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| Bus stop (waiting for the bus to Nyuto Onsen 乳頭温泉) |
Woke up to have a very sumptuous breakfast. After that, leave that hotel to take shuttle bus to Nyuto Onsen 乳頭温泉 (if translate directly, it means nipple onsen. Some website stated that the name comes from the milky colour of the hot spring water, and some stated that the name comes from nearby Mt. Nyuto). The shuttle bus stop was quite a distance from the hotel. With the big back pack, although the weather was kind of cool, I felt difficulty of breathing.
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| on the way to Nyuto Onsen |
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| the banner for Nyuto onsen |
After reaching the bus stop, we waited a while for the bus. Along the road to the onsen, the view was nice with all the snows and bare trees. Nyuto onsen was a traditional onsen without bath facilities. I felt that it was kind of dirty. After dipping in the onsen, one just wear back the cloth, sharing a pool of water with strangers and without bathing, this was too much for me! After that, since the shuttle bus haven't reached yet, we decided to go into to a cafe. The cafe had kind of nostalgic feeling with all the old movie posters, charcoal stove, etc. Since we used our own towel after onsen'ing. We dried our towels near the stove. After drying, the towel smelled like charcoal!
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| Nyuto onsen |
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喫茶店 in 乳頭温泉
Stove to cook water, we used it to dry our towel! |
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| 喫茶店 in 乳頭温泉 |
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| 喫茶店 in 乳頭温泉 |
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| around Nyuto onsen |
After that, we left Nyuto onsen with shuttle bus and went to the Tazawako Station 田沢湖駅. First, we planned to go to see a statue near the lake. However, the only transport available was taxi, and it was not cheap. Walking there was out of question because the weather was too cold. So, we decided to just go to Akita City 秋田市 directly. Since only shinkansen was available, we decided to take shinkansen, when we paid for the tickets, the station clerk told us that ticket without reserve seat was available. So we took it. (I always thought that in Tohoku region, there are no shinkansen with unreserved seat.) Imagined our horror when we found that, it was actually standing tickets!!!!!!! Since the shinkansen still pretty empty, we just took one seat for each of us and planned to pay if there were any conductor checking for the tickets. This does not happen. So, we sat all the way to Akita.
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| first planned to see the statue, but gave up due to cost issue! |
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| standing ticket for shinkansen, first time! |
Once reached Akita City, we went to a restaurant that sold Damakomochi Nabe, suggestion from my friend's boss who was from Akita. My friend didn't know the full name, just remember vaguely the dish sounded something like "mochi nabe", luckily the waitress got what me meant! The taste was so so only. I preferred the normal nabe without the "mochi - rice ball". However, some of my friends liked it.
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| Damakomochi Nabe |
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| met with costumed Namahage
なまはげ in Akita station |
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| Akita Namahage |
After lunch, we wanted to see the lantern display outside a shop nearby Akita station. The snow in Akita city was hard, not soft and fluffy. Some snows had melted, so we had to walk carefully on the icy road. To our disappointment, since that day was 1st of January, the lanterns were not lighted up. We walked all the way to see a dim lantern! Then, we walked back to the station to take train to go Yamagata 山形.
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| street where the lantern shop was located |
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| the lantern was not lighted up! |
Since it was so expensive to take shinkansen from Akita to Yamagata, we took normal JR train. There were 7 of us, so we bought two "youth 18 ticket 青春１８切符". It cost 11500 yen per ticket, and one could take unlimited JR train ride for a day for 5 days or 5 people. 5 of us will use one ticket, and 2 others will use another ticket because they would go other places later. Using the ticket, we saved a lot! The only thing was the train ride was long, we got on the train on 5.34 pm and it only reached on 9.54 pm. There were no view too because from the train's windows, the only thing was pitch dark with snow! I slept all the way to Yamagata. After reached Yamagata, we checked into Super Hotel. We met with another group of Malaysian who studied in Tohoko region, what a surprise!
Dinner was another issue, that day was New Year Holiday, so most of the restaurants were closed. After several failed attempts to find a Izakaya, we decided to eat in a fast food restaurant!
Day 1 :
Aomori & Hirosaki
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