We have a full day in Aomori Prefecture, the northernmost in Japan’s main Honshu island, and we start it sampling fresh seafood with the eccentric “Nokkedon” dish. We then strolled along the cold port area before visiting a ferry ship-turned-museum, the Hakkodamaru. In the afternoon we move on to the castle town of Hirosaki, where we had delicious Apple Curry and Apple Pie at a Taisho-era themed tea room, before exploring the old 17th century castle grounds as the snow descended around us.
Part 3 of our Journey North East Japan! We move to Iwate next, so subscribe to be notified!
Series playlist (updated as videos get posted):
Music from:
Epidemic Sounds
Plus a bite from the “Flying Witch” anime Soundtrack
CAMERA
– Sony ZV-E10
LENSES
– Sony 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 OSS
– Sigma 30mm F1.4
– Sony 11mm F1.8
– Sony 55-210mm F4.5-6.3 OSS
EDITED with the FOSS video editor https://kdenlive.org/
Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan’s main island of Honshu, a narrow strip of sea away from Hokkaido Island. It shares in the region’s bountiful seafood, and is known for copious snowfall, spectacular festivals and…apples. Join us as we spend a day off the beaten path, as our journey through Japan continues.
You probably can’t see it, but it is kind of snowing again, there is a slight flurry. So I think the weather report, which has not been very reliable by the way, is saying that there’s going to be flurries all day. So we’ll see what happens.
It was still early in the relatively mild winter season, and so, while snow periodically fluttered in the air, there was little sign of the deep accumulation the region is sometimes known for. So today, what we’re doing now is we’re in this kind of fish market area, and there’s
A local specialty here called “Nokkedon”. And what it is, is that you get a bowl of rice, and you buy a bunch of coupons that you can bring around. And what you can do is basically customize your own seafood bowl. You will exchange bits of seafood and food with the coupon.
Fresh bite-sized seafood adorn the many stalls here, raw and cooked as well. Including warm soup – to go with the cold. This is the good stuff. If you’ve never tried Otoro, the fattiest part of the tuna before, this would be a good place for it.
The glistening flesh melts in your mouth into a symphony of umami. And here, you get top quality for a bargain. That is incredible. It is so thick. Okay, good meal, good meal. Meanwhile, the snow has developed somewhat outside. There’s still nothing on the ground, but there’s this nice flurry happening. Atmospheric!
It is incredibly cold and kind of windy as you might imagine. We are heading now to that boat over there, which is now a museum. In the meantime, this sea view is kind of nice if it weren’t so frigid.
I’ve heard the Adventure Archives guys talk about it before, but it’s kind of amazing how well-built some animals are. Like those ducks in there in this frigid weather. They’re there in the water diving for food. Like how… How can you do that!?
Okay, here we are inside the ship. It is nice and warm. Apparently the lower floors are under maintenance now, so you can’t look at them. We don’t have too much time anyway so we’ll just look around. Some apples. The “Hakkodamaru”
Harkens back to a time where ferries were the primary means of transport between Hokkaido and Aomori. This very vessel served 23 years carrying goods and passengers across the strait before retiring as a museum ship here in Aomori port.
Okay, unfortunately in the winter the deck area outside is locked away so we can’t go outside. But this room is kind of cool. Okay, not too shabby, not too shabby. You can kind of hear the renovation going on down there.
Okay, so we’re just waiting on the next train now to take us to Hirosaki. So we’re hanging out at the station for a bit. We were headed to the neighboring town of Hirosaki and the train ride gave us a glimpse of the lazy countryside en route.
Okay, so this is Hirosaki which is a castle town also known for apple pie. It was a further short bus ride away to the scenic area. Ooh it’s coming down! We are headed to the garden and we’re gonna go for some lunch first. I can feel the snow on my face.
A curtain of snow fell upon the very Japanese features of the park and garden here. But as we headed to our planned lunch spot we came to an unusually western looking building. So this is the cafe we’re going to be having lunch in. If you’ve watched the anime
“Flying Witch” you may recognize this. After a brief wait for seating we were welcomed into a pleasant sunlit tea room. The decor was nostalgic recalling the romantic westernized styles of the Taisho era. On the menu was some pretty intriguing stuff. Like Apple Curry. And sweets like Baked Apple. …And of course, Apple Pie.
So this is apple beef curry, kind of a specialty of this place I guess. That’s good, there’s a sweetness from the apple in the curry which is a surprisingly good mix I’d say. Apple pie. Very good. Very good! So this is the Fujita Memorial Park.
It is free to enter in the winter season. Okay unfortunately most of the garden is closed for the winter so we are heading over to Hirosaki Castle Park now instead. This seems to be the inner moat inside of the park so presumably the castle is inside.
There’s a very nice red bridge across it. So there seems to be a third moat here and there’s also a bit of construction going on in there. It seems we may not have come at the best of times. In any case the early 17th century castle grounds are typically most popular in spring.
The upside though is on this wet winter day we had the grounds mostly to ourselves. Okay we’re done we’re heading for more apple pie now. Craving more scrumptious Aomori apple pie, we found ourselves at a small pastry shop as the day turned dark… to find that they were unfortunately out of apple pies.
Okay so we’ve settled into a little bakery here and we came in search of apple pie but they’ve run out of apple pies so we’re eating some sort of pastries instead. We have an hour to kill until
The bus comes. The staff members have been very nice and very pleasant so hopefully the pastries taste good as well. Nice little outlet. So this is a pastry with like dark cherry in it. I’ll give it a try. I haven’t bitten the cherry yet but the custard and the pastry is very good.
This is a walnut pastry or something. Oh that’s fragrant. I think these pastries are good. This… I’m not sure what this was Did you see what it was? Well some sort of pastry that looks good. Sweet potato? I think it’s sweet potato. The main thing is that the pastry,
The pastry itself is really good. Like anything you put on top is just good. Some sort of chestnut I think. Oh that is good. Oh rich sweet flavour. With the coming of night the winter chill intensified and we were exhausted but it was still a bit of a journey back to the hotel.
On the way we stopped by a family restaurant to ensure we won’t be hungry at night. I’ve got to say even the tiny bit of snow that has gathered on the rooftops makes it look better. Anyway that’s it for another day. Tomorrow we’re going to leave Aomori and head south
Down towards the prefecture of Iwate. Up next. After a final breakfast and a pleasant stroll around it was time to leave Aomori. Down south to the prefecture of Iwate. What awaited us was the coolest ride: down a beautiful gorge, with a singing boatsman. An incredible experience.
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1 Comment
Loving this tour you are giving us. So many different places and so relaxing to watch.