This morning I had a little bit of a sleep in.  Kaoru got up early and had a bath, and a coffee.  She got back about 7.30, just as Okasan was phoning.

We opened the curtains and it was snowing outside.  Quite heavily.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice.  The view was quite interesting.  The building (hotel) across the river got damaged in an earthquake.  The local hotels have tried to help fund its restoration, as it’s an eyesore, but the owners haven’t done anything about it.  Our room had a note in it apologising for the bad view!

We went for breakfast about 8.15.  This was an assorted Japanese style buffet, with a couple of western foods too (Pain Au Chocolate, Crossiant, Fruit Salad, Yoghurt…).

Back in our room we packed our bags for the day.  My backpack was so light!  I’ve been carrying my laptop around in it lately so not needing that is fantastic!  I also left my jacket behind, just wearing my heat-tec jacket.

We walked to the bus stop (about 5 minutes) and then caught the 20 minute trip to the train station.  15 minutes later, our train arrived.  It wasn’t quite what we were expecting!  A single carriage, and painted!

The trip was very pleasant.  We laughed when the tiny carriage blew its horn, which was more of a toot of a whistle.

We passed the local tow truck on the way, which gave us a laugh too!

Our planned destination was Tounohetsuri; there are some cliffs there like the apostles on the Great Ocean Road.  We were then going to come back one stop to Ouchijuku for a bit, before returning to Aizu.  This is about an hour out of Aizu, and still included in the 2-day pass we had purchased yesterday.  On the way it started to snow and by the time we got to the station at Ouchijuku it was really coming down.  We had seen a number of stations that were just a small shelter – smaller than Yarraville or Seddon station.  So were worried that if we had to wait there for a while for the next train, it would be cold.  So we decided to skip Tounohestsuri and just get off at Ouchijuku (luckily the train was stopped there for 5 minutes or so, so we had time to come to this decision :)).

We rushed off the train and then started putting our layers of clothes back on inside the station.  While we were there another girl came in, asking the local person how to get to Ouchijuku.  We already knew we would have to catch a taxi to get there, so when she was told that, we invited her to join us.  She was on a working holiday from Taiwan, and spoke English fairly well, and Japanese to a level that Kaoru didn’t know she wasn’t a local.  Funny part was that as we had said we were on holiday from Australia, she assumed Kaoru wasn’t a local either, and commented on how good her Japanese was!  We both managed to keep a straight face at the time, and had a good laugh at it later in the day.

It was about 10 minutes in the taxi, and then we walked in to the village.  It is a town on the old trade route, so was built up many years ago.  They try to keep the town in its old style look, however there are also more modern houses off the main street where people live.  It’s not quite as authentic as Gokayama was (see April 28, 2015) but still a pretty place.  We climbed a hill (which was covered in snow and was quite slippery, so we had to be careful) and had a great view down the main street.

We then had some lunch.  The specialty here is soba noodles, but instead of using chopsticks, you use a spring onion.  Ok, I might not have had quite as much grace as Kaoru eating it!

After lunch we found a sake place, and tasted a few of the local sake’s.  There were all made in the Aizu region, and one from this village.  It is “cellared” in the snow, which was quite an interesting thought!

We caught a taxi back to the train station.  I fell asleep for half of the trip back so missed a lot of the scenery, which was disappointing as it was beautiful on the way out, but we were sitting on the wrong side of the train to see it all.  We got off the train at Nanukamachi, and walked about 10 minutes to a local sake brewery.  There were other places to try sake but this was the only brewery that did a tour.  We arrived with about 2 minutes to spare (not knowing the tour schedules) so we were really lucky.  There was a room upstairs that was dedicated to the Fukushima earthquake, and had photos of damage, the shelter, etc.  Afterwards we sampled a number of their sake’s.  We were wondering what to buy when we realised the time.  So we rushed off and just made it to the next bus.

Our next destination was Tsuruga-jo castle.  This castle has seen quite a bit of history, and the tour inside (discounted, with our passes!) detailed it all.  From the top of the castle there was a fantastic 360 degree view of the area.  We were in a valley, surrounded by mountains.  It’s hard to imagine just what it would have looked like without all of the houses / buildings around it but in a cold winter it would have been tough conditions.

We had a croquette to warm us up as it was getting quite cold, and then waited for our bus to arrive.  Back at the hotel we got changed and went to the onsen.  I went in the outside one this time, which was much cooler and easier to stay in.  As I left, I heard Kaoru leaving as well which was surprising as I thought she would be in for longer than me.  We went in to the lounge and I had a sho-chu, which was quite harsh after the sake I had been drinking.  Then it was off to dinner.

Second night dinner is different to first night.  Kaoru had worked that out last night, but I was oblivious to it as I was in a food coma.  The interesting part of tonights meal was the beef sushi.  It was oh-so-lightly seared, and served on a bed of rice, with wasabi and soy sauce.  You couldn’t taste the wasabi (even though I put quite a bit on).

We left quite full again, and returned to the room to plan tomorrow, and then had another bath.  It was going to be an early start so we tried to get an early night.

A few miscellaneous photos from the day: