{"id":906,"date":"2017-03-22T22:53:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T12:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/?p=906"},"modified":"2017-03-22T22:53:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T12:53:56","slug":"wednesday-march-22nd-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/?p=906","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday March 22nd 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I had a little bit of a sleep in.\u00a0 Kaoru got up early and had a bath, and a coffee.\u00a0 She got back about 7.30, just as Okasan was phoning.<\/p>\n

We opened the curtains and it was snowing outside.\u00a0 Quite heavily.\"\"\u00a0 The picture doesn’t really do it justice.\u00a0 The view was quite interesting.\u00a0 The building (hotel) across the river got damaged in an earthquake.\u00a0 The local hotels have tried to help fund its restoration, as it’s an eyesore, but the owners haven’t done anything about it.\u00a0 Our room had a note in it apologising for the bad view!<\/p>\n

We went for breakfast about 8.15.\u00a0 This was an assorted Japanese style buffet, with a couple of western foods too (Pain Au Chocolate, Crossiant, Fruit Salad, Yoghurt…).<\/p>\n

Back in our room we packed our bags for the day.\u00a0 My backpack was so light!\u00a0 I’ve been carrying my laptop around in it lately so not needing that is fantastic!\u00a0 I also left my jacket behind, just wearing my heat-tec jacket.\"\"<\/p>\n

We walked to the bus stop (about 5 minutes) and then caught the 20 minute trip to the train station.\u00a0 15 minutes later, our train arrived.\u00a0 It wasn’t quite what we were expecting!\u00a0 A single carriage, and painted!<\/p>\n

The trip was very pleasant.\u00a0 We laughed when the tiny carriage blew its horn, which was more of a toot of a whistle.\"\"<\/p>\n

We passed the local tow truck on the way, which gave us a laugh too!<\/p>\n

Our planned destination was Tounohetsuri; there are some cliffs there like the apostles on the Great Ocean Road.\u00a0 We were then going to come back one stop to Ouchijuku for a bit, before returning to Aizu.\u00a0 This is about an hour out of Aizu, and still included in the 2-day pass we had purchased yesterday.\u00a0 On the way it started to snow and by the time we got to the station at Ouchijuku it was really coming down.\u00a0 We had seen a number of stations that were just a small shelter – smaller than Yarraville or Seddon station.\u00a0 So were worried that if we had to wait there for a while for the next train, it would be cold.\u00a0 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 :)).<\/p>\n

We rushed off the train and then started putting our layers of clothes back on inside the station.\u00a0 While we were there another girl came in, asking the local person how to get to Ouchijuku.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 We both managed to keep a straight face at the time, and had a good laugh at it later in the day.<\/p>\n

It was about 10 minutes in the taxi, and th\"\"en we walked in to the village.\u00a0 It is a town on the old trade route, so was built up many years ago.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It’s not quite as authentic as Gokayama was (see April 28, 2015) but still a pretty place.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

We then had some lunch.\u00a0 The specialty here is soba noodles, but instead of using chopsticks, you use a spring onion.\"\"\u00a0 Ok, I might not have had quite as much grace as Kaoru eating it!<\/p>\n

After lunch we found a sake place, and tasted a few of the local sake’s.\u00a0 There were all made in the Aizu region, and one from this village.\u00a0 It is “cellared” in the snow, which was quite an interesting thought!<\/p>\n

We caught a taxi back to the train station.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We got off the train at Nanukamachi, and walked about 10 minutes to a local sake brewery.\u00a0 There were other places to try sake but this was the only brewery that did a tour.\u00a0 We arrived with about 2 minutes to spare (not knowing the tour schedules) so we were really lucky.\u00a0 There was a room upstairs that was dedicated to the Fukushima earthquake, and had photos of damage, the shelter, etc.\u00a0 Afterwards we sampled a number of their sake’s.\u00a0 We were wondering what to buy when we realised the time.\u00a0 So we rushed off and just made it to the next bus.<\/p>\n

Our next destination was Tsuruga-jo castle.\u00a0 This castle has seen quite a bit of history, and the tour inside (discounted, with our passes!) detailed it all.\u00a0 From the top of the castle there was a fantastic 360 degree view of the area.\u00a0 We were in a valley, surrounded by mountains.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

We had a croquette to warm us up as it was getting quite cold, and then waited for our bus to arrive.\u00a0 Back at the hotel we got changed and went to the onsen.\u00a0 I went in the outside one this time, which was much cooler and easier to stay in.\u00a0 As I left, I heard Kaoru leaving as well which was surprising as I thought she would be in for longer than me.\u00a0 We went in to the lounge and I had a sho-chu, which was quite harsh after the sake I had been drinking.\u00a0 Then it was off to dinner.\"\"<\/p>\n

Second night dinner is different to first night.\u00a0 Kaoru had worked that out last night, but I was oblivious to it as I was in a food coma.\u00a0 The interesting part of tonights meal was the beef sushi.\u00a0 It was oh-so-lightly seared, and served on a bed of rice, with wasabi and soy sauce.\u00a0 You couldn’t taste the wasabi (even though I put quite a bit on).<\/p>\n

We left quite full again, and returned to the room to plan tomorrow, and then had another bath.\u00a0 It was going to be an early start so we tried to get an early night.<\/p>\n

A few miscellaneous photos from the day:<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I had a little bit of a sleep in.\u00a0 Kaoru got up early and had a bath, and a coffee.\u00a0 She got back about 7.30, just as Okasan was phoning. We opened the curtains and it was snowing outside.\u00a0 Quite heavily.\u00a0 The picture doesn’t really do it justice.\u00a0 The view was quite interesting.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-03-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travlindaz.codersoft.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}