Blogs from Morioka, Iwate, Japan, Asia
May 13th 2010
Today I headed off to Iwate prefecture's capital, Morioka. This city is much bigger than Mizusawa or Hiraizumi and more used to foreigners, which meant that much more was written in Romaji (Japanese written phonetically in Roman letters) or in English. The journey itself was very picturesque, taking us through paddy fields and villages, with a stunning mountaineous backdrop. Morioka itself was... cold and grey (although not actually raining). Having walked around Chuson-ji the day before, I decided to give Morioka's temple district a miss and headed instead for the park with the ruins of the old castle and the Sakura (cherry blossom) shrine. Some cherry blossom - the weeping cherry trees - was still out and made for a stunning backdrop. The castle and grounds are now the city park, and give commanding views over ... read more
June 20th 2009
Today I looked at apartments..one was very small with one room and a bath but it had a great view of the river. The second one was bigger with a good view of the river, but it would be very hot in the summer. The 3rd one had no view except that of a parking lot but it was very big with 3 separate rooms and would be cooler in the summer. I chose the 3rd one as it is the biggest and I bought a lot of things for my place..it also has a crawl space for storage. I don't have any photos of this apartment yet but I have some of the great view from my work place. I must pay out about $2500.00 but in yen 250,000 yen, and that gives me one ... read more
October 2nd 2008
Lake Tazawako Marathon A lot of decision making and ideas to conquer the world come about after you’ve had at least one nomihodai and a karaoke session. Running the Lake Tazawako Marathon was one of them! My name was down for the 10km run and before I knew I was at the starting line ready to go! I was a little nervous as running is definitely not my forte and waking up on the day of the marathon to heavy rain made me doubt my efforts even more. However all pumped and ready to go the gun fired and we were off! I quickly made my way to the end of the pack, but managed to keep a steady pace and luckily I wasn’t last. There were people along the sides of the road the whole ... read more
September 21st 2008
I'm writing this from about 100m below the bottom of the sea separating Hokkaido and Honshu. Today's just a pure travel day, my next real destination is Matsumoto, near Nagano. Yesterday was a nothing day, didn't sleep well the night before, the pictures below were taken the previous nights. Last night was stuck in the same dorm room as a snorer so again not much rest... stopping tonight in Morioka going to try checking in to a real hotel just so I can have a good nights rest, but failing that there's a rather nice capsule inn right by the station... somewhere I think. Morioka's a pretty cool little city stayed here a few nights my last trip. Didn't book my tickets for this ahead of time so stuck in the non reserved area of the ... read more
September 16th 2008
As you know Japan is known for its famous festivals which you can find just about in any town in this country and nearly every weekend! Morioka is host to a few major festivals every year. The latest matsuri had women, men and children all dressed up in colourful outfits, parading down the streets with portable shrines and colourful floats all to the sounds of taiko (Japanese drums). The floats we’re so big and you could see that so much detail went into each one. It was hosted down Morioka’s main street Odori. Afterwards we made our way to the local shrine where they had a small fair, where you could buy all sorts of traditional Japanese foods and play games like “Kinyo Sukui” where you win as many gold fish as you can catch! (It’s ... read more
August 4th 2008
This is Morioka’s most famous ‘Matsuri’ (festival) and it has to been seen to be believed. Hundreds of locals and gaigin alike form groups and parade down Morioka’s main street - Odori. It runs over 4 nights of singing, dancing and playing a memorizing tune to the sound of banging drums. My best-friend Renee arrived in Morioka on the 2nd of August and stayed with me for nearly 3 weeks. The night we went to the festival was on the 4th. That morning we all woke up packed a bag and headed to Okasans. (My extended family) Megan came with us that day too. We arrived at Okasans at 2pm where she filled us up with her famous cooking and got started on getting us ready for the festival. She was going to dress us in ... read more
July 5th 2008
My first day teaching at my new school in Daishin had me on the doorstep of probably the most generous and hospitable families I have ever met. As I was 5 hours early for my classes that day (I was only new so that’s to be expected) I met my Japanese Teacher Chikako for the first time and she was telling about the family who lived next door to the school. After preparing my lessons she offered to take me over and introduce me. We rang the door bell and this lovely older man came to the door with a very fluffy poodle names Iffi. “Konichiwa” he said and bowed politely my name is Junichi. I said hello and he pointed to the garden where his wife was so we walked over. I saw this humble ... read more
June 10th 2008
One of the first Japanese words I learnt when I first moved to Morioka was Nomihodai! It means all you can drink! It’s very important for a gaigin for know this word if they want to survive. It’ll save you a lot of money if you ask any place you go to for Nomihodai. You’re looking at spending about 1800yen ($18aud) for 2 hours or more. Usually you need to order a meal as well but you can order anything you want even a side salad. Our first night out was spent at the Kitchen Bar, a loud busy place where it seems a lot of locals end up after work. Its not rude here to catch the attention of the wait staff by yelling ‘sumimsen’ it basically translates to ‘excuse me’ and you raise your ... read more
May 26th 2008
So we said our goodbyes and each jumped on a train heading for our prefectures which are like our states in Australia. I had 12 minutes to transfer trains at Tokyo! 12 minutes! Impossible! I was in a mad state of affairs, I ran around the station like a mad person finally found someone who could speak English to point me to the right direction and jumped onto a shinkensen waiting on the platform. Still not sure whether I was on the right train or not but with no time left I took the chance and the train doors literally shut behind me. I was still catching my breath wondering whether I had gotten on the right train or not! But I arrived in Morioka 2 ½ hours later! Phew! Morioka is a small town of ... read more
October 30th 2007
Though we love Tokyo, we were happy to be leaving its mad energy for a few days to head northwards to the small city of Morioka. We had talked about going as far north as Sapporo, on the mysterious and sparsely populated island of Hokkaido, but time was against us, so we decided instead to head for Kakunodate, a town a few hours north of Tokyo that still had its old Samurai quarter in a well preserved state. Morioka, as the nearest city to Kakunodate was to be graced with our presence for the duration of our sabbatical from the capital. We found ourselves on the Shinkansen again, this time the Hayate No. 12, and two and a half comfortable hours later we were in Morioka, suddenly very aware that we were the only Big Pink ... read more
