Aomori had a lot of snow. Way more than Hokkaido. We also had no idea what there was to do in Aomori, and as soon as we rolled into the station, we went straight to the tourist center and just pulled as many guides and maps as we could. We had had a pretty exhausting trip so far and so we the tentative plan was to head to our hotel which was located over half an hour outside of Aomori in Hirosaki and spend most of the day chilling out.
Still, we had time to fit in one place and chose to go check out the free entry 三内丸山遺跡 Sannai Maruyama Iseki. Sannai Maruyama is actually an archaeological treasure and home to the dig-site of a village from the Jomon Period (13000 - 300 BC). We didn't get a chance to check it all out, but we did want to go see the famous ancient structures that were uncovered.
Not those. Those were just random snow huts they built out in front of the museum. The signs that read "yusa," "dosa," and "na" did not make any sense to me either.
I forget what that's supposed to be (maybe a house), but it's pretty big. I was impressed. The outdoor museum continued on like this, but we decided to head back in since even just walking around with all that snow on the ground was difficult. Sannai Maruyama Iseki was actually interesting and of course the price can't be beat.
We headed back to the station and took the surprisingly long train to Hirosaki, around where our hotel was located. During the train ride, I had this bright idea to go check out the night views of Hirosaki Castle before we decided to check-in. So, with all of our luggage in hand, we looked around for a bus that would take us to Hirosaki Park and hopped onto one the bus driver told us would get there. A 45 minute tour of Hirosaki later, we were dropped off at the Southern entrance to the park.
At this point, we entered this foreboding gate and went through the creepiest adventure of our trip.
That park was super big and super freaky. I thought there might be some people in there, because we saw a group of about six people leaving as we went in. Turns out those were the only six people in the entire park. We walked towards the middle of the park where the castle was supposed to be, stopping periodically to check maps. We were looking at one in the dark when an enormous amount of snow fell off a tree and landed right next to us scaring the living crap out of us. V started begging me to leave, but I was convinced we were close to seeing the castle and forced her on.
So that's the castle. It had a different name on the map. I was looking for 弘前城 and instead saw 本丸、二の丸、and 天-something. I totally thought the castle was honmaru and that the one above was ninomaru. So even though we had spent 15 minutes trudging through the haunted park, I felt like we needed to go and find honmaru. We didn't go any further though, and it turns out that the castle above is actually the main castle. It's a lot smaller than I thought it would be.
We continued out to the Eastern exit, which turned out to be the creepiest place of all.
Doesn't that look like a scene out of a horror movie? Around this time is when we starting sprinting for the exit. Safe and sound, we grabbed a taxi and made our way to our last onsen hotel, Minamida Appleland.
Appleland is actually located a half an hour train ride outside of Hirosaki in Hiraka. It really is out in the middle of nowhere, and the only view we saw on the way there was endless blackness blanketed in snow. The train at 8PM was only filled with cram-school students. We eventually got there, got checked in and then headed to our apple-themed dinner. There were a couple of courses and then a buffet table of delicious appley delights. Even our hotel room came with a couple of apples.
Notice a theme yet? The biggest draw of Appleland are the apple onsens. Yep, that's right. Outdoor hot springs with apples floating in them. I'm not sure what it does for your skin, but it sure does smell nice. It's kind of hard to navigate an onsen full of apples since the apples tend to float away from where you enter the bath, but if you can get the apples to distribute evenly, it's pretty cool to be dipping with some apples bobbing around you. If you can't distribute them evenly, they'll just float by themselves in the corner. I love rotenburos by the way, especially in the winter. I feel like you can just last longer and prevent overheating when your head is out in the cold. It's great.
The back garden of Appleland is populated by what look to be apple trees. Seems like it would be pretty nice to come and visit in the fall. Appleland is in stark contrast with Nagisatei, and the hotel tries really hard to make sure you really enjoy your stay. It may be a little out of your way, but they really make you feel welcome. Highly recommended.
The last day of our journey rolled around, and we first went back to Hirosaki Castle to check it out during the day.
A winter wonderland scene.
But still a little creepy. The day started out with a bit of rain, so we decided to buy an umbrella to get us through the day. The rain cleared up by the time we made it back to Aomori, and we stashed the umbrella and our bags into a coin locker. Unfortunately, the weather went totally ADD for the rest of the day with a lot of sun, a little bit of rain, a touch of a blizzard, and them some hail.
First up was the Aomori Museum of Art, the whitest museum in the world. It didn't help that there was snow everywhere, but there was literally no color in that museum at all. The bathrooms were also completely white including the toilet handle and the faucet. It was kinda eerie.
The Aomori Museum of Art is filled with mostly contemporary works from mostly Aomori artists. And let me tell you, Aomori artists are craaazyy. Not sure what else to say about it but I think anyone who stops through Aomori should go check it out. If you go when it's warm, you can actually go outside and stand under the dog.
In the winter, you are restricted to view it from indoors. In case, you can't get the scale of that dog, we were looking at it from the second basement. Because of the snow, it kinda looks like the dog is a chef! A sleepy chef.
Surprisingly, one of the best parts of the museum was the Four Cats Cafe. There was nobody there when we sat down to grab a bite, but we peacefully stared out the window
and chowed down on some amazing BLT Chicken Bagel.
That Aomori chicken was delicious. I recently had a conversation about breeding some Kobe chicken (super fatty poultry), but it may already exist in Aomori. And it tastes awesome.
Next up, we headed to Niconico Dori in downtown Aomori to get to the fish market before they closed.
The Aomori fish market is most famous for one dish: the nokke-don. The nokke-don is basically a very typical donburi that begins with a bowl of rice.
and then you go from stall to stall and nokke (I don't actually know what that means) anything you want onto the rice.
We didn't go too crazy with ours, but you see we got some seafood and meat in there. All the veggie places were closed already, and I didn't feel like venturing into the pickles. The nokke-don really adds up since you pay 50-300 Yen every time you add something on. It's pretty good but more gimmicky than anything and definitely for tourists.
Our final stop of the day was the Asupamu building and the Aoi Umi Park. We made our way down Amenity Street and got to the crazy triangle Asupamu building. I have no idea what Asupamu means. There seem to be a lot of Aomori words I'm just not familiar with...
We passed up the building for now and went behind it where the park sat buried in snow.
The snow was really too deep to navigate easily, and we only ended up wandering it for a bit. I'm only able to stand in the picture above since some people before us packed the snow down in certain areas. V actually fell through the top layer of snow and ended thigh deep in it. There was this cool looking glass pyramid that I wanted to check out though...
and was denied entry.
The rest of our time, we decided to simply waste away in the gift stores that make up the lobby of the Asupamu building. There, we met the Aomori Shinkansen mascot,
who wouldn't stop holding my hand. And then we bought a bunch of omiyage. We also continued our tradition of eating ice cream with an apple flavored one.
On our way out we noticed that some store lady had made a cake for the Shinkansen mascot. It was either the mascot's birthday or the person inside's birthday. We didn't get the camera out fast enough, and only caught the lady taking the cake away. I can only describe to you how entertaining it was to see that blue thing jumping up and down excitedly.
We tried to strategically time our exit with what was supposed to be a light show. A pamphlet we had told us that the Asupamu building lights up all crazy every hour on the hour. Instead, this is all we got:
About this time is also when it started to hail. Therefore, while we waited for it to start flashing, we killed some time by going into a local patisserie Chandola and getting an apple Belgian waffle.
It was heavenly.
Apple waffle eaten, it was finally time for us to get back to Tokyo. Between Aomori and Shin-Aomori, a blizzard suddenly developed outside, completing the weather roulette. Fortunately, inside the station we were able to buy even more omiyage and then we were onto the train and back home.
We didn't know a thing about Aomori before we went, but now we know there are a million things we missed out on. Car rentals in Aomori are super cheap, and it really makes getting around much easier if you have one. Two places we really wanted to check out are Lake Towada and Mt. Hakkoda. Lake Towada is a five hour bus ride away from Aomori, but they have onsen on the southern part of the lake as well as a winter festival which basically consists of drinking hot wine outside in a foot bath surrounded by lights.
Mt. Hakkoda sounds like a snowboarding dream with a fifteen minute ropeway that takes you 1.5 km up near the top. From there you just spend the entire day making your way to the bottom. Amazing. There's a lot to see around Mt. Hakkoda apparently with crazy ice/snow formations and tons of scenic views. If I get the chance, I will be back in Aomori again, but who knows when that will be.
One thing I do know is that Aomori apples are righteously delicious.
No comments:
Post a Comment