AOMORI

Often we spend weekends away going absolutely ridiculous distances for a very short period of time. I imagine it’s worth it to us who are in this country for only a short period of time and want to be able to see as much as we possibly can. Most of us here have kind of a “do all we can” sort of attitude with regards to going places, doing things, and just generally experiencing as many different things as we possibly can.
This weekend trip to aomori prefecture was no exception. Lake towada is in the top part of Honshu, where the 3 northern most prefectures meet (iwate, aomori, and akita). From shibata city on the toll routes straight to aomori took us just under 8 hours. We packed 5 people in two cars and were off Saturday morning at 5. we returned Sunday by 7 so that the two sado girls could make the last ferry back to the island. A crazy distance for only one night. Was it worth it?
Absofuckinglutely.
Several JETs from aomori prefecture organized a huge charity trivia weekend at lake towada, which is a national park. There were 13 teams from 6 prefectures, totaling 133 people. The entire weekend was organized brilliantly. The hotel was incredible – absolutely huge, amazing location, great rooms…
The FOOD was extraordinary. We arrived in the afternoon to a bbq feast of steaks and lamb and veggie goodies. After chowing down, we went up to our beautiful tatami hotel room and took a brief snooze. We then hopped onto an organized shuttle bus and were escorted to another hotel down the road which had an onsen (hot spring). After a soak we headed back to our hotel, had some drinks in our room and got ready for dinner.
Dinner was a gigantic Japanese spread of sashimi, soup, rice, pickles, pork, nabe, tofu, salmon, tempura, pumpkin soup, fruit… It was served in a gigantic tatami room with 133 sets laid out for everyone, an individual tray each. We were also given 6 free drink tickets to be redeemed at any time during the night.
After dinner there was a nebuta performance (festival dancing) where an absolutely kawaii four year old entertained us with his astonishing taiko drumming skills. I think Hiten (after having had a few too many glasses of champagne) might have scared him a little bit when he drunkenly approached him, huge bottle of wine in hand, and slurred “hagu shitai! Hagu shitai!”
Following the performance we were all ushered back into the tatami room for the trivia contest to begin. Team niigata ‘Our Rice Is Tastier Than Yours!’ came out about mid-league…I think primarily due to our alcohol intake. Kudos to tam for her history knowledge, to jon for answering most of the questions, and to ryan for his ass kicking physical maneuvers. It was so strange being with so many other foreigners I didn’t know. Not since re-contracting in Tokyo last year.
The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. I vaguely remember drunkenly escorting another one of my inebriated teammates up to our hotel room – only to discover that we had locked ourselves out. I guess we somehow got it sorted – I did wake up on my own futon…though it’s a bit hazy. I must have been out like a light because I slept through all of the banging, yelling, angry outbursts, and cheering going on in the room next door (football watching). Igirisu – otsukare. Shoganai. Zannen deshita.
Sunday morning was PAINFUL. Pounding headache, cold sweats, feeling as though I’d lost a sparring match the night before. I surprised myself by dragging my feet down to breakfast – another AMAZING spread of ham, eggs, rice, soup, chicken, sausage, tea… I sat at my tray for about 30 minutes before I dared putting something into my mouth. I was quite terrified that as soon as I did that every glass of champagne and wine and chu-hi (and sake – GAWD ryan why did you feed me sake!-) would come up and out and onto the tatami. However, it turns out feeding myself was the required hangover cure and I felt loads better after my gochisousamadeshita (and vending machine coffee).
After breakfast tomoko and I headed out for a little walk. Close to the hotel is a small wooded area with absolutely phenomenally tall cedar trees. At the entrance to the woods is a giant gate, and following through the path you come to a shrine and, up some steps, a large shrine amidst the gigantic trees. The area was so lush and green. Apparently aomori gets even more rain than niigata and you could tell by the jungle-like feel of the woods. Beside the woods was the lake. The morning mist still clung to the mountains which surrounded the lake – making for a beautiful vista. Very Algonquin-northern-Ontario cottage country.
After our brief hike we piled back in Lindsay’s batmobile and headed baaaaaaaaack to niigata.
TANOSHIKATTA DESU YO!!! NE?????