I woke up this morning before the alarm – which was set for 5.55. We had planned to meet Michael and Leila downstairs at 6.25, for a 6.39 train. We got there early to fill my camel back with ice and water….but the ice machine was “making ice” – it wasn’t ready yet! This would be a long day without cold water. So I went across to the Art Hotel (where we had spent the first 2 nights), and used their ice machine. I filled my camelback, and the two thermoses. Then had to go back to our hotel to put water in, as Art Hotel doesn’t have water with the ice. And then back to the station (which is between the two stations). There, I topped up my Suica (because it was down to 13 yen after yesterday’s travelling), and we went through (but using our JR passes) and got on the train. We were still 10+ minutes early, but the train was there, and it was filling up, so lucky we were so early.

It was about a 40 minute ride to Aomori. We had a light breakfast and juice on the way (which we had bought last night from the 7-11). Once we arrived, we went to the local fish market. They have a “ticket” system, whereby you buy a bunch of tickets (2000 yen for 12), and can get a bowl of rice for 1 ticket, and then various fish for 1 or 2 tickets – depending on the size and quality. So we walked around getting various foods to eat with our rice. What a way to start the day! We then waited for 20 minutes or so, for our 9.00 bus for Oirase Gorge. This was about a 2 hour bus trip (again, on the JR pass). The driver stopped a coule of times for photos and also a couple of times for toilet breaks. We arrived at our destination about 11.00, where we picked up the e-bikes Kaoru had organised the previous night. After a (very short) briefing, we got on the road.

It was a beautiful ride up the road, along the stream. We stopped to look at a few waterfalls along the way. Whilst it had been extremely hot when we boarded the bus in Aomori, it wasn’t too bad here, with all the greenery around. It was still hot – but not as bad as it could have been. And we were all very happy to have the electric assisted bikes! I also dipped my hat in the water a couple of times to cool myself down. The water was not icy cold like you would expect in an alpine area. It was almost warm. But it was wet, so still nice. At the end of the rice, we reached Inokuchi. It was a massive lake, which has a ferry on it. At one stage we were going to catch the ferry, but that got a bit difficult, so we returned our bikes, and had about 15 minutes until our bus arrived to take us back to Aomori.

The trip back took us down the road we had just riden up, and then all the way back where we had originally come from. We all had various times of sleeping on the way, as it had been such a long day. We finally pulled in to Aomori just before 5.00. We made our way to the A-Factory, which is the Aomori Apple Brewing factory. There was a gift shop there, and they also brew ciders for tasting. There were a number of food outlets too, so I had an apple burger, which had a big chunk of apple in it! The picture showed a few slices but this was about a 1.5cm thick slice. A very nice burger indeed, washed down with a beer. I then tasted 4 of their ciders. The factory was right on the waterfront, and there was even a beach to get to the water. It was really beautiful…until we saw the sign that said no swimming. What the???

We made our way to a stand up sake bar for a drink, becaes we thought that would be a novelty. Unfortunately it closed earlier than it had advertised, so we missed out on that. Instead we made our way back to the station, and did the 40 minute train trip back to Hirosaki.

It was about 7.50, and the JR office was still open. So Kaoru went in and got our tickets for tomorrow’s first train trip. The office closed at 8, so we were lucky to get that done today. We dropped things in our room, and then felt like some dinner so went to an Izakaya near the hotel. I did all of the ordering – we just needed Kaoru to explain a couple of the things on the menu. But at least I was able to give her voice a bit of a rest. Although we were all tired, we still did our usual Family Mart stop for some sake and dessert. We had a shower, set the alarm, and went to bed.