AARGH. It helps if I hit the POST button.

Kind of a cranky day at first but what do you expect? I was trying to get across Japan when I’m used to taking the trains that go up and down. And it started out so well, with the breakfast at the hotel. The staff was unusually chatty and you didn’t have to do anything: they just asked you which of the four options you wanted and they just brought it to you. And like my first day, not that many people were there when the restaurant first opened.

But then I tried to schedule my next days of travel. Today was fine. But tomorrow sounded bad and the next day was even worse. I was also reminded that Niigata isn’t valid on my Tohoku rail pass because I should’ve gotten a JR East Tohoku pass if I wanted to do go there. Ugh. In any case I think my best option is to take a bus from where I am today, Aizu-Wakamatsu, to Niigata and then I have to find out if I can wrangle the five hour trip to Morioka the next day. Yeah, I did this to myself. And I’m still saving money on train fares because of the trip I’m taking on Sunday (I hope).

Oh, and the view from my hotel room isn’t quite as good, but it’s fine.

I’m sure I’ll have an example of a horrible view soon enough.

I got a reserved seat on the Shinkansen but I hopped on an earlier train. I forgot to check to make sure the one I got on arrived sooner than the one I was supposed to be on and fortunately I was fine. Then I got on a local train that was full of elderly people. By elderly I mean older than me. And I was taking a chance on my accommodations tonight. More on that later.

Aizu-Wakamatsu station was pretty darn small and I knew my accommodations were not as full-service as a hotel. I had to stash my bag in a coin locker and kill time until the 4PM check-in time. I got an all-day bus pass which worked out if I made 3 or more bus trips and with three stops I made four. The tourist bureau told me to go to the Japanese gardens because the leaves were changing in the area, but I headed straight for the castle. Sure enough, the leaves were changing.

The castle looked like another reproduction, so while I did walk around for a bit, I never went in.

I did get really hungry on the bus and the map mentioned “sauce katsudon” and I noticed one of the tourist-trap-ish restaurants at the entrance to the castle had it so I went in and tried it. I’ve found those restaurants are usually pretty good, even if you’re just grabbing soft ice cream to go.

The sauce was a bit much but it was all pretty good. Then it was time to decide whether I was going to the garden. I went not expecting much. It turned out to be a smaller garden with an attached medicinal herb garden and the fall colors were even better there.

I missed my next bus (they only came once every 30 minutes) because I was eating and drinking this

While looking at this

It was worth it. The next stop was to see something I saw on YouTube before, a Buddhist tower designed as a double-helix so you can go up and come down without ever passing anyone else. But first you had to climb the stairs or take the escalator:

It’s ¥250 for the escalator. You can get on partway up for ¥100. Like a bug dummy, I took the stairs. It was brutal. Then I kept going up and it was where the Byakkotai committed ritual suicide with monuments celebrating their loyalty from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. I just kept going.

I finally found the Sazaedo DOWN the hill a ways and paid to go in. It was a bit of a disappointment, only 1 ½ turns so you were in and out in no time and I spent most of my time trying to stay out of the way of some dude filming it on his GoPro. I was pretty done with the whole area and I’ve give it a pass. It is a unique feat of geometry but even the woman selling tickets seemed to be over it.

I took the bus back to the station and then took a taxi to the inn. I was 40 minute early and stood around for a while.

The facilities were (are) underwhelming. The building is old, I can currently hear the staff running around and doors slamming. I was hoping it was an onsen of sorts (I did minimal research). The whole building needs to be redone. I got one of the rooms that includes an in-room bathroom (and I don’t think there are many). The staff also seemed to be a little harried and wanted me to eat at the earliest time slot (6PM) and the same for breakfast (I can’t remember if that was 6AM or 7AM). Oh, and they wanted me to take a bath right away as well. It’s a giant tub and looks like it was made for three people at a time but you get to use it all on your own. I ended up taking a bath at 4:15PM.

Well the real reason you stay here isn’t for any of those reasons. The real reason is the food. It was all spectacular. We started out with raw horse, reconstituted dried sea fish (which is much better than you’d think), corn tofu, and lots of other things from the local area. The bones of the fish were all edible and the corn tofu tasted like cake.

I also had a sake sampler from the area.

There was also a salted grilled fish. They had you pull off the dorsal and ventral fins, set it “right” and then press down until the skin split. You then poured in mild vinegar and ate it whole.

Next course was tempura mostly of local ingredients.

With more hiding underneath. The round mushroom-looking thing was actually a sweet manjyu (bean paste cake).

A roasted potato and cheese dengaku, covered in miso sauce. I’m not sure what it was but it was tasty.

I got a meat plate that the two boys next to me didn’t get.

Of all the courses, this looked the best but wasn’t. Oh and I wasn’t happy about being next to two guys in their early 20’s but they turned out to be hearing impaired and so no one was talking at all.

The food finished off with rice and miso soup with miso paste to put on the rice. The rice was from the recent harvest. So good.

And dessert was some fruit. The apples had been soaked in lemon juice.

And that’s about it. I’ve been listening to loud thumps all night (it’s only 9:20pm) and have to keep reminding myself that they’re most likely still serving dinner. Oh well. The things I do for food adventures.

At least this ticks off 45 prefectures. Two more and I’ll have all 47.

LATE ADDITION:

The room was fine after the staff quit rushing around so I got a nice peaceful night of sleep.