Three days in Morioka

Tetsu and I went off to Morioka again this weekend, a six hour drive north.  We had a great three days there with the specific reason to meet up with friends from long ago.  Over three days I took 60 pictures on my camera (not including iPhone.)  But Tetsu took 420!!!!  I will go through the photos before I post much about our weekend...

Driving north we use the highway which extends from Tokyo to Aomori prefecture.  There is only one tollway that spans the whole northern part of Japan and as long as it isn't a holiday weekend, the drive is uncrowded and pleasant.  The highway itself is a well kept two lane road (two lanes in each direction) and is easy to drive.  I say that though I didn't do any of the driving this weekend.  The highway interchange is now automatically paid and we just drive through the tollway and get off at the other end without having to stop to pay tolls.  Along the way there are Parking Areas which provide vending machines and bathrooms and Service Areas which often have small restaurants as well as gift shops and local produce markets.  We made maybe three stops coming and going, to stretch our legs, get something to eat, to make use of the bathrooms.  At a couple of the service areas I reminisced about how on previous trips we used to let Choco play in the dog run areas that are also provided.

So here are a few photos I took during our rest stops. 

The bathrooms are always clean with a choice of Western style toilet (sit down) or Japanese style (squat).  They all come with a washlet feature including a bidet button.  Someone keeps the sink area cheery with fresh flowers.

Other decorations I found in the public bathrooms were these cute little chirimen (crepe silk) turtles and owl...

... and these ojizousan (Buddhist traveler statues).  They say "Wishing you a rest...  Thank you for keeping the service area clean."

As we had left our house at 6:00 am, we chose to stop at one of the Service Area's restaurants for breakfast.  Rice, a soft boiled egg, seaweed papers, pink pickled radish, miso soup and a plate with simmered seaweed, spicy fish eggs, one sausage, one slice of ham with shredded cabbage and a piece of salty salmon with grated radish.  Delicious and we got back on the road very full!

At one of the Service Area's gift shops where we bought chocolate and nuts, these little origami trinkets were set out for customers to take as they pleased for free.  Some of them say "Safe Driving Protection".   The little shirt ones are toothpick holders.

(Sorry... a bit blurry...)

At one Service Area there was a man and his dog enjoying being mini-celebrities.  The dog is dressed up as a high school student with a traditional high neck boy's high school uniform.  The man kept telling people to come and pet his dog and he was ever so pleased when passersby from the parking lot asked if we could take the dog's picture.

Pretty soon the man's daughter appeared with another dog, this one dressed in high school girl's uniform.

The man said that both dogs are 13 years old....  What fun it was to see them.  Pretty soon the man and his daughter and the dogs got into their red sports car and headed back on their travels down the highway.  I wonder if their purpose is to travel or to show off their dogs.

 After nearly 6 hours on the road we finally spotted Mt. Iwate, the mountain that overlooks Morioka.

Mt. Iwate is considered the Mt. Fuji of northern Japan. Yeah!  We had arrived in Morioka and were ready to start our weekend!