Now, I missed an established romance after taking an overnight ferry from Hokkaido to Tohoku, suffered bad company, and loathed my next destination (Morioka).
8:00-11:10 Hachinohe ferry terminal to Morioka station bus
APPI ski resort (2h)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – first half
Overnight Ferry from Tomakomai to Hachinohe
I woke at 5:30 to watch the sunrise per Cowboy’s suggestion. In the middle of the Sea of Japan, facing east, I enjoyed a view direct enough to warrant minimal slumber.
Between 5:50-5:53 the sun rose in front of me, a large, round, shining ball emerging from the depths. Then it disappeared into clouds.
At 6:30 the Onsen opened, with the same view from the windows.
I returned to my dorm after twenty minutes of soaking to lie down. At 7:00, loud music began playing, with frequent announcements on speakers.
Then I slept during the entirety of the three-hour bus to Morioka.
APPI Ski Resort
The Morioka Woman had waiting for me in the parking lot for twenty minutes because the bus was late. I already got off on the wrong foot. When we reunited, she didn’t say “Hi, how are you, it’s been a while,” just like my friend from Tokyo. It struck me again how Japanese people dropped formalities and small talk once close enough to someone.
Back in August, she’d asked me to return to Morioka specifically for a YouTube interview that was important to her. I’d asked to postpone it from early September to late October, knowing I couldn’t afford to return to Morioka on both occasions. Last week, she’d asked me when exactly I’d be back, to arrange the interview; now that I’d arrived at Morioka, she no longer mentioned it.
After the live TV interview in Morioka in mid-August that hadn’t come into fruition, I knew better than to bring up this subject.
We drove to Hachimantai, stopping at a service area for lunch at noon. I had a mackerel teishoku and we shared an incredible melon-cream melonpan, shaped like a green mountain.
Back in August, she’d informed me that Hachimantai was Japan’s top spot for kouyou. Now, I asked about the most recommended spot on this mountain range, but she said it was too far. Instead, our destination was APPI ski resort, where we rode a gondola all the way up the mountain to zero degrees and a snowstorm. Today was the first day of snow, and the little kouyou that was left, such as a few red bushes, were blanketed in white.
Neither of us had witnessed such a rare combination before.
It made my paying for an expensive gondola for us both worthwhile. A sight I hadn’t expected to come across.
We met a friend of hers working at the resort. Lots of dinosaur sculpture on the premises – no idea why. Apparently, the sight of a foreigner working here during the winter season was just as frequent, so much that the friend said the company could arrange a one-year work visa for me within one month, to work at reception.
“He speaks Japanese,” the Morioka woman told her friend. “Well, 変な日本語 (weird Japanese).”
I recalled moving to the UK, attending grad school in Norwich, and learning the difference between weird- and natural-sounding English.
“遊ぶのほうが好きだけど,” the Morioka woman added (“he likes to have fun rather than work”).
I chuckled uncomfortably. Who didn’t. My goal was a vocation I’d enjoy.
Before leaving the ski resort, she suggested trying their famous ice cream. After two ice creams in Sapporo last night, a third one was the last thing on my stomach’s mind. But we ate a flowery ice cream, which was good.
I learned that the top ski resorts in Japan were Hokkaido’s Niseko, Chubu’s Hakuba and Yuzawa, and Tohoku’s APPI.
Morioka
On the way back to Morioka, I mentioned my desire to eat Reimen again. We spotted a sign on the road advertising a Reimen festival at a Korean restaurant.
To pass the time until dinner, we visit Heral Bony Gallery at 16:00, where another friend of hers worked. Then we returned to the restaurant with the festival at 17:00.
Their Reimen was infinitely tastier than the previous one I’d eaten in Pyunpyunsha, because I could add as much kimchi as I wanted, thereby creating a stronger flavor. It was too spicy for me, but at least not bland. With a slice of apple instead of a watermelon inside, since it was no longer summer. Thanks to the festival, the Reimen cost a mere 450 yen! Half than usual.
Our conversations throughout the whole day mostly revolved around work and visa, with her repeating how important it was for me to abandon all my pursuits at the moment and find a job as soon as possible. Last week, she’d texted that merely asking about jobs wasn’t enough, and that I ought to take this job hunting more seriously. I hadn’t exactly updated her about every prospective workplace I’d been in touch with.
She dropped me off at a building in downtown Morioka near 18:00. I waited for my host and his wife for the next three hours; an alcohol-filled work function had him running late. But fashionably so, with a nice suit, and turquoise highlights in his hair.
He treated me to my first instant eggplant miso soup and whisky soda. I liked both. I’d gotten used to sparkling drinks, fish, and eggplants on this trip.
At night, we watched half the first Harry Potter film, my first time seeing it since middle school. A magical way to end a day. He mentioned that tomorrow would be his birthday. I felt bad for intruding on his home on such a special day.
Before going to bed, I contacted the company as the ski resort friend had instructed me to. With the Sapporo English teaching opportunity and Lake Akan ski resort and tourist information center jobs falling through the cracks, I kept my expectations to a minimum.
I didn’t know when and if I’d return to Morioka again. I didn’t know anything about the future anymore. Each day brought with it news and changes.
Ironically enough, for a town with barely anything to do, Morioka ended up being my most visited place in Japan. I appreciated the activities and introductions the Morioka woman had arranged for me, even if some of them hadn’t worked out.
(As for the APPI job, no one got back to me once I mentioned I was in Japan on a tourist visa.)
Today’s highlights: sunrise at sea; the melon-filled melonpan; snow and kouyou; Reimen; Harry Potter.
Signs that it’s winter:
I can’t sleep without socks
I wake every day with a sore throat
I can’t get out of bed in the morning
My hands are always cold
I no longer wear deodorant
22 October 2023
8:50-9:00 Sugo station to Morioka station local train, 9:50-10:00 transfer to Yohaba station
Kenji Miyazaki’s house
Kenji Miyazaki museum (30m)
Final stops in Hanamaki: dessert shop, Hanamaki airport, another ice cream
Coffee festival in Morioka (30m)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – second half
Hanamaki
Last day with the Morioka woman. I donned my samue for the occasion. The day I’d left Japan for Korea in May, I’d been sitting in the airport gate clad in it.
“変な人だと思った,” a woman approached me with a tourism questionnaire and remarked at some point. (“I thought you looked like an odd person.”) This was how we’d met.
After reuniting several times in Japan in the last three months, today was the first time she’d seen my samue since that day. I took the train to Yahaba train station to meet her, where she flinched with surprise at my garment.
I informed her of my host’s (her friend’s) birthday, also unbeknownst to her. We agreed it’d be fitting to buy him a present.
We drove to Hanamaki, a tiny town known as the hometown of Kenji Miyazawa, one of the most famous Japanese authors of children’s literature. His family still resided at his home, so we could only witness the bench outside modeled after Night on the Galactic Railroad. Then we drove up a hill to his museum.
Miyazaki was an author of many passions, as proved by his museum. Poems he’d written about farming life; teaching at an agricultural school; astronomical research that had inspired his stories. A collection of rocks and musical instruments. He’d channeled all his pursues into his fiction.
We returned to his house, one minute from a department store famous for its ice cream. After a large omelet rice, it was time for an ice cream twice the normal size in Japan (so tall that we used chopsticks!), and half the cost. At 260 yen, this was a steal.
Like yesterday, most of our conversations today revolved around the urgency of my finding a job. The topic of money came up a lot. She informed me of important matters, such as living costs in share houses. I was a bit surprised when she inquired how my sister was paying for her med school, though.
On the way back to Morioka, we stopped at a dessert shop, where she picked a couple of individual cakes for my host that I paid for. Then at the minuscule Hanamaki airport, which she wanted to show me. Finally, at a sake factory known for its sake and salted caramel ice cream. My fifth ice cream in three days – I could barely take another bite at this point – but I had to try it.
At a gas station in Morioka, I couldn’t use my credit card to pay for her fuel. So she drove us to another station, where I paid.
We finished our day together with a coffee festival in Morioka that had been on her radar. I couldn’t consume anything at this point, my stomach bursting with sweets, so we simply chatted with vendors while she sipped coffee.
“Sorry he’s wearing a samue,” she said to one, “変な外人けど (he’s a bit of an odd foreigner).”
At another stand, we encouraged me to try a good pastry, but food was the absolute last thing on my mind. She apologized to the vendor that I wasn’t buying anything.
Finally, she dropped me at the train station at 16:00, where I passed 2.5 hours talking to my family for once on the phone. At 19:00, my host and his wife picked me up from a station near his home.
I gifted him the cakes I’d bought in Hanamaki. We ate delicious takeout sushi for his birthday dinner (my first sea urchin gunkanmaki, a delicacy, plus a strong sake and a sweet potato shu cream for dessert) and finished the second half of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Yet another successful way to end the day.
I hadn’t expected the last two days in Morioka to cost me more than two days in Tokyo, where I also paid for accommodation. Even with my homestay here, I ended up paying for ropeway tickets, gas, toll road, and more.
The conversations of the last two days had also taken me a bit by surprise, because they’d come to replace my phone calls with my mom.
“Stop looking for a job,” my mom had been repeating to me in the past fortnight since the war had broken out, “and start looking for a wife.”
It was meant as a joke to lighten up the blood-soaked mood. She would then add in earnest how I should simply go to a Japanese language school instead.
Japanese people had been advising me to marry a Japanese woman on a weekly basis. The Morioka woman included, in August for example. I found it funny how, ever since the war, she’d ceased telling me so, and shifted her attention to my job hunt. My mom had done the opposite.
Perhaps my mom had understood that I’d never find a visa-granting job as a tourist, and that I’d better enroll in a language school, find a part time job, and use my free time to date.
For the first time in my life, I felt complete and total support from my mom. She’d resisted every big decision I’d made since high school. Just when she’d ceased criticizing the trajectory of my life and started supporting me, promising to back me no matter what, the Morioka woman had begun echoing my mom’s erstwhile words.
Today’s highlights: gigantic ice cream; a sushi, sake, and Harry Potter night.
23 October 2023
Writing inside Morioka station in the morning
Wanko soba for lunch
14:20-16:05 Morioka to Kakunodate local train (Tazawako line)
Homemade pizza for dinner at my guesthouse
Wanko Soba
Today my host in Morioka dropped me off at Iwate Ioka station on his way to work. He repeated the Morioka woman’s sentiments about my dire need to find a job.
I took the train to Morioka station, wrote inside the waiting room, and then took a bus from bus stop number 6 to Morioka Bus Center, right by Azumaya – the restaurant in Morioka known for wanko soba.
I couldn’t risk leaving Morioka for good, after no less than five visits here, without ever trying this famous yet expensive meal.
So I waited for 1.5 hours, until 13:00, since I’d come without a reservation. Even on a Monday morning, the restaurant had a waiting list. In the meantime, I checked out the famous and nearby (albeit underwhelming) red brick bank.
In the olden days, the cold climate of north Japan had forced farmers to live on noodles, rather than grains. Soba had become a mealtime entertainment, which hosts would serve to their guests to no end. (In Japan, refusing the food you were served signaled that it was subpar.)
When Kei Hara, the prime minister, had returned to his hometown of Morioka, he’d requested soba to be served to him in a ‘wanko’ – wan meaning cup, and ko, a suffix of the local dialect that made words sound cute. Soba was thus served as a mouthful at a time.
The meal went like this.
You could pay for the cups to be stacked, which created a nice image, or pay less to have the waitress take them with her and you counted your number using matches. The cup tower picture seemed fun, but I opted for the cheaper option.
I was served various toppings, none of which I touched. The only thing I’d consumed today was a glass of water. My stomach was extremely empty for an extreme meal.
Once I put on an apron and removed the lid from my personal bowl, all hell broke loose.
The waitress, carrying a tray full of cups filled with mouthfuls of soba, began to pour them into my bowl. I ate the first portion and poured the soup into a bucket. She poured another. I ate and poured the soup. She served. All as mechanical and fast as a factory conveyor belt.
I felt like Patrick in that SpongeBob episode where he shoved a gazillion cookies into his mouth like a vacuum cleaner. I couldn’t slurp my noodles (forever a Japanese custom I wouldn’t be able to learn) so I just shoved them inside my mouth using my chopsticks, and the waitress poured me another portion without even giving me time to breathe.
The noodles were quite soggy, and not that appetizing. Maybe the sogginess was to help one down them. Their sauce differed between the cups, as did their amount. Some contained a small bite, others a larger one.
Every diner had to eat them continuously, rather than spend the whole day inside the restaurant.
Everything went smoothly at first. Fifteen cups equaled one bowl of soba. I devoured forty cups in a manner of minutes.
By fifty, my pace was slowing down. At a regular restaurant, I would’ve stopped.
By sixty, my stomach was full, and my mouth tired of soggy, bland, buckwheat noodles.
The waitress advised me to add some toppings, to enhance the flavor. I used some spicy vegetables and steamed mushrooms. At 66, I almost quit.
I made it to seventy. Stomach bursting, mouth threatening me with nausea. The tuna sashimi I added to the next portion was the driest I’d had.
“You’re going to attempt one hundred, are you?” the waitress asked.
I couldn’t talk in this state, so I just nodded.
My couchsurfing host in Morioka from August could eat 60 cups. My current host, 100. His wife’s firefighter brother had once reached 300. The world record was 570. Yet by eighty, I could not chew.
The waitress stood by my side, waiting for me to get rid of the noodles in my mouth. Every bite was a chore.
From here on, each cup took forever. Why this fun idea for a meal ought to be based around the least appetizing noodles imaginable, I could not fathom. Buckwheat was already too dry for me to crave on a regular day. Sitting in an unseasoned soup, it only grew less appealing. Why was I doing this to myself?
“If you feel unwell, it’s best to stop,” the waitress said.
The only thing I was craving was spitting out the noodles in my mouth.
I wanted the plaque and certificate, given only to diners who passed one hundred. So I braved the nausea and chugged on, until I quit at ninety.
This close to a hundred, I could’ve probably made it, but then I would’ve thrown up. Better to quit before growing sick and ruining this experience. A three-digit number didn’t seem worth it.
The waitress gave me a plaque and a certificate nonetheless, saying that all foreigners received one regardless of their number.
Then she served me dessert.
“Why is dessert included?!” I bellowed, incredulous. But it was just a couple of slices of orange in a sweet sauce. A fitting replacement for the bland buckwheat taste.
I left the restaurant satisfied with the experience, and determined to never eat soba again.
Kakunodate
Then I noticed the time. 13:55. The local train to Kakunodate was at either 14:20, or 18:10. The rest of the trains were Shinkansens.
I hurried to the bus stop with my luggage and belly full of soggy noodles, and made it to the train in time.
My first time in Kakunodate was on August 4, where I stayed for one night after reuniting with the Morioka woman at the Morioka Sansa Odori festival. I’d taken the last bullet train and arrived at this sleepy, tiny town at 22:20, only to find the owner of my guesthouse waiting to pick me up from the station. She’d estimated my arrival time and given me a ride without even asking for it.
She was a 60 years old Japanese woman who had left her native Tokyo to marry a Kakunodate man. He’d passed away a few years ago, and her three daughters were living far from her (one in Fukushima, one in Tokyo, and one in Lyon, France). Now she was running this guesthouse on her own and living with two dogs.
Back in August, she’d told me of an upcoming trip to Israel and Jordan in November. We’d kept in touch since then, me answering her questions every now and then. At some point, she’d offered to host me in her guesthouse for free, now that we’d become friends.
Then the war had started. I’d informed her of the new circumstances. She’d cancelled her trip, and offered to host me for as long as I wanted.
Knowing I’d return to Morioka, Kakunodate was a no-brainer. No sooner had I arrived at the guesthouse than Owner greeted me like an old friend, with hi, how have you been, it’s been a while, and – and – a hug.
Japanese people never hugged.
It was a reunion more western-like than my previous ones in Japan. She knew everyone in Kakunodate. Both the locals and the foreigners who’d come to teach English. At the moment, four Americans guys were teaching at the four high schools in Kakunodate.
Plus, she’d been traveling to Lyon on an annual basis, and learning French. She loved her time in India, and dreamed of visiting the Middle East. Culture exchange was a passion we had in common.
I gifted her an expensive bottle of whisky, exclusive to Nikka’a Yoichi distillery. She seemed to prefer red wine, though, again opting for a western substitute.
Year round, she was quite busy, with running the guesthouse, an Italian restaurant, and weekly language classes in English and French. Only in wintertime did she get some much-deserved rest, not leaving the house after 16:00, because Kakunodate would grew too cold, dark, and snowy.
After checking in, I immediately met a 33-years-old Kiwi in my dorm. He’d taught English in Japan for five years in both Tokyo and Sapporo, and come to Kakunodate to visit friends. Tomorrow he’d visit Nyuto Onsen’s Tsuru-no-yu, which I’d visited in August.
Then a Taiwanese family checked into our dorm. Mom, son, and daughter. Everyone seemed nice and sociable, the siblings capable of Japanese as well. A Japanese girl traveling solo from Tottori prefecture had also checked in, and told me how snow coated the famous sand dunes in December. Yet Owner had already invited me to dinner in her restaurant.
It was with her and her friend, a 27 years old American teacher. They made pizza (real pizza! With real cheese!) and pasta with tomato sauce and a separate green salad for me without tomatoes. Every Monday, he would tutor Owner over dinner.
We were setting the table when a guy holding instant cup noodles walked into the kitchen and asked if he could join us. It was a bit awkward at first, because he’d mistaken this area of the guesthouse for a guest area. Owner faltered at his intrusion, but invited him nonetheless.
He was a thirtysomething American who’d been traveling all over the world for three years now after losing his job during COVID. The stories he’d told us about hiking in the US curbed my desire to attempt so in the far future.
I hadn’t planned to eat dinner after spending more than a day’s budget on wanko soba, but somehow, I’d grown peckish, so I rejoiced in the company and sustenance.
Today’s highlights: the thrill (rather than taste) of wanko soba; homemade pizza for dinner with Owner and the Americans.
