Thursday 17th August – Time to go to Iwaki
Today it was time to move on from Tokyo to Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture. Iwaki is about 30 miles south of the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant where the disaster happened back in 2011 with the Tohoku Earthquake (9.0-9.1 magnitude) which lasted approximately 6 minutes. Before I moved on to Iwaki it was time to go back to the Michelin Star ramen restaurant called Nakiryu.
It is only a small restaurant with 12 spaces from what I could count, and they used a vending machine for people to order which I find kinda odd, but useful as well as there is only 3 members of staff in the shop.
The meal that I ordered this time was like my first time there, but instead of getting a slightly spicy ramen, I got a soy-based ramen with some gyoza and extra pork slices. I tell you what it was absolutely gorgeous!!!!!. The pork just falls apart as you are trying to pick it up and melts in the mouth as well.
After going there, I went back to the train station to collect my baggage from the coin locker and then catch the train to Iwaki.
It took about 2-3 hours to get to Iwaki from Tokyo, but it was a nice relaxing train to get and some of the views of the countryside was amazing (sorry no pictures this time as I forgot).
When in Iwaki it was only about 10 mins to get from the station to my hotel which wasn’t too bad a little trek and I was finally in Washington (bet you didn’t know Washington had moved to Japan). It is called the Washington Hotel Iwaki and is a nice enough hotel although I was disappointed by no onsen.
I stated to have a little look around including the Mall, which was close to hotel, had a look around for somewhere to get food later and I also saw some Women’s Yukata’s which were amazing to look at, but there was one in particular that was very expensive. 418,000 yen is about £2090.
Friday 18th August – Hawaiians Spa Resort Time!!!!
Today it was time to go to Hawaii, Aloha!!!!!!
The resort was fairly big and had many different things in it, it even boasts the largest outdoor hot spring in Japan as well (which can only be accessed if you are a hotel guest), but more than anything I was there for the slides and just to relax. Once I got started going round, I saw people had their phones around their necks attached to a strap and in a small waterproof case. They are quite neat so much so that I decided to get one as well. It allowed me to be able to take my phone into the main area’s and carry some cash on me as well without fear of it getting wet and I didn’t have to travel 4 miles back to the lockers to get any money either, ok that might have been a slight exaggeration.
There was also a show going on in the corner that I couldn’t really see until there was an acrobatic net above the main pool.
One of the rides was a lazy river that had 4 levels and then went into a pool at the bottom, it was really good apart from the final level before the pool as I got stuck in a current and was doomed to go towards the exit and then back towards to the start again (where more people was coming from). I ended up doing this about 3-4 times before I finally broke free.
After a fun day out, I headed back from Yonago (where the resort is) on the train to Iwaki. I stopped off in the mall again and found some where to eat, now my eyes might have been bigger than my stomach at this point because I wasn’t expecting the meal to be this big.
It was a meat lovers ramen with 4-5 types of pork (can’t remember exact number).
Saturday 19th August – Going to Sendai and then going to Hakodate
It was moving day again, but this time it was a big of a weird one, originally the plan was to go to Sendai and stay in a capsule hotel, but closer I got to Sendai the more I didn’t actually want to stay in one due to being in a capsule surrounded by others (so you can hear people snore and get up and down from the capsules) and it was kinda starting to set my anxiety off as well. So instead, I booked a hotel for the night up in Hakodate just on the southern bit of the North island of Hokkaido.
Now the Tohoku Shinkansen that goes up north in Japan and it run by JR East is quite unique and it is also one of the fastest Shinkansen in Japan. The bullet train I got on has 2 different trains connected together which later on down the line split up to go separate ways.
I got on the green Shinkansen which is bound for Shin-Hakodate (red is for Akita and splits off at Morioka Station) and the train goes up to 200MPH on certain bits of the track which is insane and is the max operating speed at the moment. JR East is trying to make this quicker and boost the speed to 220MPH operating speed, but this is proving quite a challenge, and it isn’t due to the trains or the track, it is due to noise. Yes, that is right noise does affect how fast the trains can go as well. There is an experimental train out called Alpha-x which they are running to also look at different aspects on how to speed the train up as they want to be able to compete with air travel in the future.
In the video above, to put it into perspective how fast we are going as well, the poles for the overhead electrics are about 50 meters apart from each other.
With Hakodate being on the Northern Island of Hokkaido it meant that I had to go through the Seikan Tunnel under the Ocean. It is very weird for me as I have only every gone on the euro train through the channel tunnel twice (once there and once back), but that wasn’t through seismically active earth. The Seikan Tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido is a duel rail gauge tunnel (for both Shinkansen and normal trains) it is 33.4 miles long compared to the 31.3 miles for the channel tunnel, is the second longest tunnel in the world and because of the fact that it has 2 types of train going through it most of the time (Shinkansen and freight trains) it is a logistical nightmare as if the Shinkansen goes too quickly the pressure waves can knock over or derail the train coming the other way. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have the song ‘Under the Sea’ from the little mermaid stuck in my head while going through the tunnel.
Unfortunately, it was about 6pm when I got there and it was only for the night. So, I had a quick look at things to do and found that there is a Mt. Hakodate with an observation platform at the top so decided that it would be a good idea to walk to it and go up. With Hakodate being surrounded by the sea it and it being quite far north (almost on level with the top of North Korea, it was very cool 25C at 7pm and there was a nice breeze as well. All this was heavenly especially as Japan has been quite warm so far. Unfortunately, the view from the top of Mt. Hakodate wasn’t very good as there was some cloud about, but it was still fun to go up and there were some good views from the gondola as well.
Looking on a map, Nagasaki which is where I went after Tokyo is below South Korea and Hakodate is just near the top of North Korea. That is quite a distance to go within the space of 21 days.
Join me next time from when I am switching my rails for 4 wheels and drive up to Lake Towada in the Towada-Hachimantai National Park.
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