We met for breakfast in the hotel at 7.45. It was inclusive, so we wanted to have it at least one day! Nothing fantastic, but a nice Japanese breakfast anyway. We got our bags packed and checked out about 8.45, leaving our suitcases in their capable hands. We then caught a local bus to the Starbucks. The reason for this is that it’s in a tangible cultural property – so in a historic building. We were just going to have a look inside but Kaoru loved it so much that we stopped and had a drink (I had an iced macha latte). We then made our way to Taishou Roman Tea Room, which was in another historical building and faced a beautiful japanese garden. They sell apple pies from a number of the different apple pie stores in town, so it let us experience a range of types, instead of just one. We ordered 6 and shared them between the 4 of us, as well as drink, and just passed the time, relaxing.
When our hour at the tea room was up (they put limits on – the place was empty when we arrived, but full by the time we left!), we went to the Hirosaki castle grounds and had a walk around there. It was a nice walk, and I was getting a bit acclimitised as I wasn’t struggling too much with it. We exited the grounds and got on a local bus.
Our next stop was the rainbow fish market (again), for an early lunch – we got there about 11.30, and had until 12.20. Kaoru organised to send some local seafood to Mio, and I walked around and got us both some food to eat. I also had a banana smoothie to finish off. We bought some food for later, and then walked back to the hotel to get our bags, and then over to the train station.
The train we caught was a “theme train” (Resort Shirakami) to Shin-Aomori. Each of the 4 carriages had a different theme. The front carriage was very open, and you could see the driver doing his thing, and had a fantastic view out the front window. The second carriage was booths, so a group of 6 people could easily sit around a table. The third carriage had a bar in it, with some stools so you could face outside and watch the scenery go by. Our carriage was the same as the front carriage (but facing the other direction, so we couldn’t realy see much). But our seats had much more legroom than a normal train – probably as much as a green car on a shinkansen. It’s a pity we were only going one stop on it, but we were definitely glad Kaoru managed to book this last night.
After a 25 minute wait and wander, we got on the shinkansen to Sendai. I had some work issues to deal with, but it was complicated by the fact that we were in tunnels a lot of the way so I had no internet. What should have taken a few minutes took most of the trip! We had another half hour or so stop, before catching our next train to Nasushiobara. This was on the same line as the train we were already on, but unfortunately the other train is a super-super fast one and doesn’t stop at Nasushiobara, so we had to use a super-fast one instead. We had another 30 minute wait at Nasushiobara, where I bought some salmon and cheese jerky. Sounded good at the time, but wasn’t anything fantastic. Hopefully will be better with beer later. We then got our local train to Kuroiso station, at which point we walked the 5-10 minutes to our hotel – the only hotel in town, apparently!
Kaoru had worded us up that this hotel would probably be the shabbiest of all of them. In actual fact, it was a nice, quaint place. There were only 6 rooms on each floor. The keys were old school, and we had to remember to lock the door whenever we went out. We had 2 single beds in the room, but there was still a bit of space in there to move around. So we dropped our bags in our room, and then went out to dinner. Kuroiso is a very quiet town, and there wasn’t much happening. So we ended up at an Italian restaurant. We got a table outside, and within 15 minute the place was chockers, so lucky we arrived when we did! I tried ordering as much as I could but still needed some help from Kaoru – we all shared a pizza, and then ordered our own mains.
After dinner we went to the supermarket for a browse. Leila and I kept ending up in the alcohol section (I found apple Jim Beam!), while Michael and Kaoru were enjoying looking at all the food. We made our purchases just before the store was closing – about 8.45 – and went back to the hotel. Michael and Leila came back to our room to eat desserts, and have a few drinks. Michael did a load of washing so kept an eye on that. After a shower I went to bed.