Four-day Trip Up North

From Sunday through Wednesday (Oct. 25-28) we went on a trip that took us north out of Tokyo. We went to Nasu, Ura-bandai, and Aizu-wakamatsu.

It’s late, so I’ll just upload the photos and try to get back to adding some comments in the near future.

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Sunday

We drove away from Tokyo, onto the Tohoku Expressway. The skies were overcast with rains threatening. We weren’t sure where the good fall foliage might be seen. We knew that the trees at the higher elevations had already shed most of their leaves. Looking at the map we saw a toll road (many of the best scenic roads are toll roads, some rather expensive) called the Momiji (maple) Line. We decided to go towards that road.

Around lunch time we reached the town of Kinugawa. We stopped to eat at a small ramen restaurant. The decor was an interesting combination of western and Japanese styles. We sat in an tatami floor-seating area. The ramen was quite good.

We continued driving and onto the Momiji line. Although the weather was unfavorable, the fall colors were decent along this road.

We reached our destination in the Nasu area where we would stay for two days. We discovered that the rooms did not have individual showers. Anyone wanting to shower or bathe would have to go down to the public hot springs bath – not usually a problem for most hotel guests but for a couple members of our party, there was some strong reluctance. We thought there were showers in all the rooms, but that was not the case. Only a few rooms at this facility have individual showers.

After bathing we went down to the buffet dinner where we had plenty to fill ourselves. The food was good, but as is the case with most of Japan, vegetarians don’t always have much, if any, selection other than, say, fruit and dessert.

Monday

My trials began in the morning. A massive migraine hit early in the morning and would not leave until Wednesday. The stress of travel within travel, crowds, second-hand cigarette smoke, and the sense of responsibility for keeping the family together and happy took its toll.

Breakfast was also buffet, but I was feeling a little nauseated and could not eat nearly as much as I wanted to. I had quite a bit of tofu with freshly grated ginger.

A major typhoon came through (offshore, but it was a large one) and the winds and rain were heavy all day. We couldn’t do anything outdoors so we found an indoor activity.

We toured an optical illusion museum (トリックあーとぴあ) in three buildings. You can get an idea of what it contained by looking at the photos. This activity took up a good deal of the day.

Between buildings two and three we went a short distance to a teppanyaki railroad-themed restaurant. We ordered yaki-udon and yaki-soba dishes. The ingredients were delivered by a scale model steam locomotive and cars. We cooked the dishes at our table. We didn’t know what to expect coming in, but were pleased with the food.

By evening I had recovered enough to eat my fill at dinner.

Tuesday

The migraine persisted, but I felt well enough to have plenty for breakfast. Then we were off again on the road. The migraine got worse. I took more medications to try to find something that would lessen the pain.

On this day we drove further north to Fukushima City and then took a couple of toll roads to Ura-bandai. The typhoon had passed by, but winds were still quite strong. The skies began to clear and by midday there was a great deal of blue sky with lots of fast moving clouds. The roads we took brought us along areas that would have been great viewing of fall foliage, if we had been there two weeks earlier. Even so, the scenery was good.

We stopped for lunch but I did not feel well enough to eat. That was just as well because that meant I could eat more at dinner when I had mostly recovered.

The hotel at Ura-bandai had individual baths and showers in each room. The building looked to be a more recent construction and seemed to be of higher quality overall. The public bath, once more, was from hot springs.

There was plenty to be had at the dinner buffet. This particular hotel is known for its buffets and for good reason. The selection was great and it featured a number of local specialty dishes.

Wednesday

By morning I had nearly recovered. After buffet breakfast we went a short distance to one of the famous scenic areas: Goshiki-numa (五色沼), a number of ponds and small lakes along a 2-mile path. Each of the ponds features unique colors due to chemicals that were emitted during the volcanic eruption that formed the area. We walked about two-thirds of the way on the path and then retraced our steps back. The path was very crowded with many, many tourists.

Shelley discovered she didn’t have her wristwatch. She looked in her luggage but did not find it. We drove back to the hotel and the staff had found the watch, plus Amy’s shirt, and a 50-yen coin in the room.

After that we stopped at a small restaurant called Monterey where we had soup, sandwich, bread, hamburger steak (more like a high-quality western meatloaf than what I normally expect to see as hamburger steak), and lots of dessert.

Following lunch we drove down to Aizu-wakamatsu where we went to the city’s castle site and toured the castle grounds and the main keep.

The rental car had to be returned by 8 p.m. so our return trip was a race against the clock. We stopped briefly at a service area (kind of like a rest stop but with restaurants, snack shops, gift shops, food stands, dozens of vending machines, and lots of cars and people) to pick up a few things to eat and then raced on. We reached home about 7:40 p.m. unloaded and Dad drove to return the car with 20 5 minutes to spare.

It turned out that one small bag was left in the car. It was retrieved the following day.

And that concludes a recap of our trip within a trip.