just to pass the time: Winter Holiday in Tohoku Region

From 29th Dec 2011 to 4th Jan 2012 were the winter holiday for our company. Since this was the first winter for me, I joint my colleagues to Tohoku region (Aomori 青森, Morioka 盛岡, Tazawako 田沢湖, Yamagata山形) for holiday. This was a snowboarding and onsen trip. Everything was so expensive even for the budget airline tickets because this was the peak season.

I think this was funny, the snow just coagulated inside the basket.

the snow was so soft and fluffy.

On 28th Dec, I took flight to Tokyo after work. From Haneda Airport, I went to Tokyo Station to take the night bus to Aomori. There were a lot of choices for night bus, I chose the one that depart the latest. Although it was the normal 4 seats bus, the seat was not bad, plus they gave free air pillow, with blanket to keep warm. However, I was not used to the night bus condition, I couldn't sleep well and kept waking up. However, when I reached Aomori on 29th December's morning, the sight of snow made me very excited. This was the first snow I had actually seen with my eyes for the first time in my life.

seeing real snow for the first time

real snow!

After that, we waited for Tee (took flight from Haneda) and Jack (reach Aomori the day before) in the Aomori Station. Then, we had breakfast in a coffee shop. From the tourism brochure, we knew that there would be a traditional music instrument, Japanese guitar 三味線 performance in Aomori Aspam Tourism Centre. So, we walked there. Along the way, we played with the snow just like kids. The centre sold souvenirs and local products. We all bought apple juice, apple is the most famous stuff from Aomori. The juice was tasty.

The Japanese Guitar performance was nice and very pleasing to the ears.

After that, we went to the observatory on top of the building. It was so white outside. The snow have blanketed the whole area. So beautiful!

view from observatory

Next, we went to the Nebuta Museum. Well, Nebuta consists of a lot of characters, and some of the characters were from the Chinese classical novel, Water Margin 水浒传. According to the information from the museum, there is Nebuta Festival and take place from 2nd to 7th of August every year. There would be parade of Nebuta floats and it is a major tourist attractions. Although we could not see the parade, there were a lot of lantern liked Nebuta inside the museum. Quite special.

this building was near the Aomori Station

the Nebuta Museum wall of information

Nebuta

Then, this was the time for lunch, we went to a market for sashimi don 刺身丼. A rice set with raw seafood. It was special. First, buy a bowl of rice, then going around the market to buy the sashimi of own choice. The seafood was so fresh. However, I saw there were fresh sea cucumbers being sold too, I was never a fan of sea cucumbers, I think it was kind of scary. I picked my choice, paid for it. Then, had lunch in the designated place in the market. A good experience. We were lucky because the market would be closed for holiday on 1st of January, we managed to have sashimi don because we were few days earlier.

buy fresh sashimi directly to eat

instruction on how to buy the sashimi don

Lucky we were not here on 1st of January, it close on that day

Choose what you want, and eat there!

Since we missed our train to Hirosaki and had to take the next train on around 3.30pm, we walked around the Aomori Station. It was just snow snow everywhere and it was quite slippery. I almost slipped. Then, we took train to Hirosaki 弘前. Once reached, we called the hotel to send taxi. The Dormy Inn Hotel was quite far from the train station, so free transport was provided. We checked into the hotel. Then, we decided to walk to Hirosaki Castle 弘前城 to see some exhibitions. However, we were not sure whether we were in the wrong way or not, we kept walking and we saw the castle from far, however, we just couldn't reach the place of exhibitions. After a long walk, we gave up and just went to next destination. It was an old church with Christmas decorations. It looked nice in the dark.

saw Hirosaki castle from far, however, just cannot reach there, we lost

the old catholic church

Then, we walked back to the hotel because near the area, there were lots of restaurants. However, all the Izakaya were full. The only 2 shops with seats were a ramen らめん shop and a yakiniku 焼肉 shop with no beers provided. I was never a fan of grilled meat. So, we went to eat ramen at the end. I had soyu ramen 醤油らめん. First few sips was ok, but after few, it became so difficult to swallow. I was not used to the smell.

Finally, we went back to the hotel. There were indoor and outdoor onsen in this hotel. So, we went onsen'ing. It was so nice to soak in hot water in winter. The most interesting part was the outdoor onsen where the snow was falling, and you were soaking inside the hot water. It was a really soothing experience.

woke up 5 am to experience Apple onsen!

The craziest thing we girls done was waking up the next morning at 5 am to go for the apple onsen. (It was only available for the morning section and this area was famous for apple). I thought I would be soaking inside apple juice, quite disappointed when I saw only apples were released into the pool and floating around. Nonetheless, it was another good experience. The hot water already made the apple half cooked, so the aroma of the apple accompanied us when onsen'ing. Really a great experience. I love that hotel.