I've wanted to go to the west coast of Aomori ever since I saw that there are seaside onsens (hot springs) that you can watch the sunset from. I also wanted to take the train across the ken so I can watch the sites rather than driving through it and having to pay attention to the road. The Aoimori train line runs right along the coast of Aomori bay (the #4 National Road runs along it, too. Beautiful, again, but... eyes on the road!), and the JR Gono line runs along the western coast next to the sea of Japan.
I decided that I needed to get out there at least once while I live here.
So, we got up and moving fairly early in the morning and set off to check out the West Coast of Aomori via train. I had even packed us up a wee bento to take along on the trip, salmon onigiri and some chopped veggies. Yum yum!
It was a bright, sunny day and it looked like promising for good weather when we were on the coast. After a few hours and a couple train changes, we were at our destination.
I have been out to the sea-side before, so I was expecting wind, but, sadly, the sunny skies stayed to the east of us, and there were some dark, omious clouds rolling in. Being hearty Canadians, we didn't let that discourage us and went about exploring the shore near the train station. We even found a nice huge rock to climb up on and watch the storm roll in.
After getting mildly damp from the rain and wind, we took shelter in a local restaurant (陽陽, which Google Translate tells me is 'Yang Yang'...) and enjoyed ramen (I think it was horse-meat but I'm not sure... I was just happy to see "ラーメン" on the menu because it would be warm and full of noodles. Hot tea, some chu-hai (girly drinks, essentially , ice cream and curry. All great dishes. We were there for a few hours, seated by the window hoping for a nice sunset that never came.
Soon enough, the sun had set and it was time to catch our train to Goshogawara where the lovely Aryn had agreed to put us up for the night, and provide transportation to and from the train station. If you're wondering why the heck we didn't just train back to my place, trust me, it worked out cheaper this way. The trains that we had to take out west were on two different lines. The Aoimori and the JR. Our train passes only covered rides on the JR trains. Plus it was quite a long ride to do it all one go again and frankly we were starting to get train-ed out. Anyhoo, after a quick stop-over in Ajigasawa, we met up with Aryn and passed out for a few hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment