A view of Mt. Fuji at kawaguchiko

Staying in a Japanese style room at the Konansau Ryokan in Kawaguchiko. It's a little north of Mt. Fuji and has a pretty good view. Hopefully a little less clouds tomorrow so I can get some additional shots. This whole area is an incredibly mountain range. Mountains and valleys everywhere. A really nice place and I can't imagine living here in ages gone by.

The ravens in Japan are ridiculously big. They're big at home but these feel bigger somehow.

It's an interesting mountain jutting out of the middle of nothing. Isolated in its location.

Japanese style dinner. Has a huge variety of stuff to try and certainly a lot of fish. I'm not the biggest fish eater as I prefer shrimp/crab/etc. But still pretty good and a nice way to try a whole bunch of things I hadn't heard of before!

After dinner a stroll around Lake Kawaguchi felt in order. There's a bridge that cuts it down the middle and I took that instead of the extra 30 minutes. Found a batting cage along the way and stopped for a couple rounds. I will say I'm surprised I was hitting anything. Not sure how I knew where to swing and connect as I haven't done anything at all like that in probably 14-15 years. Might go back and do some more as it was pretty fun! The bat was a little short as was the pitch..

Good amount of blossoms are here as well. Didn't intend for it but lucky me!

Oysasumi Nasai!

Kitakami: Cherry Blossom Tunnels

Stopped in Kitakami today which is an awesome place that you can walk through a tunnel of blossoms (if better in a few days than when I visited). I'm with the natives of Japan in loving the blossoms of spring. I should stay two months next time and follow them from the south to the north. I wish I had been able to see both Kakunodate and Kitakami in full bloom.

This is true bloom as far as I can tell. No loss of petals and none still opening. I had never seen one in this state before. I can't imagine a tunnel of these around me.

One of the best parts of blossoms in bloom is the food stands you'll find nearby! I could eat this food all the time. Especially the chicken and veggie skewers. So good.

Worth a stop while in bloom for sure. Glad I made it.

Kakunodate: Samurai Stronghold

First off, yay socks. Picked these up at a mall just for fun. For one, I like socks a lot. These are made in Japan and the variety to choose from in the store was quite awesome. I'm gonna rock the checkered with some shorts I think.

Then off to Kakunodate, which was a castle town and samurai stronghold back in the day. It's a short ride from Sendai on the Shinkansen which takes you through a rather mountainous and currently snowy area where the sun hasn't gotten through much. Not sure if I've put many pictures of the trains up, so here's what they look like at the front!

The cherry blossoms are juuusst about to bloom. 3-4 days and it would have been a totally different experience. Sadly, I don't have that time! There was some festivities going on though and a little show on arrival.

Picked up some miso and a bottle of I'm-not-sure-what-it-is-because-I-can't-read-Japanese-but-it-tasted-like-it-might-be-a-fruity-soy-sauce-or-something.

The Ando Brewery here, has been making them the same way for for over 150 years.

Aoyagi House is one of the larger houses and pictured below. Maybe a bit of an outside observation but the people have gotten a lot bigger than their forefathers. Armor is always so tiny.

I'd buy one of these if I could..

Mustache to match.

Or buy a set of armor..

Even some of these I'd be happy to take home!

It also has a nice garden area on the outside in the back.

In the Ishiguro house you'll find these hand carvings. With the light shining through it casts a turtle on the walls of the interior room. With candlelight it is said to make the turtles swim. Turtles are a sign of long life and good fortune. So pretty good to have swimming around.

There was also a display of armor for boys day coming up. This one was something like 200 years old?

This partiuclar fir tree is 300 years old. Massive massive tree. 

As with the festivities on arrival at the station there was a bunch along the river. Where in just a few days there will be loads and loads of weeping cherry blossom trees. Really wish they had been in bloom when I got there... next time perhaps.

Somebody found a spider when kneeling to bow and wasn't too happy about putting her head close to it.

Had some cotton candy, sakura soft ice cream, and sakura salted popcorn at the festival! One Piece, pictured above, is one of the most popular manga and anime in Japan.

Picture this but in full bloom. Boooo, why couldn't it be here already. The buds were there just not opened.

Taiwanese for dinner!

Sendai: Zuihoden Mausoleum, Rinnoji, and Osaki Hachimangu

Went out to the Zuihoden Mausoleum today which is in a surprisingly quiet part outside of Sendai. Where Sendai is a bit of hustle and bustle I'm happy that you can go just a few stations away by train and get to this relatively quiet part of town. Zuihoden Mausoleum is the resting place of 

Date Masamune. One of the most powerful feudal lords from the Edo period. His son and grandson are also nearby.

When walking from the Sendai station you'll end up crossing a river before walking up the hill that it is placed on. Though this is right at the end of the blooms there's still some around. Missed peak by a couple of days sadly.

I don't recall seeing a lot of the "weeping" cherry trees before. It seems like they're quite popular the farther north you go. 

Cemetery on the way up to the mausoleum.

I'm a fan of the forest and trees in Japan.

Gotta keep warm on these cold spring days.

Tried a handful. Tastes like chicken!

I'll have to try and translate this when I get home. This was in the graveyard for children.

During WW2 the original Mausoleum was destroyed. This is a piece of the roof that is placed nearby.

Date family crest. Two sparrows among the bamboo.

Chiba-san, the nice English speaking volunteer guide at the Mausoleum. Quite funny and full of knowledge on the things there. Really nice guy.

Rice bowl lunch! I like rice bowls.

At rinnoji there is a nice Japanese garden along with the shrine itself. Kind of an odd time to be there as a garden needs a little bit longer to get into full swing after winter.

Not a statue. That's a cat.

The Rinnoji was founded by a member of the Date clan. So the signs of the family are around the area.

Then on to Osaki Hachimangu. Which is a very nice shrine also of the Date family.

I certainly hadn't seen anything like this before. I also think it must have been a game day as I kept seeing people wearing jerseys for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles everywhere.

You can even get a sports themed ema! 

I'll eat anything grape.. these were quite good too.

This is the local dish which Sendai is most famous for, Gyutan or cow tongue! There are a variety of ways you could have it prepared for you but I went for the classic of just grilled. No stew or creamy soup thing. It tastes like your normal steak but is far more chewy. I wonder if a dish like this would catch on in the US? I'm sure there's plenty of to tongue to go around.

Just a little one, mostly for the guys.

So one thing I really hadn't thought much about was getting south from Sapporo. I didn't really have much time to see a lot in Hokkaido and it may have turned into more of a "yes I went to Hokkaido" more than an I explored it. Always future trips! It's in a bit of a weird time right now so I'm not really really sad. I wanted to make it there to pick something up as a thank you for a large part. Definitely a good spot for skiing if that's what you're into!

A little bit morefor the guys... the best view you'll ever have while using a urinal! This is on the 38th floor of the JR Tower in Sapporo. There was a couple in front of me and the girl was just peeking her head in after the guy had checked it out for occupancy and I thought that kind of weird. I wanted to walk up behind her and say "sumimasen" and give her a scare. But decided to wait till after they left. This is what I saw when I went in and why the guy wanted to have her see (also probably why she wanted to see).

Nifty, eh? Using the public restroom will never be the same.

Sad report - I found the painting shop again as I left. I had looked multiple times the day before with no luck. It was open from 10 AM - 7 PM and my train was leaving at 10:22 with a subway ride and some walking from where I was at. Arrrghh, curse my luck. I should have gone through all of it and found one the first time I went in. It was so close to my hotel and a bunch of shops where I went in asking about it (successfully asking - I researched how to ask) and they had no idea! Grumble! Oh well, backup plan at this point is to bring home a sword. I can put that on a wall too. If simply not in as many places..

Sendai is nice. Definitely got better at picking spots to stay now. It's an adequate amount of busy and of course means there's lots of places to walk around. Though I hope a couple of the places I'll be going to next will be more like Takamatsu where it was a lot of just me! That was pretty fun and thinking about it I kind of miss that. We'll see where it goes.

Sapporo: Shiroi Koibito Park and JR Tower view

Soooo there's a chocolate factory in Sapporo. Yeah.. it was in need of a visit.

Welcome to Shiroi Koibito Park! Or if translated - White Lover(s). Not going to lie, it was an odd thing to find in Japan. Huge European influence on the facility, it's history, and current look. But it was a fun little place. In a couple of weeks when everything starts to bloom I'm sure it will look amazing. Where I'm here right as spring is hitting and there's still snow in spots. It was a little less green.

You can take a tour of the facility which includes some museum type rooms, the production line, toy museum, and a place to buy some cookies!

Don't mind me just playing with the camera.

Welcome, to the Choooooocolate Time Tunnellllll. Which sadly is not made of actual chocolate. 

Had some little models that were making chocolate the old fashioned way and some instructions on how it was done.

Right after that you can see the production floor. The cookies that are most famous and most common are a thing wafer with a very sweet thin white chocolate between them. I was half expecting something like Milano cookies from Pepperidge Farm but these were far far better.

Break time at the cafe. They'd put out some things they made for display and sale.

Annnd lunch. A healthy super awesome lunch. The cookies on the side are the Shiroi Koibito cookies. The rest is well... fruits and ice cream. Which is also good!

They had chocolate milk! I like milk and I love chocolate milk so I had to try it. They also gave you this orange drops to put into it (as seen on the left) that was supposed to make it taste better. Not entirely sure if it did or not... tasted just fine without and with.

Gramophone museum? Sure why not!

Robot on a motorcycle with glowing eyes and audio? Hey, we've already got some gramophones so let's do it.

There's also an extensive underground network of tunnels running all around Sapporo. I didn't explore a ton of it but I get a feeling you could get most places walking under ground. Where the winter here gets pretty cold I'm sure it's quite a nice thing to have. Right now it hasn't been all that bad aside from a bit of wind.

Above the Sapporo station is the JR Tower. You can go to the 38th floor to get a look out over Sapporo. 

Love playing around with the camera. Even if I'm not very good! Had to be a little stealthy with this one or I'd have kept the glare off the left side. This is bouncing off some marble walling facing the window.

Any who, good night! Might not be a post tomorrow as I'm heading to Sendai. When coming to Sapporo I really didn't think how far north it actually is. 8 Hour train ride is one of the shorter options from here. There's a couple over night trains but I figured it would be better to just go for it and make it to Sendai around 5 to 6 PM.

Back on the Mainland: Sapporo

Spent most of the day traveling so here's just a couple shots from last night as the sun was going down. There was a bunch of sirens going on last night too though I have no idea for what. I'll have to see if I can find something from the local news in Yomitan that might indicate what.

Any how... Sapporo! Yay! I'm glad to be back on the main land. It's colder here than Okinawa, obviously. But not so cold. Very similar to home. The biggest difference is that there is a wind which will make it feel colder than it is. I was fine walking to the hotel and searching for dinner in my shorts and a buttoned shirt with my light jacket. And the dinner was amazing.. I'm already in love with the seafood. The thought did cross my mind to stay for the rest of my time and just eat. Don't worry, I won't.

I'm not a huge fan of the Izakaya. There's always a lot of them around and I did at least find one entrance into the underground which will have more what I'll call normal restaurants. Though this one did make me happy I visited. Half want to go back just because I know the menu a little better now. 

House welcome dish. Izakaya's like to charge a seating fee and this is your perk for it.

Miso with a crab stock. Haven't had anything like this so far and it was pretty good. Considerably more sweet than any other miso I've eaten.

Ramen noodle salad and jumbo potato croquette. Salad was so so, nothing like the seafood salad from the day before. 

Crab and asparagus tempura. More. Pleaseeeeeee. It was such good crab. Amazingly good crab. I'm going to try lots of seafood for every meal that I can.

Potato was ok, a little spicy. It's smell reminded me of lebanese food. Definitely on the jumbo side of things. Even if the menu said jumbo I wasn't expecting it to be so big.

Yummy crab cooked in it's shell. So tasty. I love crab.

A variety of skewers. Chicken skin, chicken, pork, beef, and veggie on the end. Sauce is definitely the way to go instead of just salt (you had the choice). 

It was very much delicious and I look forward to the next few meals! Not to sure what I'll end up doing tomorrow. Maybe just go shopping or something like that. It's surprisingly touristy up here. And I found a painting store! But... they're pretty expensive.. I didn't search through the entire store yet but holy moly some of them are much bucks. In the thousands for ones with cherry blossoms in them, though they were pretty big. Cross your fingers for finding a smaller one that's not in the thousands!