Morioka + Aomori

Moriaka:

Caught the Shinkansen to Morioka for a single overnight stay, we weren’t originally planning on stopping in at this city, as it’s a pretty small skippable city, small industrial town vibes. However, due to flight prices our trip is 5 days longer than originally planned so we figured since it’s on the way to Aomori we may as well stop in. A place called Koiwai farm caught my eye online which is why we went to Morioka to visit. Dropped our stuff at the hotel, and legged it to the train station to catch the one of 3 daily trains that actually stops at the Koiwai farm stop. This train ride was probably the prettiest one we have been on so far in Japan (will be topped by the train ride from Aomori to Akita we take on Wednesday) even though it only lasted about 20minutes. It cut and weaved through the countryside, all the deciduous trees and thick forest in their magnificent yellow and red colours, again these rural train stations are truly something straight out of a studio Ghibli film, the vibes are unmatched. A quick bus ride from the station to the farm, and this supposed glorious farm and nature landscape with cherry blossom trees and glorious mountainous backdrops as promised by the internet was in sight. However, much to my dismay when we got there it appeared to be nothing more than a touristy amusement park for the Japanese population. Filled to the brim with little shit dogs, such as chihuahuas and the small yappy ones with lots of attitude, you know the types of dogs I’m referring to. The way the Japanese coddled these little creatures was insane, at least half of the dogs there were being pushed around in prams, we even saw an adolescent poodle with a diaper on. All these dogs had special jumpers and cute human clothing. Liao theorised that half of the people who owned these dogs treated them as substitute children contributing to the low birth rate in Japan. The worst part about it was they were all so yappy, go out to a beautiful part of the countryside and it’s just barking from dogs that honestly needed to get wacked. There was this absolutely gorgeous view I’d seen online that I wanted to figure out how to get to, so I asked one of the staff members and it turns out all the good spots shown on the website are inaccessible to the public. Still, there was some good stuff to see, Japanese barns and cow sheds and breeding sheds etc, much more up my father and his brothers’ alley then mine though. After this farm experience we caught a bus back to central Morioka, and where I wanted to do this river walk called the kitakami river walk which is meant to be absolutely gorgeous. However, it was raining decently heavily and since it’s winter it gets dark here by about 4pm ish. So I rushed to go find some bicycles to hire to do this walk as it’s actually a really long walk following the river from central Morioka to 2hrs south of morioka if you’re so inclined. Once we had found some bikes we rushed down to the river to go see what we could in the dying light, however along the river in the central part of town there was a heap of warning cones about bears near the river. Which apparently have a tendency to attack people, unlike Canada where the bears aren’t dumb enough to do that, or more likely, the people in Canada aren’t stupid enough to try and feed bears, promoting this behaviour from bears. So, we rode for about 30mins and after that it’d got too dark to really see anything and Liao clearly wasn’t enjoying himself on the bike as he hadn’t ridden one in a long time, so we dropped the bikes back and immediately after while trying to find a restaurant for dinner…

Boom, crash, and a heck of a lot of screaming. A young Nepalese girl had been t-boned at a crosswalk by a car while riding her bike across the crossing. We were on the opposite side of the intersection buying drinks from a vending machine (naturally) and it took us a second to process the scene. I waited a few seconds to see if anyone was going to do anything, but the only thing that happened was the car that hit the girl pulled over. So I walked across the intersection, to grab the bike out of the way and tend to the girl. She was screaming her head off saying how sore her back was and a lot of screaming for her mummy (who wasn’t there), her arm was twisted behind her back in a very unnatural position and most likely broken or dislocated. I won’t go into depths of the particulars because it’s not a nice read or thing to see / experience. However, she didn’t speak much Japanese and spoke decent English and no Japanese people seemed to be stopping so it looked like we were it. Liao stood out on in front of the crosswalk to stop traffic from hitting the girl as we didn’t want to move her with a suspected spinal, i used my limited Japanese to find a Japanese person walking past who spoke good enough English, to communicate with me to call the ambulance and police. Once that was taken care of I went back to the girl - who was beyond being able to calm, best I could do with the language barrier was try to make idle conversation, which was pretty hard in between all the screams and cry’s for help. I managed to find out she was Nepalese and from Kathmandu, here on some form of training trip, I used her phone to tell her teacher where she was and what hospital she was going to, which was a bit of a tough one. Luckily Vivek is Indian and speaks Hindi which the girl’s family also spoke so he was on the phone to them telling them what was going on. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do until the emergency services arrived. It’s definitely not something I’ve thought about or experienced before. How to treat and engage with a trauma victim with a language barrier, and a language barrier in another country with local services. My Japanese is no where near good enough to talk through with paramedics about a trauma situation. However, as the readers are aware, big trauma situations seem to follow me around like a ghost, so I guess I’ll be prepared for next time now. I will remark on how disappointed I was with the Japanese response, in this country there’s a big “mind your own business” attitude which is odd given how respectful and mindful the Japanese are culturally. Not one person stopped there car to block the road or get out to help, everyone that assisted were pedestrians that we flagged down and recruited to help. The driver of the car as you will see in the photos was of no use either, she was in shock herself. After this event, we went to a pub and debriefed and very good response from us as a group I’d say.

Aomori Day 1:

Next morning we caught the Shinkansen to Aomori which is the northernmost city in Honshu, Japan’s mainland. This day was a bit of a chillier day, wandering around the city looking at whatever took our fancy, there was a ramen festival as it was a Japanese public holiday called cultural day which is apparently a big public holiday in Japan. I love my ramen but the queues for this ramen were about 1hr long so opted to eat my lunch without waiting in a massive line. At the mall near the train station, we looked at an apple factory, as they make a lot of apples here. Then went into Nobuta museum which is a museum about a festival they hold every year here which is quite a funny festival as they’ve been holding it for over 300 years but basically, the entire point of the festival is to ward off sleepiness in summer so you can have a productive summer and survive winter. The Japanese word for sleep is “Neru” which is where they think the “nobuta” festival derives its name from. The museum had these massive floats they use for the festivals which was pretty cool. We then went to this ferry museum of the ferry that used to do the run from the mainland to the northern island Hokkaido. It was a really big ferry, and used to have trains and all types of goods on board it, before it was decommissioned, it made these very unnerving creaking noises and since it was so unweighted while in the water it rocked side to side a decent amount. We caught an elevator down 5 floors while in the ship to get from the helm to the engine room. Which was a very unnerving experience as you go down an elevator while rocking sideways.

Aomori day 2:

Woke up very early to catch a 3hr bus to lake Towada, and do the Oirase gorge walk. We thought we’d get to the bus platform early, so we could grab some food for the trip. As it’s fairly rural and we figured the food options would be limited. However, once we got to the bus platform, the was a queue that stretched and wrapped around the entirety of the station - easily 200m long. We thought surely not, this has to be for some other destination like the airport or something. Alas, no, it was the genuine queue for the bus to our destination. So, Liao and I rapidly joined the queue (Vivek opted not to join this outing, as he has a fear of boats and being on them) forgoing our hearty baked goods and drinks we had dreamed of purchasing for luncheon. While in line, we were rapidly researching hire car options, trying to calculate how long we would have to wait for another bus. As this service only runs 3 times a day, quite spaced out. Did we need an international drivers license? Rats! We did need one, well our only option was to sit tight, and hope that we somehow made it onto the bus, and put our faith in the Japanese public transportation system. As it turns out this trust was very well founded, as the Japanese ran an, on demand bus schedule, running as many coaches as required, to empty the queue for the time slot that the bus was intended to run for. We made it onto the very last bus and were even the very last 2 people allowed onto the bus. As we got onto the bus, every single seat was already filled however. Shit… looks like we’re standing for the next 3 hours, through some fairly mountainous terrain. But no! Again the Nippons deliver, they had seats connected to the aisle seat that folded down to form a sort of mini seat. While not as comfortable as a full seat, it sure beat standing. Driving through the mountain ranges to the lake, we were handed stunning views of alpine snow capped mountains, trees covered head to toe in snow above the snow line, snow along the road, and an absolutely stunning sea of yellow and red as the deciduous trees turned into their autumn colours. This sea of red and yellow spanned as far as the eye could see, which while probably normal for non Australians, I couldn’t stop gawking at it, the leaves falling in a majestic dance with the wind, reflecting golden light off the morning sun. We definitely picked a good time to go as the bus and ferry service stop for the year, 6 days after we went. With all the trees in full fledged de-leafing, these majestic colours would enthral me for the entire day.

Eventually our bus, after a fairly long drive arrived at Towadaka, we purchased some one way ferry tickets to catch the ferry from the southern side of the lake to the northern side, where we would get off and walk north along Oraise gorge and get picked up by a bus. The building we bought the tickets from was very unassuming, typical 2 storey government building, a single old man, manning the counter, odd condiments and souvenirs strewn throughout. Once we exited the building, Liao noticed a small sign saying the second floor sold ramen. We figured what the hell, let’s have a sticky beak. We go up and there’s a decent sized kitchen with a lovely homely second storey overlooking the lake and the ferry wharf. What a little gem! Naturally we devour some decently yummy ramen while waiting for our ferry. It’s also around 2degrees so some hearty ramen goes very well with the temperature vibe. We ride the ferry to the northern side of the lake, and it was an absolutely spectacular experience, the weather was really good for it. Great recommendation from my cousin Lloyd. Lake Towada is the biggest inland lake in Honshu (main island of Japan), and besides the ferry, we essentially had the entire place to ourselves, no one else on the lake.

Once we reach the northern side of the lake, we embarked on the walk for the gorge, which we were really excited for as it was just genuinely so beautiful. Although I’m sure Liao was slightly annoyed at me ranting about how bullshit some superstitions and gimmicks are. On the trail there were large Taiwanese tour groups , and they all had these stupid bells attached to their bags that would ding loudly and annoyingly whenever they moved. In theory, they are meant to ward off bears as there’s supposedly a lot of bears in the area. However, much like those anti kangaroo whistles that people attach to their cars (which definitely do not work) I believe these bells would do nothing except annoy my ears. Much to Liao’s dismay, I let my opinions on this important matter be known to him while we were in transit to the start of the gorge walk. I’ll let my photos of the walk do most of the talking, which I’m sure you’ve seen by now, as everyone seems to look at the pictures without context before reading my blog. I will say that i ran out of camera storage on my Canon I took so many pictures.

Okay i changed my mind, let me transport you to rural Japan with me along the Oraise gorge walk. You’re in an autumn forest, a path carpeted with fallen leaves, vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds creating a breathtaking tapestry beneath your feet. The air is crisp and cool, carrying the earthy scent of damp soil. Sunlight filters through the canopy, illuminating the golden foliage, yet at the same time casting dancing shadows on the forest floor as a soft gentle wind rustles the branches, causing the leaves to sway and dance with a delicate motion. A shower of yellow leaves drifts down around you like falling feathers, golden leafs twirling gracefully in the breeze. Each leaf pirouettes and dances for you, before gently landing on the forest floor adding to the tapestry. Your attention draws to the nearby cascading waterfall, a constant melody. The mist from the cascading water rises, carrying a refreshing coolness that mixes with the autumn air. The waterfall itself a magnificent spectacle, a silver ribbon against a backdrop of deep green moss, and fiery autumn colours. Here amidst the vibrant hues and the serene power of nature, you find a moment of profound peace and beauty. A scene that captures the essence of autumn in Japan. A fleeting yet unforgettable experience of natures artistry.

Anyone who’s played the video game “the ghost of Tsushima” knows exactly the vibe I’m capturing and trying to relay to you dear readers, which I hoped you enjoyed because that paragraph took me way too long to write.

We caught the bus back to Aomori and i had an amazing nap, Liao and I absolutely raided the dessert section of a convenience store. I think we totalled 8 desserts (still cost barely $10), before heading back to the hotel to have a slow day tomorrow before we head to Akita.Read more