06/01/11 - Wednesday

When Billy and I woke up, we felt 3 or 4 mild earthquakes. I make a point to say that Japanese earthquakes feel markedly different than California earthquakes. For one, they are more of a rocking gentle motion, compared to CA's jagged motion. For two, the tend to either be A) much subtler and/or B) last longer. Long enough to say "Hmm, is this an earthquake? Say, Billy, do you think this is an earthquake? I think so too."

Here is Michael's house (it's behind the orange house on the right) (also, I apologize for the crappy picture, but hey, they can't all be winners!):

When the sun is shining, here's what it looks like as you walk outside:

To the very right is a long gravel driveway that leads up to the road. Take the road left a ways, and you hit a Circle K, which is what Billy and I did while Mike slept in and bought some sandwiches, chips, and coffee. Next door (to the right of the driveway) is this bakery, which I miss dearly:

We got an apple crisp, which instead of gooey apple filling had slices of apples for a filling, a crispy cookie which was shaped like a leaf and tasted like cinnamon, a bag of something that looked like condensed donut holes but tasted hazelnutty, and a tennis sized sort of crispy bun. When I bit into the bun it was filled of this delicious creamy french vanilla pudding cream thing.

One thing I definitely learned while in Japan: it pays to just shut up and try it!

After Mike woke up we hit the BX on base again for last bits of supplies, headed back to the house, packed for the road, and hit it around 1pm. We took the Tohoku Expressway towards Morioka, then towards Fukushima, and planned to spend the night at or near Aizu-Wakamatsu in a traditional Japanese "B&B" called 'Minshuku Takaku' (on advice per our Bible guidebook.) Here's the basic scenery:

We were also pleasantly surprised to see Mt. Iwatasen!

We took a pit stop just before Morioka for snacks, one in Chojahara and experienced a full-service Japanese gas station for the first time (they ask to change your in-car ashtray (smoking is big in Japan), top off fluids, wash windshield, and top off gas), and then stopped in Fukushima for dinner.

Let's talk about Fukushima. Yes, it is where the plant had some issues. I'd like to especially point out we hardly saw ANY earthquake damage the entire stay there. Any road damage, etc. that we did see, was being worked on immediately by a full crew and looked like this (yes, that is a robot shaped like a man holding a light and waving a flag back and forth, yes, I love the Japanese):

No one was panicking, there were no radiation warning signs, and, if anything, the sensationalism of the media has been hurting Japan's economy. We went all over the country and it was all business as usual. Except, much of the big touristy areas that are usually filled with bustle were almost completely vacant. Best way to help Japan? Go there! Spend $$! Stop watching the news!

Fukushima provided us with easily one of the best meals of the trip.

(See the vending machine behind Mike? Those were EVERYwhere! I miss them!) You ordered by pressing a button on a machine that has a picture of what you want (after putting in the yen). It prints a ticket and you bring that to the chefs who prepare the food and call the # when done. Both Billy and I ordered something that we thought was a drink and ended up being something they don't offer any more, so they gave us the extra money back.

Here's what I got (sooo good and filling):

Mike got the udon noodles on the left and Billy's feast is on the right. Not bad for a rest stop (did I mention this was a rest stop)!

We then bought some ice cream and hit the road again towards Aizu-Wakamatsu.

Unfortunately there was a traffic detour which delayed us and we arrived in Aizu at night around 9 or 10pm. We circled all over the town and could not find the B&B listed in the guidebook (though we somehow found the post office, one of the land marks the book lists to guide us to the place). The streets were lined with tiny bars that looked like this:

We gave up on the B&B and decided the next place that offers any kind of parking we'll try to check-in (oh yeah, no reservations were made from this point in the trip on). There had been about 2 parking lots in the whole city, so this narrowed our already slim choices.

We walked into a big business hotel. The lady took one look at us and said "no rooms." We circled around a couple more hours and were getting pretty tired and frustrated (math tells us that we had been driving 8+ hours). We finally found a room at a hotel called the Fuji-Grand:

Here let me get you a better picture of the bed:

Think Mike looks unhappy? Billy and I had to share one the same size! Oh well, it is an adventure after all. Ever the optimists, Mike bought a 'TV-Card' in the hallway machine that offered some cable channels. Well, it offered the 6 following channels: 3 - 4 channels of... adult material, 1 infomercial channel (entertaining in Japanese though), and 1 english channel with kanji subtitles which played the young sherlock holmes. We passed the heck out.