Omiyage Atsume

One of the best things about being on vacation is the lack of a firm schedule. Today was one of those days. I got up and went for a run along the Sumidagawa this morning. Sumi had good intentions, but the futon did not cooperate. Once she was finally able to break free of the comforter, we hopped a train to Meiji-jingu for some omiyage (souvenir) shopping. There is a good deal of construction going on at Meiji right now, in preparation for both the 100 year anniversary of the shrine and Tokyo hosting the 2020 summer olympics. Many sections were emptied of their usual items (omikuji, omamori, etc) and the bonsai exhibit was only in one half of its usual spot.

Flowering bonsai. First time seeing them in bloom here.

After visiting the shrine and picking up some omiyage, we took the train further north to Ikebukuro for a little more omiyage hunting and a dessert buffet! At the station, which can be very confusing to find your way around, we ran across a mascot, Umerin (likely an Umeboshi, or pickled plum).

Umerin

After looking around Sunshine City for some stuff, and stopping at the world's largest Pokémon store

Pikachu and...um...some orange dragon dude

we searched around for the Ikebukuro Sweets Paradise, a chain of buffet restaurants that specialize in desserts. It was hidden on the 5th floor of a building that also housed a Denny's, a CD shop, and other stores. The sign was tiny. If we didn't know exactly what we were looking for and where, we'd have never found it, or assumed it was some gentlemen's club, given the name.

Sweets Paradise

So, you walk in, and select your buffet choice at a vending machine, which gives you a ticket. We went whole hog and tried the special, which is a set meal of egg sandwiches and your choice of dessert, along with the seven buffet stations and 105 minutes to eat as much as you want.

Salad, Pasta & Soup, Crunchy Snacks, Coffee, Flavor Water, Flavor Syrup, and, of course, Cake

Egg soaked, and I mean SOAKED in fish sauce.

Sumi's came with the Haagen-Daz buffet. Oh my word, this was GOOD ice cream. Melon, Yuzu, something not chocolate, and Belgian Chocolate. Excellent.

Fruit-flavored water with fruit and flavored syrup.

Mine came with fresh fruit. Very tasty.

So, yeah, the egg sandwiches we inedible for us, which wasn't a big deal, as there were many other options available. The salad was fresh and good, the pasta was good (the sauce OK), soups were good, flavored water/syrup took some experimenting to get good combinations and the right amount of syrup. Then there was the cake.

It's kind of like a challenge to see if you can sample all of these...

First cake course

Second cake course

We-lost-track cake course. The lime chiffon (lower left) was amazing. Real limes, no fake flavoring. Tart and wonderful.

The place is known for their desserts, and it is justified. Not the best you will ever have, but good and unlimited. This is a novelty we'll probably not try again soon, but it was certainly fun, and something I urge anyone visiting Tokyo give a try. 

Once you finish eating, you bring your stack of plates to a holding area and then exit via the back staircase. Both of these, I believe, are intended to allow you to hide your shame at the sheer gluttony of what you have just done. We didn't feel quite as bad when we had a group of four older teen boys sit next to us, and their first plates were piled almost comically, straight out of a movie-type high with nothing but desserts. And then they polished it off in minutes. And went back for seconds, and thirds. And were still there when we left.

So, we waddled our way back to the station, feeling overstuffed, and headed back to Ueno, spotting another group of mascots, this time promoting Ibaraki Prefecture goods

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at Yamashiro, a character goods store, which had about what you'd expect:

Rilakkuma Family Photo

So....many...Gigi....

Still feeling a bit bloated after all that dessert, we decided to take a walk down to Akihabara (about 2 miles) to work off some of our gluttony. Visiting Yodobashi Camera, we added to our omiyage (mostly done for the trip), then walked back the long way (3 miles) along the Sumidagawa. It was a beautiful night for a walk, and the sky was a neat, purplish color

Overall, a gorgeous day to walk around. Tomorrow Sumi will be taking a Wing Chung lesson with Sifu Freddy, I'll be book shopping, then we'll be checking out a local festival.

Morioka to Tokyo

Not a very exciting day, but a productive one. We packed up our bikes this morning in different ways: Sumi very quickly, ignoring much of the protective items, with lots of swearing and repeated packing of the trailer to make everything fit, me a bit more methodically, carefully using all of the protective items, and one packing of the trailer. Both were effective, in their own way, though mine was a bit faster and with much less stress.

Over to the nearby 7-11 to ship the trailers and duffel bags, leaving only what we needed in our backpacks, and we were ready to head back to Tokyo. Buying our Shinkansen tickets, one last meal at Coco Curry, a two hour train ride, and we were back at Ueno Station. 15 minutes later we were checking back into Toukaisou for our last four days.

All that was left to do was laundry (yay), so we walked over to the local sentou (public bath), I babysat the laundry and Sumi took a walk by Sensouji Temple looking for Pokémon and taking pictures. We grabbed some stuff for breakfasts (cereal and milk) at the Don Quixote (which is shortened by the locals to Donki, or Donkey, yet has a mascot of a penguin on the moon.

No real point here, I just found the whole thing a bit odd). Something else we found a bit odd were the hours for an Indian restaurant on the corner by our hotel.

I didn't know India had 26 hour days...

Sensouji

Sensouji 5-Story Pagoda. Any pagoda over 2 stories will be an odd number. Why? Ask Buddha...

Nice shot of the Sky Tree with the moon in the background

The Orange Road at night.

Morioka

With the promise of another storm coming on Thursday, we made the decision to end our cycling a day early. With some quick rearranging and planning, we booked a hotel with capsule rooms (not a capsule hotel) in Morioka, the nearest major city, and made that our final destination.

As a result, we only had a short 25 miles ride in front of us today, and as we couldn't check in until 3pm, we had some time on our hands.  So, we lazed around a bit at the hotel, taking advantage of the nice onsen bath to loosen up some very fatigues muscles. We then overpaid for a breakfast buffet at our hotel, rather than have another konbini breakast. About 10% of what they had was edible (i.e. not slimy, fishy, or both), but the salad bar (yes, for breakfast) was quite good, and the yogurt with fruit was satisfying. The buffet also had it's own little perks:

I told Sumi to use one, but she didn't.

The trip to Morioka was fairly unremarkable, as it was largely through urban and suburban areas, but we managed to take a lot of side roads, avoiding the very busy main highway, and wove our way through farmland and small neighborhoods.

A small Shinto shrine at the front of a farm. Mt. Iwate is hidden behind the tree.

Morioka City is a nice-sized urban area. Not overwhelming like Tokyo, but not quite so remote as Aomori. The result is a relaxed-feeling city with a good amount of foot and bicycle traffic, and likely some form of night life that we will never experience, as we're usually asleep by 7-8. We checked in to our hotel, cleaned up, then took a walk to the Morioka Castle Ruins, where the foundation of Morioka Castle, which was abandoned in 1871 and demolished in 1874.

All of the outer base foundation is still intact, and is immense. The castle (now a park) spans several city blocks and rises several stories high. Many sakura trees are planted here, making it quite the hanami destination.

On the second floor, steps leading up the the top floor.

A small inari shrine on the side of the grounds, next to...

a bigger shrine. 

Our tired legs pretty much spent, we headed back towards our hotel, stopping at the 7-11 Beer Garden (yes, you read that correctly), for some ice cream, then retiring for the night. Tomorrow is going to be a "work" day. We'll be dismantling the bikes (sniff), repacking our trailers and duffle bags, shipping them to Tokyo, and getting on the Shinkansen back to Ueno and then Asakusa. It's always a little sad to have to end the cycling portion of the trip, but Tokyo awaits!

A little rogue on the molars and some self-lasik always nice amenities.

No. The whole charm of Pocky is the crunch.

Mt. Hachimantai

For the first time in days, the sun was out, and not just out, but bright, with no clouds at all! Today we tackle our biggest challenge this trip: Mt. Hachimantai. A climb of just about 5400 ft (yup, a mile). Only 37 miles of biking, thankfully.

Heading to the train station, we finally got to see what the area really looks like.

Yuze Onsen Hotel, now with sunlight.

Station is exactly one small building (no one there that early), one track, and trains come about once an hour or so.

A typical view of the area.

We grabbed our bikes from the station, stopped at 7-11 for breakfast and provisions, and off we went! It was such a different experience with bright sunshine and warm weather! We've been using maps provided by the Japan Cycling Navigator, and they've been reasonable, for the most part, though they did fail us when leaving Aomori. Well, today was a bigger problem. We often take smaller, side roads that parallel the larger highways to avoid traffic, and they are usually far prettier. Well, we were on one of these side roads that was climbing up the mountain, when it just kind of...stopped. I mean, the road was still there, but it obviously hadn't been taken care of or in operation for a decade or more. Still, we soldiered on, as the road was on Maps, which has been historically very accurate.

As the road started turning to more gravel and dirt than pavement, we come around a bend and find ourselves face to face with a bear. A real black bear. Well, the good news was, the bears in this area are only about 3 feet tall, and this guy was about that size. The bad news was, we had no idea if he was a baby and mama was around, or he was full grown. For his part, he was just as startled as we were, and scampered, very adroitly, back up the mountainside. We waited about five seconds, then pedaled away, not looking back. We had been given warnings that bears were around, but we always get those warnings, and have never seen one. While they can outrun a human on foot, we are much faster on our bikes, so unless we were cornered, we weren't in any great danger, plus these bears are not aggressive at all. Still don't want to push our luck.

After that bit of excitement, we got some more, as the road became not a road at all, but a footpath, which in turn became a washed out road with a large boulder in the middle of it.

That's a road?

It actually was a road, at one point. The pavement was still intact, at times. But it was totally dangerous and not passable, and we were forced to backtrack all the way to the main highway and ride on that, losing about an hour. The bear did not come back.

The rest of the day was spent huffing and puffing our way up Mt. Hachimantai. I can't begin to describe the beauty. So I won't. I'll leave you with some pictures of the area. It took us until about 3pm (5.5 hours of biking) to make it to the top. We were exhausted, but it was a truly rewarding climb. The way down was...faster. We got to our hotel before 5pm, this despite the 1+ mile climb back up to the hotel on completely dead biking legs. With just enough energy to shower, eat, and write the blog, we called it a day.

Passing the 40th parallel

One of several stops along the way

One of many mountain lakes on the climb

Almost to the top, but a great vista

Panoramic view of the above picture

Snow? Yup, lots.

and lots...

Contemplating human insignificance, and thereforesuchfulness. Nah, actually just thinking "God, do my legs hurt" and "How much farther, Papa Smurf?"

A view from the top.

A(nother) rainy day in Yuze.

With the weather forecasting yet more rain all morning, and clearing up by the evening, we chose not to attempt the formidable Mt. Hachimantai in the rain and opted to spend another day in Yuze. Tuesday was supposed to be sunny and warm (finally!), so we changed our reservation (again) in Hachimantai, added a day at Yuze, and slept in.

Once the rain finally stopped around noon, we headed out to check out a old copper mine that was apparently a big deal. It had been continuously operational for almost 1300 years! (709-1978). Being a still cold and rainy Monday, we had no idea if it was even open, but it was worth a shot. Grabbing our bikes, we headed back into Kazuno town (which we passed through in a blur yesterday), this time able to check out our surroundings.

Unsurprisingly, as we are in Akita prefecture, Akita dogs are fairly common. This guy lived across the street from the hotel.

The Yuze Onsen Hotel. It can hold over 1000 guests. I think there were about 75 of us.

Yuze Onsen Gorge is a long, narrow valley carved out by the Yoneshiro river. On all sides are mountains that tower a good thousand feet or more over the river, covered with various types of trees, including the blue Aomori pine. It is very impressive, and quite beautiful.

Inside of the Dainichireiki Shinto shrine in Kazuno

Bridge leading into Kazuno from Yuze

We worked our way back into town and stopped at a 7-11 to pick up something to eat before heading up the mountains to the copper mine. In Japan, many 7-11 stores have a small counter where you can eat what you purchased. For vagabonds like us, it was perfect

A veritable feast, the Chili potato chips tasted nothing like chili, but were quite good.

After refueling, up we rode to Osarizawa Kouzan, the Osarizawa Copper mine. It was a huge place, high up in the mountains about 3 miles outside of town. This was clearly a tourist and field trip destination when it was not a raining Monday during the school year. There was a go-kart track, a 3D movie theater, restaurants, and the mine. It was deserted. I mean not a single person, working or visitor, was visible when we pulled in. Afraid our trip up her was wasted, we went to the ticket counter to find a note asking us to ring the provided button for tickets. Sure enough, a woman came out from somewhere, sold us two tickets, and told us to go on in. So we did.

Everything needs a mascot in Japan. The mine had a cute black bear cub.

The unassuming entrance to the mine

It turned out to be a 1.5 mile walk jnto the mine, going deep under the mountain. It was amazing. Neither of us had ever been in a mine before, and being able to walk, completely alone (no other visitors, no workers, no one) through the tunnels that stretched through the mountainside was really cool.

Some of the galleries (places where a vein was mined, stretched above and below us for hundreds of feet.

Some smaller ore veins were still there, se we could see what the miners were looking for. There were lots of exhibits done in the actual buildings from the latter days of the mine's operation. There was a wine cellar.

Local companies now use the mine as an aging cellar. Temperature is very stable, which I guess is good for wine.

Leaving the mine, we hatched a plan to leave our bikes in town overnight, take the train back to Yuze, then head back into town to continue our trip tomorrow. First, we had to eat a real dinner. Not wanting anything soggy, fish-tasting, fish-like, or wet meat with questionable sauce, we found another Cafe Gusto. They had a seasonal special going on: Hamburger and Steak meal. Now, hamburger in Japan is really more like cheap salisbury steak, but steak can be pretty good, though not in a family restaurant like Gusto. In any case we gave it a try, and were pleasantly surprised.

The steak comes barely cooked, and you have your own, personal burner to cook it to your taste. The garlic sauce was intense garlic. Almost too much. Almost.

After a little shopping, and a few minutes to try out this:

$4 for 2 players, 3 songs. Totally worth it!

we headed to the train station, parked the bikes and took the train back to Yuze, where we got to soak in their famous baths.

Men and women had separate outdoor baths, overlooking the river and mountainside.

A very relaxing end to some not-so-relaxing few days.

I have no idea what one is, but I want one!