So.. today was a travel day again. From Hachinohe to Akita you go first to Morioka with the Hayabusa Shinkansen and then change to the Komachi Shinkansen for Akita. But first things first: Breakfast.
Today I had a drinkable soft boiled (Onsen) egg top left, Miso soup with some toppings (tofu, spring onions, Wakame seaweed and something I didn't know but it looked good. I guess it was something like dried fishcake? On the rice I put some wasabi leaves and salted plums. On the side menu plate are a soft and juicy meatball, perfect scrambled eggs, pork with ginger, fried chicken, pickled baby scallops and mackerel and salmon Sashimi. It is really a shame that you don't get raw or half raw eggs in German hotels. If the egg is not weeks old all eventual salmonella are on the shell and you can kill them by dumping the egg into boiling water for a few seconds. Problem solved.
There was quite some traffic today in Hachinohe, but the taxi driver made it in time. A very friendly old school driver with uniform and white gloves. It does have style. So the trip started.
Just wanted to show that. The gates are numbered according to the train cars and they are always the same. Never changes. You can just blindly go to the platform and car number you booked and your train will come, dependably and on time (with exception of natural disasters of course).
Detail of the train schema. This train even has a Gran class car. My JR all Japan pass is for green class which is like business class on flights, Gran class is like first class and I'd have to pay an extra fee to get in there. From the pics I saw it is truly luxurious. On longer trips (like Tokyo to Fukuka for example) they even have food service like on planes.
Today was really nice weather. Sunny but not too hot.
Just some impressions.
Erebor?
View from Morioka station.
Update: Yesterday it got too late, so I stopped writing. Today is rain and a thunderstorm forecast until noon and sun afterwards, so I'll use the time to try to get it finished before I go out.
I booked my seat reservations so that I had a bit more time in Morioka. I thought that a crossroad station would have interesting things... Nah. There was a bit of local history and that was about it. So I essentially waited for over an hour.
Silicone delicacies with sea urchin and salmon roe. The real stuff was in the fridge below.
Anpan for Sumo. Of course I had to get one. An are sweet red azuki beans and pan is bread. Anpan are great. The bean paste is sweet and aromatic and the bread is soft and fluffy.
Some local historic farm house?
If you really want to know translate the sign yourself.
Gathering station stamps seems to be a thing. So I started my very own collection, too!
Ok, the first try was not so good, but the second (lower) is flawless. Will I ever manage to get them all?
Finally the waiting time was over and the trip started properly. It takes (I think I mentioned that yesterday? Only around one and a half hours. I still managed to doze off a couple of times. Seems I am getting more Japanese by the day. People in subways or local trains are often using the time for a nap, too.
The landscape in Akita prefecture is very rural and dominated by mountains, forest hills and rice fields. The renowned Akitakomachi rice is grown here. I won't comment every picture, they are just there to get an impression.
It is harvest season, so some of the rice fields are already harvested while others are still standing.
Many rivers and creeks in Japan look like this. Mostly natural bed with reinforcements only sparsely used.
Just an impression of the landscape going by.
The tree species in the woody hills are very well mixed. You cannot really do much foresting since the hillsides are too steep and you can't use machinery. Japan is geologically very young and erosion didn't have much time yet.
There are only 3 or 4 stops between Morioka and Akita. And 2 of them look like this: Reminds me of the little station where I met Sybil the Mantis. You would never guess that a Shinkansen stops there.
Another river.
A bit hard to see. The red thing is a harvester for rice fields. It is about the size of a pickup truck. If I compare that with the machinery of my neighbor in Germany who is one of the biggest farmers around, it looks... cute :) On the other hand the rice fields are really small patches and you couldn't use harvesters with 20+ m mowing width.
Finally I made it to Akita. In the station I did something new and went to the tourist information office to get some idea about what to do. I gathered some maps and prospects and just wanted to leave when the clerk called out "You are here for the fireworks, too?" - Fireworks? Did he just say fireworks? "No," I answered truthfully. "I had no idea there was fireworks. Is it today? And where?" - "Yes, today and the location..." he got out a map and pointed to my hotel, "... is here". "Oh nice," I smiled, "that's the place where I stay." He laughed. "Maybe you can watch it from your room then."
I thanked him profusely and went out to go to the hotel. Now the way is not that long but with a backpack and two suitcases in an unknown city I took a taxi regardless. The taxi driver warned me that I'd have to walk a few meters anyways, since the area of the hotel is closed. Yeah well... so be it. It was about 50 m after all. Now the festival was already in full swing and throngs of people were in the streets. On a Monday? I looked it up and yes, it is a national holiday, the "Respect the elders day." Nice reason to have a free day, a festival and fireworks, if you ask me. Also explains why so many families with kids and grandma and/or granddad were roaming the grounds. So after stowing away may luggage in the very nice room and with the help of the concierge (Also without a tip. They don't expect one and wouldn't take it anyways.) I went out and was more or less directly on the festival grounds.
You know by now that "festival" in Japan means to socialize and then eat, drink, eat a bit more, drink a bit more, listen to music and watch fireworks with another drink and a snack.
I bought a whole grilled squid for 1000 Yen. So juicy and tender. Nice charcoal aroma, too.
A snack to go with the drinks. Says "grilled cheese sandwich with Akita grilled Daikon." - It was not a "sandwich" in any way. Just grilled and smoked cheese with Daikon (Japanese radish). But it was delicious and I bought another one later. Also they had Highballs (Whisky + Soda) on tap. Not bad!
To get to the fireworks venue you needed a ticket. There was a slight misunderstanding on my part and in the end I bought a ticket for 11k Yen. I thought it a bit epensive, but hell, when will be the next time (if at all) where I can make such memories? Turned out the ticked was for a whole bench and up to 4 people. So I had my own bench all to myself... A little later A family with a teenage daughter and two toddlers sat behind me and I told them they could use my bank two, if I am in the way. They made good use of that offer and thanked me a lot afterwards. Even the small kids shook my hands, although they were a bit flustered.
Most of the pics look far too well lighted. The Iphone camera tried make them look like daylight although it was already pretty dark.
Japanese T-Shirts are the best. "You can depend on its electrical attacks." Who is "it"? What are his electrical attacks about and why and for what should I depend on them? Deep mysteries of mankind.
Taiko drummers and lanterns are in position.
Those lantern trees are up to 12 m high and pretty heavy. The people balance them on their open hands or even on their foreheads.
First few rockets while the lanterns were still out. At this point it was almost entirely dark in reality.
Now the fireworks started for real. It was different for every different piece of music. In the following are some clips who can give a small overview. The whole event was around 90 minutes long with a few minutes inbetween sections where they talked about something. I didn't film that much, fireworks are something you have to experience relaxed.
Since Apple records video in the MOV format and blogger.com doesn't understand that I have to transcode them to mp4 with ffmpeg. You certainly see some artifacts sometimes. The last (and best) one I had to reencode on top since it was too big. But blogger couldn't process it 😞
Who wants to see more fireworks. There is nationl competition in Akita every year, the Omagari Festival. Here one example from Youtube:
For the finale they had a live orchestra,when they played everybody around me was singing along, so I guess it was either some very well known song or maybe the national or prefectural anthem?
The unfortuntely only impression of the grand finale I have. Of course I wanted to make a video, but the camera had reset to photo...
The entrance of my hotel at the festival venue.
It seems this hotel hosts a lot of party's and weddings. They even have a dedicated room to get dressed into a Kimono. You do need help for a full Kimono. The summer Kimono or Yukata is like a bath robe and only the belt is a bit tricky. For a full Kimono which weighs around 20 kg (about as much as a knights combat armor!) the Yukata is only the undergarment and it is impossible to hold the Kimono correctly and bind the different belts at the same time.
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