I am.. Peter MacWhinnie.

last edited April 15th @ 7:39

Tired. Tired again. Today was a bit different from yesterday, and I am writing this post about 3 hours later than the post I wrote yesterday.

I slept fairly well last night. I’ve seemingly already become used to the time zone and woke up at 5 AM like I seem to everyday. I don’t ever actually get up that early, but I do wake up at that time.

When I finally got up, it was about 9 AM. I took a shower, yay normal day stuff. Steven made a Japanese-style breakfast that included rolled up scrambled-egg with soy sauce and Japanese mayonnaise, sausage, and rice. I also had my first can of coffee, which was surprisingly not terrible. It was a bit strong, though.

We started out a bit earlier than yesterday, leaving at 10 AM. The first thing we did was go to Steven’s bank so my mum could take out some money. When we got there, we realized that she didn’t have her passport with her. So, we had to drive back to the apartment and get her passport. Somewhere in that period Steven told us that we’re supposed to have our passport on us at all times, which he hadn’t told us before. Nice to know. After coming back to the apartment we went back to the bank and completed the transaction. We then jumped over to the parking lot where we took out 10,000 yen for me from the ATM.

After getting the money situation cleared up, we went to the Namioka history museum. There really isn’t much I can tell you about it that my pictures won’t relay much more effectively. Everything was in Japanese, and there was absolutely no English. None-the-less it was a neat place to visit, they had many local artifacts.

After that we went to a buddhist temple in Namioka. It was considerably smaller than the one we went to yesterday, but it was really quite beautiful. The area was surrounded by small ponds that have fish in them during the summer.

We then went to the Namioka castle ruins, where we met one of the few people (Tsuyako Tsukmmoto, very nice lady) in the area who speaks English. There are no structures left at the ruins, just outlines where the buildings used to stand, and ditches where at one time there was water. It was really a very beautiful site. Unfortunately my camera’s batteries started to die at this point.

After going to the castle ruins, we went to lunch at applehill. The food was good, and there was a very large amount of it. I wasn’t able to finish all of it, unfortunately. After finishing lunch, we went up the hill to the lookout tower at the top. The hill was (obviously) covered with apple trees, and was also a park. The view from the lookout tower was spectacular, you could see for miles. After coming down from the lookout tower, we went and had a bit of apple softcream (soft serve ice cream) that was really fantastic tasting. We then came back to Steven’s apartment, where he and mum took a nap and I wrote a script to create picture posts for me.

When they woke up, we went into the city. We walked over to the train station, that was only about 15 minutes away. The train station was small, and about to be torn down. They built a temporary one right next to the current permanent one that will be in use for the next year. They are bringing a/the bullet train line up here, and they’re building a new station.

Once we were in the city, we walked around a bit and went to ASPAM (Aomori Prefectural Center for Tourism and Industry). It was friggin’ hot inside, but it was neat none the less. Inside they had a number of the products produced in Aomori, including food, baskets, and things of that effect. There was also a nice view from the second floor of the building, that was shaped like a pyramid.

After going to ASPAM, we got some coffee (that was strong) and went shopping. We went to a 100 yen store, and then a [few] department. At the department store we picked up a few locally made items. Everyone was very nice at the department store, and in fact that gave us free things when we bought items from them, which was neat.

After shopping a bit we went to supper with Mio (Steven’s girlfriend). The food was really quite good, and there was a lot of it. Dinner was made up of a lot of small dishes, a lot of it raw. Most of the food was delicious, although admittedly I was still hungry when we left. We were at the restaurant for most (all) of the evening chatting and eating.

Once we left the restaurant we started walking to the train station. We parted ways with Mio, and she went off to catch a bus for home. The walk was cold, and windy. Before we got on the train, we stopped at a convenience store and picked up some snack-food to eat on the train.

The train ride was 30 minutes home, and there were two drunk Japanese businessmen. That was sort of interesting. They came over and sat right across from us because we were foreigners, and apparently that makes us worth staring at.

Finally, when the train arrived we walked back to the apartment. Now I am sitting here trying to write while Steven and mum watch TV, again. It’s much, much more distracting tonight being that I am much more tired then I was yesterday, and it’s also later.

I will post some pictures from today tomorrow morning if possible, but it won’t happen tonight. To much distraction, sleepy. Good night.