Blogs from Aomori, Japan, Asia - page 2

Fall colors (紅葉, "kouyou"), don't start in Kanto until early to mid November, and generally last until the beginning to the middle of December. It's a long, late stretch that seems really nice, because it makes winter itself feel much shorter. We were, however, very ready to see some beautiful colors, so Rani and I took a somewhat spontaneous two-day trip up to the northern-most part of the Honshu island, which is Aomori prefecture. The 9 hour trip by car took us only 3 hours by shinkansen, and I will never stop being amazed at how convenient it is. I always bring a train beer now, and I can sit and drink and listen to music as the bullet train whisks me off to faraway parts of the country. Technology at its finest! We left Friday ... read more

{Anna} We went to see some children at school. We sat in a lesson. The children were learning the alphabet. It was fun. I looked at some books. The writing went down the page and not across. I saw school dinners being made. {Dad} The teachers and pupils at Chitosa nursery school made us very welcome. We joined in a class where the children were being taught English. The children had fun learning the alphabet. Japanese reading books often have the writing going down the page. You start at the BACK of the book and read each page from top to bottom!... read more

{Anna} We have come to stay with our friends Mark, Yoko, Jasmine and Joshua. They live a long way from Tokyo and we had to travel on a train to get here. There were lots of different trains at the railway station. Our train was the green one and it has a long nose. It was a whizzy fast train. {Dad} We travelled by train to a city called Goshogawara. This is where we are staying with our friends. The Japanese call their trains "Shinkansen". They are more famously known as "Bullet trains". This is because they are shaped like a bullet and they travel very fast. Our Shinkansen train is nicknamed "The Crocodile", this is because of it's long nose and green colour. It can travel nearly 3 times faster than a car travels on ... read more

We headed through the mountains to the center region of Aomori, to visit a museum and see the famous rice art. The Tsugaru Kokeshi Doll museum is in Kuroishi, surrounded by apple orchards. Such a gorgeous little valley. After learning a little bit about the history of kokeshi, we had the chance to make our own. It was still early in the day when we finished, so we strolled through the museum and had a leisurely lunch at a restaurant there. With our limited knowledge of kana, and some pictures on the cell phone, we were able to order curry and shrimp tempura! There was another airman and his mom there on the tour as well, but they had huge issues communicating and ended up with food they were not happy with. We topped it off ... read more

So I met a rather jet lagged Martin at Niigata station in order to start our trip up the west coast and towards the North of Japan. Our first stop was Mount Haguro and to a temple lodging at the base of the mountain. It was a very bleak journey due to the extremely miserable weather which I am sure made it feel colder than it actually was. We arrived at Haguro centre and with some time to kill before check in we decided to explore the nearby Zuishi-mon temple. On descending the steps we were met with a eerie misty atmosphere and quite substantial snow on the ground, not what we were expecting at the top of the steps where it was just raining. Following the woodland trail we stumbled across a beautiful 600 year ... read more