the plane.. we sat.. for 2+ hours... as the TSA removed someone's bag in the most inefficient method possible. Of course this did not affect me alike all the military on my flight who were trying to get to Okinawa and missing their flights. I know the people going to the rest of Asia were mostly rebooked. Once we took off my flight was uneventful and Customs went quickly as no one had heard of the Swine Flu yet.
My plans for my evening in Tokyo were shot, so I returned hubby's Uniqlo jeans at the airport (figuring they would know a lot of English there!) bought a 4 day Flex pass and hopped a NEX directly to Ikebukuro. I was trying a new hotel in Ikebukuro as I had been hoping to go to Animate that evening, but it wasn't happening. I met Erin for a late dinner at a yummy Italian place next to her office.
Friday I knew was going to be busy, but luckily I had jet lag on my side. My plan was to: go to Animate and get my guides for SCC, hop a Tohoku line train from Ikebukuro to Omiya and at Omiya switch to the Shinkansen to Ichinoseki, change there for a local Tohoku line train to Hiraizumi and explore! I'd always wanted to go to Hiraizumi and it made more sense to go on my way North. From Hiraizumi I would go back to Ichinoseki and then continue the additional hour to Morioka where I was to meet Erin at 20:30.
Despite this sounding complicated, it actually all went off a hitch lol I think the hardest thing was I didn't make it to all the temples in Hiraizumi because Chuson-ji was much larger than I expected lol I'd love to go back. The other difficulty was the fact it was much chillier than I expected and I was wishing I had gloves.
Want to guess what series Animate is pushing right now?
The view from the shink going North
While it was quite warm in Tokyo, going to Hiraizumi was like taking a step back to Spring, including sakura
The steps up to the shrine in honor of one of the Minamotos. Hiraizumi was controlled by a branch of the Fujiwara family and at one point rivaled Kamakura for beauty and number of temples. However one of the Minamoto Shoguns asked the Fujiwaras to kill his brother. For a while they sheltered the brother, but eventually did kill him and in thanks the Fujiwaras were destroyed. Moral of this story: Don't get involved with feuding brothers. (the murdered brother is the one this shrine is for)
The view from the top and some of the last blue sky I would be seeing for a few days ;;_;;
Bicycling through Hiraizumi
Some sakura at the entrance to Chuson-ji
I had gotten the impression Chuson-ji was sort of small, I was so wrong, it's a huge temple complex still with long path through cedar trees.
The small shrine attached to Chuson-ji
Tiny shrines in honor of the zodiac
snow capped mountains in the distance.
a small mixed bloom momo I saw while bicycling back to the station
Transferring to get to Morioka was easy though I needed another locker because with 4 SCC guides my bags were incredibly heavy. I saw a branch of the Strawberry Cones Pizza Delivery Service
muscatlove had once told me about but was having a hard time finding someplace to get dinner. Eventually, I found a tiny Italian place near the station. I met Erin and walked to our hotel. It was a mite chilly and I was learning a long sleeve T, hooded cashmere sweater and sweatshirt was just not enough for Tohoku nights. Our room had a weird set up with a loft bed and a regular bed beneath it. We both went to bed early since Saturday would be longer and the true start of our adventures. :D