Summer vacation is finally here.
Armed with a Seishun 18-Kippu, I took the 9AM commuter train to make a rendezvous with Brian in Yokohama. This is my fifth slow train trip through the countryside of Japan. Each one was challenging with all the trains, connections and hours of conversation (and non conversation), but the JR trains are a good way to slowly snake through the country along the seas and between the mountains, and get a feel for the nondescript towns and cities that normally get passed in a heartbeat on the Shinkansen.
We had some fish-broth ramen in Tokyo Station; took a wrong train towards Gunma in Saitama; made our way back with our heads down in shame; had some pleasantly chewy gyoza in Utsunomiya; and after some 10 hours on local trains, finally made it to Aizu-Wakamatsu, a castle town snuggled between the mountains of Fukushima prefecture.
There's a castle and a sake factory; the latter was far more interesting than the former, but maybe that was the 9AM alcohol talking.
After a half-day of tourist traps in Aizu-Wakamatsu, we rolled up to Fukushima City for a brief look around. The first time I came to this place was in the winter of 2004 with Kyle. This was before the earthquake and the nuclear power plant disaster and before all the things that can happen in a life in a decade-plus. Kyle and I had JR rail passes from friends who had visited and decided on a whim on a Monday to go to Fukushima to look for snow. We didn't see much and had some Yoshinoya instead.
(People don't go to Fukushima to look for snow anymore.)
Brian and I walked through a lively festival in the 100-degree heat and I marveled at how much the city had changed and modernized (new department stores, more shiny lights and glitz.)
Our last stop for the day was Sendai, the only metropolis in all of Tohoku. It's a big city in the way a lot of big cities are in Japan: convenient, bright, loud, garish, exciting.
Running count: We've walked through three festivals in two days. Summers in Japan are grand.
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