Blogs from Morioka, Iwate, Japan, Asia

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

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

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

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

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