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.