For The Love of Travel

My Sakura App tells me to head for the Mikamine Park in Miyagi, so off I go! And its glorious weather today, yay. Planted with 750 trees and 48 types of Yoshino cherry, weeping cherry and Yaezakura, the park features the most cherry blossom trees in downtown Sendai, allowing viewers to enjoy hanami (cherry blossoms viewing) for a month. I met Ernie and his owner, and got permission to take the pooch pic…adorable! Felt like the ‘female dogist’ in Japan, rather than NY 🙂

Yamadera (山寺) is a scenic temple located in the mountains northeast of Yamagata City. The temple grounds extend high up a steep mountainside, 1,000 steps. Well I probably don’t need to tell you that I didn’t climb, but sent droney up instead. The temple was founded over a thousand years ago in 860 as a temple of the Tendai sect under the official name Risshakuji. I would like to spend more time in the area generally (lots of lovely villages) and in Yamagata too in future.

Just after leaving Yamadera, saw this scene I liked on the Tachiya River ….

You drive through heaps of tunnels as you meander through the hills, and there are babbling brooks with ice melt flowing down the river systems. I was struck with the beauty of the NICCHU hydro-dam, and I loved the female sculpture, in the Otoge Pass. It was built between 1979 and 1992 to serve three purposes: energy supply; a water reservoir for agriculture and serves as a very important barricade against flooding water from striking the local area and its inhabitants.

Last stop for the day @ Tsuruga castle in Aizuwakamatsu which is surrounded by cherry trees. Castle was built in 1384 and changed hands many times between different rulers of Aizu. It was destroyed in 1868 in a rebellion against the newly formed Meiji government which had put an end to Japan’s feudal era. The castle was one of the last strongholds of samurai loyal to the shogunate. I can see ‘Shintaro’ (reference from 1960’s childhood TV program) battling it out! As it happens, the castle was rebuilt in the 1960’s too. I’m always tempted to do an arty farty shot…this one below leapt out at me as I passed the lake to the side of the castle.

Hakodate ferry to Aomori journey was ace. The 4 hour trip gave me time to compile my drone photo entries for the 2024 Siena Drone Awards Competition. Its quite the process…you have to come up with a name and description for the series of photos you are submitting, also a name and description for each photo – and there is a word minimum and maximum. I was struggling to get to the minimum. Ah well, we’ll see how they go. Pleased with the set I submitted anyway.

I really wanted to see the Towada Art Centre, given its excellent reputation, but its closed on Mondays….arrrrh! Never mind, just took a few cute photos of the art work on the outside.

The next day, it bucketed down all day …for 200 kms down south as I was travelling, so the photos are from the IPhone. I have cherry blossom fever now that I’m further south and with 15 degree days, there is a chance for those little charmers to bloom. So I have my list of researched locations and also loaded a Satura App on my phone. Pity its such a crap day….anyway, onwards and onwards…

Ishiwarizakura (rock-split cherry tree) was my first stop in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture – an approximately 400-year-old cherry tree, measuring 4.3 metres around the base and 10 metres high,  growing out of a crack in a granite boulder outside a courthouse. It was proclaimed a National Treasure of Japan in 1923. And so well ‘supported’ as it grows.

Kitakami Tenshochi Park, also in the Iwate Prefecture, is right next to the Kitakami River and that’s the place you go for a stroll to admire the 10,000 cherry trees lining the 2km pathway, planted 100 years ago. Not today you don’t 🙂 I sneaked a quick photo at one end the pathway and darted back to the car.

I was driving through the lovely little village of Kitatenma, where houses are as you imagined they’d be in Japan, with veggie gardens; bonsai’d plants and niwaki’d cloud trees and saw this magnificent specimen of cherry in a kids park –

Bravely carrying on, my last stop was at Mizusawa Park in Oshu City, that was designed in 1878 by the wandering painter and landscape architect, Minomushi Sanjin and today, is filled with about 500 sakura. Took lots of pics but decided to scrap most…even greyer and more ‘blown out’ than the below pic. You have to be ruthless!

Dramas at the Hotel Crown Hills Sendai Aobadori. I booked because they had onsite parking. When I arrived, was told my rental car (a teeny tiny cube car) wouldn’t fit the car stack parking system. So the closest external car park was 400m down the road….very underwhelming experience, dragging luggage through rain to the hotel. Also cheesed off with Booking.com, who seemingly don’t care that their website about this hotel doesn’t mention any height limits on vehicles. GRRR! ….Thank you for the debrief.

Lots of fog when I left this morning and I was immediately worried about what that meant for the sites I would be visiting that morning. Well, as you would have it, brilliant sunshine at my first port of call at Oyunuma Pond, a natural footbath at the Oyunuma River that flows from a lake of the same name. Except the walkway to it was closed half the way along, so I got to see a tiny waterfall, cascading gracefully into a teeny tiny area that could be referred to as a mini pond. Lots of sulphur smells though!

Brilliant weather at the Jigokudani crater (aka Hells Valley) just a few minutes up the road. Its a spectacular valley just above the town of Noboribetsu Onsen, which displays hot steam vents, sulfuric streams and other volcanic activity (mercifully not the latter when I was there). There are lots of walkways through the valley to see the activity close up. You can see a few puffs of sulphur in the bottom left hand corner of the pic.

I was told by the Visitor Centre in Teshikaga that I wouldn’t be able to see bears cavorting in any hot springs as they were (derrr!) in hibernation. So my substitute this afternoon was visit the Yakumocho Kiborikuma Museum. Yakumo is the birthplace of Hokkaido’s specialty – carved wooden bears, which started in 1923 when Tokugawa Yoshichika brought back carved bears from Switzerland, encouraging farmers to take up the craft. The Yakumo bears differ from those produced elsewhere as they feature fur lines extending downwards from the shoulder. And since Yakumo farmers have raised bear cubs as models for their carving, many feature soft facial expressions and playful gestures. Awh, adorable!

My last task today was to get some shots of Mt Komagatake, a 1,131m high active volcano straddling the towns of Mori, Shikabe and Nanae. It used to have a cone shape like Mt Fuji, but the summit collapsed during a major eruption in 1640. There are a number of viewing points but I chose 2 – from a freeway ‘pull in’, as below…

And also from Kogetsu Bridge in Nanae, in the Onuma Quasi National Park….happy with those shots too.

My last night in Hokkaido, on the ferry early tomorrow morning and back to the (main) island of Honshu.