Day 26: Morioka
Hours walked: -
Distance walked: 0
Cumulative: 547 km
Our first storm day! We woke up early, still a bit euphoric at having dodged a giant storm. We headed down to a big buffet breakfast, with silken tofu, sardines, edamame, yogurt, croissants, juice, French fries with oily eggs, and more. Levi threw up when she choked on a soybean, but Tamar caught all of it in her hand, an impressive one-handed vomit catch. The woman sitting next to us, who was mute, was horrified and silently did everything she could to help, her mimes were very emotive.
We took the train into Morioka, feeling strangely low-energy; probably in reaction to the stresses of fleeing a typhoon. So we stopped at a bakery and ate some more. Then we visited the famous Rock-Splitting Cherry Tree, or Ishiwarizakura, a magnificent 400-year old cherry tree sprouting from a deep fissure in a granite boulder. It symbolizes Morioka’s resilience and perseverance, and has been a National Treasure of Japan for 101 years.
We kept sightseeing all morning. The castle ruins and temple were worth exploring. We strolled down a covered arcade with many cute shops, ate yet more baked goods, then checked out the red-brick bank, whose architecture really was remarkable; even the kids admired all the detailed ornamentation.
Otherwise we saw lots of young people in traditional clothing today, their wooden shoes sound like horses clopping. Chowed down on Nepali food for lunch. A desultory trip to the outdoor shop for socks and whatnot. Jakob had two very nice coffees. Finally, Tamar wrote some reflections about turning 40 while Aurora read and the rest of us prepped for tomorrow’s birthday festivities. It was a full day in town!
Returning to Yahaba, we all went to the onsen and relaxed in the hot baths. Our supermarket dinner included sashimi, onigiri, bananas, and strange Japanese drinks. We ate dessert first since it was ice cream. Aurora says she’s now done having raw fish, though Jakob loved it.
We were lucky enough to come on the very day of the annual Fireworks show. They lasted almost an hour, since only one lone firework was launched every couple of minutes. But they were very cool ones, multiple stages of scintillating colours folding into each other like origami.
And finally to bed. Tamar was happy because she’s done everything she wanted to do on her birthday, and it doesn’t even start for two more hours!
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| Hotel kimono - very comfy! |
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| Chilling in the Red Brick Bank of Morioka |
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| We can all learn a thing or two from this old tree |
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| Morioka is cute |
Day 27: Yahaba
Hours walked: -
Distance walked: 0
Cumulative: 547 km
Happy birthday Tamar! After yesterday’s eventful visit to Morioka, today was a mellower birthday while the storm blew through.
First came “frokost på sengen”: a 6 a.m. feast of peaches, nashi pear, Concord grapes, and little chocolate sticks to garnish. Then came a proper breakfast all over again, before our day started in earnest.
We grown-ups went out for a walk around the area before the rain hit. Yahaba seems quite livable; it’s got mountains on either side, is a 10-minute train ride from the regional capital, yet feels quite rural and quiet. We strolled along the Yahaba river and talked about turning 40, and our plans for after the storm passed.
Throughout the day we gave Tamar a good assortment of presents. She got nice chopsticks and a light wooden spoon, a mushroom towel, some confections, a personalized stamp with her name in kanji, a pin of a hiking Hokkaido cow, and a board game we made (Birthday Backpackers). Tamar and Tova tied for first in the one and only time it was played.
Otherwise it was a quiet day. Tamar enjoyed the onsen while we others went to the hospital and did math. The rain hit around 3, but wa a bit of an anticlimax. “It just felt like a rainy day”. The girls got big bags of candy downstairs, though Zadie’s had a salami stick and she was appalled. For dinner we went out for pizza and pasta, had celebratory ice cream, and ended a very nice birthday in the rain.
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| Levi has been so zen in the cool hotel room |
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| Our birthday board game |
Day 28: Iwaizumiomoto to Green Pia
Hours walked: 3:30 to 6:00
Distance walked: 13 km
Cumulative: 560 km
We woke up very early and had mostly packed up before the 6:30 breakfast. Sophia had “rice, yoghurt with cereal, lots of bread, tofu with green onion, a croissant, edamame and corn and two bread rolls with jam, and that’s about it.” Aurora had “a bowl of miso soup, a bowl of rice, a bowl of tofu with soy sauce and green onions, and then I had two little pieces of Japanese omelet and a bread roll with jam and butter and a mini croissant.” These buffets are pretty wicked.
We practiced patience all day long, having to take two trains and two buses over the course of 8 hours. There was a bit of disarray because of damage to train lines.
Miyako was insufferably hot and muggy - we mooched about and did nothing much for two hours, waiting for the bus that replaced the train. We had mint ice cream wafer shells with a layer of crunchy chocolate inside. Jakob got a new baseball cap: it’s dark green and has a weird bulge at the front. It didn’t feel like we actually needed lunch but we ate it anyways - edamame and nice egg sandwiches from a bakery. We dropped off our three heavy backpacks in a train station locker, since we’re passing through here again tomorrow.
Navigating the damaged train line was stressful, but went decently smoothly and soon we found ourselves back in Iwaizumiomoto at long last! After a quick resupply at Lawson, we started walking at 3:15 - our latest start ever. But we only had 13km so we figured it would be ok.
Aurora groaned as we were immediately confronted with a steep mountainside - but then cheered as we dove into an amazing tunnel! It was deliciously cool inside, and so horizontal. There were many, many echoes - Tova and Jakob absolutely loved making hooting and yelping noises, the echoes lasted about 8 seconds (that’s a lot), and cars sounded like jumbo jets
We hiked faster than usual - at least it felt that way. The road had mediocre shoulders, but it was pretty quiet and dodging the cars felt fine. Jakob introduced integrals to Aurora and Sophia who pushed a napping Levi, and Tamar read The Wild Robot Escapes to Tova and Zadie who were rapt.
It started to grow dusky at 5:30, and we parents grew uncomfortable about walking in lower visibility. Fortunately we had a sidewalk for our last kilometre, but in the future we’re setting an earlier end time for walking…the days are growing shorter as we head south and the year rolls on!
The Green Pia Hotel looks like it’s seen better days, but is still impressive: a cordial hostess showed us around formally, we admired the immaculately-raked rock garden, and our room had awesome kimonos for everyone to wear. Anyway, first we luxuriated in the beautiful onsen, which was neatly laid out in bamboo mats and granite.
At 8 pm went went outside for “hanabi”, fireworks. This turned out to be charmingly DIY; the hotel had a fire going in a barrel, and gave out high-powered sparklers that jetted out thick streams of orange, green and red sparks. Eventually there were about 25 guests, mostly wearing flowing, highly flammable kimono, milling around the fire in thick smoke holding gouts of flame. But everyone was responsible and careful, and the girls absolutely loved it.
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| Hanabi! |
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| Tova celebrating our return to the trail - on a spiffy train, too! |
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| These hotel kimono were even nicer! |
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