Among the intentions I had for coming to
Japan, visiting the grave of Christ and milking a cow were not listed.
Rewind a few hours to Steph serving up a
glorious breakfast of Bagels hummus and eggs and the two of us loading
ourselves into her wee purple Daihatsu, lead north by google-san.
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| The Grave of Christ - Aomori |
Our final destination was a cabin on the
shore of Lake Towada in Aomori, however a somewhat infamous tourist spot proved
a tempting detour along the way. In the 1930’s, ancient religious manuscripts (of
which there are only handed written transcriptions in the museum…) were
unearthed that supposedly accounted for the 12 or so years of Jesus’ life that
is not mentioned in the bible, from his early 20’s to 30’s. The papers claim
that Jesus traveled to Japan during this time to study. On his return to Judea
(and ultimately the pages in the bible) Jesus was arrested, however his brother
Isukiri (if you think that sounds suspiciously Japanese you’re not alone) took
his place on the cross and Jesus fled to Japan, remaining there until he died
at 106.
There must have been some sort of recovery
mission as Isukiri is also (supposedly) buried at this site in Shingo – this is
where Steph and I proposed it was a third brother that emerged from the cave in
Judea after 3 days; ladies and gentlemen, I give you the holy trinity.
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| Doll with Cross on Forehead - local tradition come horror movie set |
Upon reaching the cross mounted mound,
Steph and I could not help but giggle at the pure lunacy of it. It’s still not
obvious as to whether the locals still believe this theory, though there is a
tradition of drawing a cross on babies’ heads before they leave the house for
the first time, and annual festival dances take place…
Still chuckling we left the enigmas of
local legends behind us and, just as Steph’s car began to smell like someone
had left a soldering iron on, arrived at what we thought to be a herb market,
and wound up being handed a cup of carrots to feed the resident farm animals.
You got, I came all the way from New Zealand, to milk a cow.
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| Lake Towada |
After the chatty lady at the information
desk had requested that we write down how to say ‘cow milking’ in English for
her as there had apparently been some difficult in explaining to tourists
(though I can’t imagine the numbers would be huge) what it was (internal giggle
at the words and gestures that must have been attempted).
After feeding the sheep, goats, ponies and milking
a cow, we proceeded to the michi-no-eki (roadside station) where I invested in
some basil ice cream and we asked the owners where the nearest garage was as we
appeared to be out of coolant. Once we had established the fact that my
Japanese was crap and I was talking about coolant and not the aircon the lovely
gentlemen toddled off and retrieved a bottle of alien green liquid and kindly
topped up Steph’s car for us.
We arrived at the cabins just before the
others (Liam, Priscilla, Isabel and Brandon) and began the epoch of sorting out
the bedding set up, this involved a lot of sheets being thrown from loft to
floor to bunk and the odd shriek when someone released that a host of stink
bugs had been camping out in their futon.
We cooked up a feast of yakiniku for dinner and smashed out a
couple of rounds of kings cup before calling it a night.
The following morning proved a leisurely
start with some groggier than others. After we’d prepped ourselves with a
breakfast of bacon and eggs we visited a lake front café for a coffee and apple
pie (Aomori being renowned for apples).
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| Oirase Gorge feat. komorebi |
The foliage was not yet flushed with autumn
but there were touches of orange and crimson as we strolled along the stream in
the Oirase gorge. Steph taught us her favourite word in Japanese: komorebi sunlight filtered through trees.
We returned to what township Towada has
and, armed with matcha soft creams, wandered over to the lake front to visit
the maiden statues and Towada shrine.
We had barely started the journey home before
the sign boasting ‘apple beer’ proved too intriguing and we stopped to invest
in some local products…
The cabin welcomed us home with smells of
taco soup simmering away in the crock pot that Isabel had prepped that morning.
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| Maiden Statues - Lake Towada |
Wanting to make the most of the long
weekend Steph and I ventured west to Hirosaki the next day. The album of choice
was Odesza as we meandered out of the crater that Towada nestles in and
relished being surrounded by trees once again, all too used to being surround by rice paddies. Our first stop was a lovely outdoor onsen in the mountains (it was nice to have a decent shower again)
followed by hunting down a burger joint in Hirosaki that Brandon had
recommended – Dubois - hands down the best burger I have had in Japan.
Lunchtime entertainment was provided by the old Jii-chan taking his 15 year old
napy-clad tortoise for a walk down the main road.
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| Strategically cropped Hirosaki Castle |
Now, I have heard many a tale about how
beautiful Hirosaki and its castle is in the spring, exploding with soft pink
cherry blossoms. As a result I had built up Hirosaki to be quite the castle in my
head. This was not the case. We entered the grounds to discover the smallest
castle either of us had ever seen.
Part of the reason for this was that there
is currently some serious construction work being carried out on the stone
foundations as a result of the Sea of Japan earthquake in the 80’s. Due to
this, they put the main building on rollers and moved it about 75 meters away.
It looks somewhat less impressive sitting on flat ground than it did in the
pictures where it was perched majestically on the stone foundations, bearing
down on the moat below. To its credit there was a ring of photographs of
castles from around the country decorating the top floor and I found Matsuyama
Castle which I had visited a number of times during my exchange.
Back across the border in Akita we stopped
at a road side station where Steph was delighted to find a pumpkin to carve for
Halloween and we decided to brave green pepper flavoured soft cream.
Between the tourist stops, ice cream
flavours and fit of laughter at the cabin, it proved to be an entertaining
getaway to say the least.
