This is the solo-trip that I took at the end of December 2016 and the beginning of January 2017. I wanted to see the snowy lands of Tohoku, (the northern area of Japan, of which Fukushima is the southernmost prefecture) specifically Aomori and Akita Prefectures. I made a point to use as few toll roads as possible, and focused on making this a road trip where the time it took to get there didn’t matter.
I left Minamisoma at 8 a.m. on Thursday, December 29th and drove north through Miyagi, Iwate, Akita Prefectures before I got to Aomori Prefecture. If I had used the expressway it would have taken me 4 and a half hours, and cost me and extra ~$100, plus gas. But by taking local roads, I only spent ~$20 on gas. I had so much more fun driving through these prefectures and actually seeing the countryside and the towns. Driving along these local roads turned my trip from 4.5 hours to 10.5 hours, but I didn’t mind in the least.
Miyagi Prefecture I found frustrating because I had to drive through Sendai, the biggest city in Tohoku, which was just annoying even though it wasn’t rush hour or anything. Other than that I remember Miyagi prefecture having gently rolling hills and some mountains, but Miyagi Prefecture isn’t that big, so I didn’t spend a whole lot of time driving through it. I did however find this fascinating little shrine next to the road, in front of a shop. It made me laugh and I had to pull over and take a picture.
I kept driving and found this shrine as well.
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| This is Jizo-Sama shrine in Miyagi Prefecture. He is the bodhisattva of travelers. |
I really liked Iwate Prefecture though. My general overview of Iwate is gently rolling hills with very flat space of ground either has a building on it or it’s a rice field. I remember some smaller mountains in the distance towards the ocean.
I saw this mural painted on the outside of a building. It shows the local Namahage. (Please read more about them on my next post about this trip titled Day 2.)
As I drove farther and farther north it started to rain, and then the rain turned into sleet and then finally into snow. Here is a rice field where you can see the water in the field has frozen.
When I was in northern Iwate and close to the border of Akita, the snow started getting really bad. It started getting a little slick and I had to use all my accumulated knowledge from living in Utah during the winter all these years. It paid off. I am pleased to announce that my excursion to the north did not see the occurrence of an automobile accident. I know how to drive in the snow. And now I know I can drive a K-Car (tiny Japanese car that weighs very little and has an engine half the size of a normal car) in the snow to boot!
The sun had set by the time I made it to Aomori Prefecture, and driving down they windy, snow covered mountains roads worried me a bit, but everything turned out fine and it was rather fun in hindsight. I made it to my destination at 6:30 that evening. I stayed with another JET named Sara. I had never met her before, but we both signed up for the same couch-surfing website, so I sent her an email asking if I could stay with her for two nights and she accepted. I invited her to join me on my adventures through Aomori and Akita for the next two days, and she gladly accepted. It was nice to have some company on my excursions. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to spend time with. She was super nice, easy to talk to and up for anything! After talking the night away we went to bed so we could get up early and start on our trip through Aomori.
12/30/16
The next morning we started off and went to the Sennai-Maruyama museum and archaeological site but they were closed, which struck me as odd because I could have sworn that the internet told me that they were open that day. So, we went to our next stop, a cemetery on the south eastern side of Aomori City. We drove up the unplowed roads to the cemetery, and things were going pretty well until I misjudged the depth of the now on the road inside the cemetery. I quickly realized my mistake about five feet in the gate and started shouting “Abandon Mission! Abandon Mission!” and turning towards the exit gate about ten feet away. This was the result.
I had to dig myself out three times before I reached freedom. But once I did, I parked in a safe spot and we walked from there. The snow, being the natural muffler that it is, made the already quiet cemetery silent. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The two feet of snow covering all surfaces was quite breathtaking.
We soon came upon the section of the cemetery dedicated to children’s headstones. They are placed upon a pyramid-shaped monument that is around fifteen feet tall, and the headstones often have little Jizo-Sama carved on them. The reason they are a pyramid shape is unknown to me, but while I was musing over this fact aloud Sarah gave her own theory as to why. I think it is a good, and quite plausible, theory. If you know more about this, please let me know! Whether correct or wrong, I would like to know more about this funeral custom.
Sarah’s theory as to why the children’s headstone monument is pyramid shaped is because in Buddhist Hell (Jigoku), when a child dies, before they can go on to be reincarnated they must first stack many rocks into a pile along the banks of a river. Once the pile is tall enough they can be reincarnated. At night, however, Oni come down from the mountains in Jigoku and knock over the piles of stones, making the children start in their task all over again. So, perhaps the living create these tall stone pyramids, composed of many stones, in order to help those children with their stone piles in Jigoku. I don’t know why Jizo requires such an asinine task for dead children in the first place, or why he allows oni in Jigoku to be such dicks to these kids all the time, but here we are.
Here is a picture from the Great Buddha in Aomori, which we went to right after the cemetery. It shows a painting of Jigoku where the children must stack stones along the riverside.
Here you can see where this particular pyramid is half empty with space to place more headstones. It seems they build a new pyramid monument when there is need for one and don’t build another until the time comes when it is needed. Very cool, I think.
As I said, I find this hypothesis convincing, so if you have more information, I would love to hear it. I tried doing my own research, but there were no websites I found that had an explanation at all, let alone one in English. And my Japanese vocabulary and kanji regarding death, cemeteries and Buddhism is just about non-existent.
From the cemetery we went to the Great Buddha Temple grounds nearby. When you arrive the first thing you see is a little Shinto Shrine to one side, but it was covered in cloth to protect from the winter snows and wind. This is what it looked like on the inside.
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| A map of the temple grounds. |
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| Triangular shelters over bushes and trees help the plat remain undamaged by the weight of the snow every year. |
The next thing you see is a temple straight ahead, this too was covered in cloth. When you go inside you can see the altar ahead with various bells and artifacts set out on tables. Here they had on display a “hammer” that looks like bird talons on either end. From reading the sign behind it I believe it is the same kind of hammer that is used in Buddhist Hell to crush the bones and bodies of people suffering in hell. I could be wrong. I don't know this for sure.
To once side of the temple is a table of good luck charms and souvenirs. Behind the altar is a little hallway that has some storage, display of gifts given to the temple as well as the display of more Buddhist artifacts.
We left the temple and started making our way up the hill towards the big Buddha. This temple ground is famous for covering a hillside in pinwheels, (((()))))) of which we saw a few.
Here is the purification fountain along this path, although it was turned off because of the cold winter weather.
And here is the big bell you see at all Buddhist temples.
There is also a large 5 story pagoda. The five stories represent the five elements of the Buddhist universe: earth, water, fire, wind and sky. The pagoda is believed to hold the remains of the Buddha.
This is where the monks live:
We finally made our way up the hill and there was the Great Buddha. It was covered in snow and it looked so nice.
I was surprised to find that you could go inside to Buddha to the temple within. You can also climb a staircase and look out some windows towards the top, but it was closed while I was there. The inside of the Buddha is a circular building which has a center room and a hallway around the outside.
The center room has a bunch of altars around the edges which show Buddhas as well as animals of the Chinese Zodiac.
There is also a small circular room within this one that is yet another Buddha altar. This temple is more dedicated to just general good luck rather than a particular aspect of prayer/life.
The outside hallway is covered in pictures and plaques that tell you all about Jigoku, as well as having some Buddhist sayings and teachings to progress towards Enlightenment. I showed you the children stacking stones picture above, but here are a few of the other pictures.
As well as descriptions of heaven:
After we left this temple we headed towards Aomori City. Our first stop was the fish market. It is located in the basement of a shopping mall. It was way cool! There were lie crabs sitting in bowls, as well as gutted and whole fish, as well as fish foods and the like. There were other things on sale as well, but I found the fish most impressive.
I found this crab trying for his great escape as I walked past. The shop owners put him back in the bowl, but I found the whole thing so funny I had to stop and take video.
Apparently there is a machine somewhere nearby where you can put in some money and the machine spits out five tickets at you. You then walk around to the various stalls and give the owners a ticket, they in return give you something from their stall to eat. I couldn’t find the ticket machine. I may have been in the wrong place because the websites I found describing it, didn’t do a great job, but I don’t think I was. So, I just decided to eat at the restaurant they had off to one side. It was a restaurant that served mostly raw fish (sashimi.) I chose one of the cheaper options a sashimi set that came with eight pieces of fish ( two tuna, salmon and squid, and shrimp), as well as a small bowl of salmon roe on a bed of some garnish-y vegetable. This set also came with a bowl of rice and miso soup. It was quite tasty. I don’t really like raw shrimp, but I just did my best to swallow and chew without tasting it. I did find that I like raw squid, although I didn’t a few years ago, as well as salmon roe. The salmon and tuna pieces were heavenly! I have probably never had such fresh, and wonderful tasting fish ever. Totally worth the price. Sarah doesn’t like fish, so she was nice enough to sit and talk with me while I ate. Afterwards we went over to the A-Factory where I watched her eat, so it was fair.
After the fish market we walked over to the A-Factory. It is a restaurant and brewery in a shopping center dedicated to apple-flavored things. Aomori, because of its colder climate is famous in Japan for their apples. Aomori supplies Japan with over 75% of their apples. The A-Factory is primarily a place where you can buy omiyage for your coworkers and apple products (not electronics.) I bought myself a bottle of rather pricey apple juice and some omiyage for my coworkers. It was freaking expensive! One thing I don’t like about Japan is their expensive omiyage culture where you are obligated to buy your coworkers overpriced sweets when you take a day off. I think it’s bogus! But here we are…
I think the “brewery” part of the factory only is for making apple juice and not alcohol, but if I’m wrong, please correct me.
After Sarah had finished eating we walked to the building next door which was the Nebuta Museum. Nebuta are great floats that are built from wire, and paper lanterns. Every year each major town in Aomori has their own Nebuta Festival where different groups build their own lantern floats and parade them through the streets. It’s not a very well known festival, but Sarah tells me that it definitely deserves more attention and tourism.
The festival itself takes place at the end of August. The winners of the different festivals can get their nebuta floats placed in the Nebuta Museum for the rest of the year. When I went there were only the top four float from Aomori City’s festival, but I think the other town can get their floats put in. Many cities after the festival is over will re-purpose their floats. One town near Sarah turned the paper from their lantern floats into envelopes. She let me hold it and look at it. It was really neat. It was a smooth, waxy paper that was colored with different shades of blue and green and the paper had holes in the wax so it looked like white oil covered the surface of the color wax. Really cool.
The Nebuta Museum also had displays of various constructions of nebuta with paper cut away so you could see the wire frames and electric lights inside.
There was an interactive face on a wall where you could pick features that you wanted to make and your choices would be projected onto the face on the wall.
There was also a hallway which had pictures of all the winning nebuta floats for at least the last forty years. I remember seeing pictures dated back to the 1960s.
There was also a little performance going on of the taiko drums and the dancing that people do during the parades.
After the Nebuta museum the sky was starting to get dark, so we decided our last stop would be the Hirosaki Castle in Hirosaki, Aomori. It was pretty close to home, so it seemed like a good idea.
When we got there the sun was completely gone and the sky was dark. We walked up to the castle and took a few pictures.
The moat surrounding the castle was frozen, at least on top, and I thought it looked pretty cool.
She explained to me that the castle used to be on the corner of the outer wall, but that the wall was in danger of crumbling so they had to move the castle so they could repair the wall. They were able to lift the entire castle using some sort of pulley and platform mechanism where they were able to shift the castle three meters (or one meter?) a day until it was safe in the middle of an open space of the park nearby.
They have marked the stones in the wall that need to be fixed in place. You can see these in my photograph, but they look like patches of snow because of the poor light.
Here is a diagram of just how much of this wall is being fixed. They expect to be done fixing this wall by 2040 or so, and then they can move the castle back into its original position.
Look at this cute little mascot for the castle!
After that we headed to Kurosaki, Sarah’s town and stopped for dinner at a local ramen shop. I had a bowl of ramen where the broth was created with soy milk. It was the owner’s own creation. It was pretty good. Not something I was head over heels for, but it was tasty enough. I also got some gyoza, which totally hit the spot.
The next day we had to get up extra early so we could make it to the Oga Peninsula in Akita in time to do all that we wanted to do. So when we got home we said goodnight and crashed. I was out like a light.
This is a manhole cover in her town of Kuroishi, it features a kokeshi doll, which her area is also famous for (we joked that every prefecture in Japan has a town famous for kokeshi dolls,) and apples as well as a type of cross-stitch of which I want to get a teaching book.
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