Beating the rain into Aomori

We started the day with a really nice バイキング breakfast (a "Viking", or all-you-can-eat buffet). Really nice because they had edible things, such as rolls, fruit, yogurt, and salad to go along with the less edible whole fish (head and all...for breakfast?) and natto.

Just...ick

A short rant: You see that gooey stuff? That's mold. Natto is soybeans aged and covered in mold. Who ever thought that was a good idea? It smells about as bad as it sounds and tastes even worse, if that's possible. I know there are people who profess to like this stuff, but I think it's actually a big conspiracy to get foreigners to eat something truly disgusting, and laugh at us behind our backs afterwards ("can you believe he actually ATE it? Bwahahaha..."). OK, rant over.

Anyway, after our natto-free breakfast, we gathered up our stuff and headed out. The forecast has been predicting doom-and-gloom with a 70% chance for thunderstorms this afternoon in Aomori, where we're heading. The temperature had dropped 15 degrees overnight, and was now in the 50's. We took off at a pretty brisk pace, and covered so much ground that by the time we got to where we'd turn off to head into the mountains, we were thinking we may actually be able to beat the rain into Aomori.

What followed was a ride along the shore of Aomori Bay. It was loud with traffic, but the scenery was much nicer.

The mountains on the left are our next hurdle.

Yuno Island, which sprang up 400 years ago after a volcano erupted, now home to a yearly Adder's Tongue Lily Festival every April.

We pulled into our hotel at 10:30am, still dry and about 4:30 hours too early for check-in. The rain had not yet arrived, and we were done cycling for the day. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and headed out for some lunch. Sumi wanted curry, and if you're going to eat curry, you may as well do it right, so we found the local Coco Curry House Ichibanya (2.2 miles away) and decided to walk to it, as we had 4 hours to burn.

The walk was uninspiring, through a pretty run-down area with more barber shops than you see in an entire American city. We arrived at the restaurant just as rain started to fall, and spent a while in there, working our way through some excellent Japanese curry and salads. Outside the restaurant was a sight I would expect to see in the US, but not in northern Japan.

Cub Foods and a Big Boy? Where am I, Madison, WI in the 80's?

Catching a bus back to the hotel area, we bummed around for a bit, looking at buildings. Sumi found a Buddhist temple that was a PokéGym, so while she began a fierce contest of imaginary creatures, I walked around a bit more

Notice how the temple is completely subsumed by the modern buildings on all sides. Doesn't LOOK like a place where creatures would battle.

Sumi victorious!

We headed back at the hotel after check-in time and busied ourselves prepping for the next few days. We're going to spend an extra day in Aomori, waiting for the storms to pass (100% chance for thunderstorms tomorrow at our next stop, Lake Towada). After a konbini visit to stock up on food, information on coin laundry, and booking for another night, we're done for the day.

This sculpture, also a Pokéstop, is a memorial to the clean water of Aomori? That's what the sign said. In any case, it really is a seashell with a pistil coming out of the middle and a mouth on the end of the ball, where water dribbles out. Bizarre.