Leaving Aomori

Summer in Aomori
By Sol March in Travelogue

It was fun, but it’s time to leave Aomori.

I like Aomori– it’s cool, quiet, and the people are easygoing. Aomori is where you go when you need to get away from the noise and activity of the big city.

Aomori is rich with interesting food and culture, but when you’re looking for adventure, it doesn’t take long to run out of things to do here.

We decide to leave Aomori without much discussion– we both know it’s the right time. So after lunch, but we head to the train station to get tickets to our next destination.

At the station, we briefly peruse the map and choose our next city– Nagoya.

Tickets to Ride

We Ride at Dawn

There’s just one problem– the first train out of Aomori leaves early, so we are up before dawn the next morning. We check out of the hotel and step out into darkness and set out for the train station.

Aomori’s buses don’t run this early, so we take the 1/2 mile to the train station on foot.

The sunrise almost makes the lack of sleep worth it.

Early Morning

Goodbye Italian restaurant. In the early morning light, it dawns on me why there is such an abundance of Italian restaurants in Japan– noodles!

Sunrise

Carried along by the brisk morning air, we reach the train station with time to spare before the train’s departure. We’re so early in fact that the train hasn’t even arrived yet.

I suppose it’s better to be a bit early rather than too late.

Aomori Trail Station at Dawn

Hello Hayate

It’s only been a few days since our last encounter with Hayate, the Shinkansen that brought us north from Tokyo, but it feels like we’re reuniting with an old friend as Hayate’s smoothly-contoured shape silently glides up to the platform and welcomes us with sliding doors.

We get on and find our seats, while other passengers quickly buy some unagi for the road.

I’m not quite hungry enough to eat eel from a train station kiosk.

Eel for the Road

As punctual as ever, Hayate leaves the train station right on time, and we are soon heading south through Japan’s countryside at blistering speeds.

Now we're moving!

It’s nice to be back in the wide open countryside where rice field fields rule the land…

Fields of Rice

…and dinosaurs roam free.

Dino

In a few hours, we’ll be hundreds of miles away in Nagoya, but our time in Aomori will stay with us for quite a while.

Summer in Aomori

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