Akita

I like to incorporate a bit of nature and park things into my itinerary. I find it relaxing to just walk around in a forest or just stare at mountains in the distance. So today i chose to go to Tazawanuma a caldera lake east of Morioka. The trip would be a fairly easy one, just one ride with the Shinkansen to Senboku station and then a short 12 minute bus ride to the lake. I got out of the bus and the tourboat was already waiting and so within 5 minutes i was cruising the lake. I can't tell you much more about the lake except that it's 442.3 meters deep since all the explanation was only in Japanese. Nevertheless it was a nice boatride and since the weather was really sunny and clear we had some nice views of the surrounding mountains. There were two short stops along the way, one for a shinto shrine and another one was a famous statue of a local girl called Tatsuko. According to legend, Tatsuko was a beautiful girl who prayed to retain her beauty forever but was instead cursed and turned into a dragon and eventually sunk to the bottom of Lake Tazawa. After that it was back to the pier and i took the bus back to Senboku station. I checked the timetable for the Shinkansen that would take me back to Morioka. The train arrived and i was kind of suprised since i expected the train to come from the opposite direction but since i have this all the time here in Japan i did not think very much of it and boarded the train and fell asleep. After about an hour of light napping i was surprised to hear the anouncer call Akita as the next and final station. I got into the wrong train! At first i wanted to take the next train back to Morioka but i figured i could just stroll around Akita for a bit and take the next train back. That turned out to be a good choice. A local TV station held a small festival there with music and i believe some famous comedians. And of course plenty of food stalls with all different kinds of meat skewers, noodles and whatnot. And somewhere tucked in between was a stall from a local Akita craft beer brewery. They use rice as one of their ingredient and it gives their beer a wonderfully refreshing tast. Of course i had to try all three beers they had on tap and meanwhile i had a nice talk with Ikukosan from the brewery. Slightly inebriated, I got to the station and actually took the right train back to Morioka. I watched some crazy karaoke show in my hotel room for a while and went to bed.Read more