Japan 2012: Kakunodate > Takanosu > Higashi-Noshiro > Aomori

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Kakunodate > Takanosu > Higashi-Noshiro  > Aomori

If it seems Monday's effort was in direct contradiction to Hughesy's if you've got the rail pass you might as well use it principle, the next three days were going to deliver rail travel in abundance.

The schedule for the first of the three days, on the other hand, underlines the variety side of things, starting with a morning ride on an ancient rail motor on what Madam had christened the Endangered Railroad up to Takanosu, where we'd be stopping for lunch at a French restaurant, followed by a leg on a JR local line down to the coast and a main line service looping around the northwestern coast of Honshu to Aomori.

If you’re looking for details regarding the Endangered Railroad, the official moniker is the Akita Nairiku Jūkan Railway. It’s what’s termed a third sector company (the Japan Rail consortium being the first sector and the major private lines the second) that took over two former JR lines in 1986, and added a new line to link the two in 1989. Since the line runs across a sparsely populated region, it’s never going to be a big money spinner, and since it faces what you might term severe business challenges you don’t need to be Einstein to figure out where the Endangered bit springs from.

Seats on the Endangered Rail are on a first come, first served basis, and we weren't sure whether the carriage would have room to stow the Black Monster, so we were into breakfast at the hotel just after seven, packed and booked out around eight and second inline for tickets in the booking office. So far so good.

We were second onto the train as well, which gave us plenty of time to scope out possible luggage space. As it turned out there were a couple of bench style seats towards what we presumed must be the front of the rail motor, where there was a handy space for the  Monster and the prospect of a view to the front on what promised to be an ultra-scenic route.

The cabin wasn't quite full when we started off, though there wasn't an abundance of spare seats either, and there was no way of knowing how many of the passengers were there for the long haul to Takanosu and how many were destined for a stop somewhere along the way.

As soon as we started someone plonked themselves right in front of where I was sitting, blocking the view through the front of the rail motor, which was, of course, why I'd plonked myself there in the first place. We were actually looking for a space for Mr Monster, found one at the end of a bench seat right beside the driver's cabin and realized this was likely to deliver a panoramic view of the upcoming countryside.

We started off across farmland, with stops at Ugo-o-ota and Saimyoji, which lead one to suspect there was likely to be a certain amount of picking up and dropping off. I wasn’t clued in to the back story, and wasn’t sure whether we were talking a tourist operation or a genuine local service. As time went on it was obvious local traffic was the major raison d’etre for the line but tourists in the spring and autumn allows the business to keep its nose above water.

There was a lengthy delay at the third stop (Yatsu), where the station platform sat beside a siding, which allowed another motor headed in the opposite direction to pass, and we were off again at 9:18 with the prospect of a winding path through mountain valleys ahead.

Subsequent research revealed the existence of a nearby chestnut park where Japan’s largest (Saimyoji) chestnuts are grown and a vast katakuri-violet field, said to be the largest in Japan provides another attraction to encourage tourists to step off the train for a bit. Next time, maybe we will.

After Yatsu the route threads its way through mountains, ravines, and forests and the mountain leg began with a rapid fire sequence of three or four tunnels, before opening onto flat farmland again. Heading upwards through a landscape where the leaves were well and truly on the turn, particularly on the slopes, passing Matsuba, the original terminus for the Kakunodate line on the national railway system. From there you can head across to Japan’s deepest lake, Lake Tazawa, or relax at one of the area’s hot spring onsen resorts.

By Ugonakazato we were at the point where whole slopes had gone multicolour and a  thirteen minute delay at Kamihinokinai to allow another train to pass gave people the chance to stretch the legs and grab the odd photo opportunity. It also gave me the chance to ascertain that I was, once again, the only foreigner in the vicinity.

The delay was to allow the express service to pass in the opposite direction, and because we would shortly be passing through a long tunnel that would take us into bear country. With the express service, a rail motor of roughly equivalent age, passed, it was off again at 9:56. We hit the tunnel at Tozawa at 10:03 and left it less than a minute later, obviously a false alarm, followed by another a minute later , and a third and a fourth in the space of two minutes, a fifth at 10:05 but a minute later we were in for the long dark haul, apparently moving steadily higher, and emerging five minutes later.

We only just emerged from the tunnel when I sighted one of the numerous station platforms along the route, but there was a substantial difference this time around. The platform was lined with a massed tour party busily clicking away as the train approached, and clambering aboard once we'd ground to a halt. They were obviously aboard for the most scenic section of the route, which took the train slowly across a couple of bridges.

They were gone again a few stops further down the track, and there were a couple of instances where the train stopped to set down the odd passenger one assumes came aboard at Kakunodate.

Along the way we passed Ani-Matagi, one of the top hundred stations in Tohoku, where there’s a bear pasture, Utto Onsen Matagi no Yu resort, Yasu-no-taki Falls, reputed to be the second most beautiful waterfall in Japan, and the Matagi Museum, detailing the history of the bear hunters of north Japan.

The population was thinned out considerably there and we seemed to be well into the uplands, following a broad river valley. Once the tour party and the onsen set were gone there was a noticeable change in the coloured leaves that I'm inclined to ascribe to a preponderance of evergreens rather than deciduous species, and the last leg into Takanosu took us across a broad expanse of upland paddy fields.

Overall it was another spectacular tick in the box or Madam's research skills, and comments from people she'd spoken to on the train suggested we'd managed to lob there on the very best day. Given my own lack of experience with seasonal leaves I'm inclined to take their word for it.

Once we disembarked in Takanosu there was a small matter of two and a half hours to kill, and the research skills kicked in once again. Three streets down from the station, a right hand turn takes you onto a quiet back street with a rather good French restaurant that operates under the moniker of Boire un coup.

Of course we were there for lunch, which doesn't marry well with full a la carte and an extensive wine list, but there were two plats du jour, a chicken confit and a tomato-based pasta marinara, both of which were quite delicious, and we managed to down a Chardonnay and a Cabernet, both from the Languedoc, and both good varietal examples of wine from varieties not usually associated with the region. I had the Chardonnay with the pasta, and thought it was pretty much in the same flavor profile as he new wave Australian takes on the variety, more than likely a Burgundy style (at this point we'd been told what was available, but not where it was from).

With lunch concluded we still had over an hour to kill, and an inquiry about origins of wine had the proprietor proudly hauling bottles out of the wine fridge. He had a right to be proud, because for a restaurant in a small provincial town in northern Japan it was a bloody good range.

That turned into a conversation about wine that could have gone on for a while, but when a couple of customers who'd eaten in the private room on the other side of the entrance turned up to pay their bill we took the advantage to escape. The rest of the waiting time passed in the waiting room at Takanosu station, a spell long enough to bring the narrative more or less up to date.

The next leg involved a connection on a local line that brought us down to Higashi-Noshiro, where we boarded the rather splendidly named Resort Train #5. Actually looking at the train itself you'd think there wasn't that much different or special about it.

Once you're aboard, however, two things become obvious. The first is that you've got legroom over and above what you'd reasonably expect. I suspect this has something to do with the Resort bit in the train's name, since you'd expect holidaymakers to be carrying a bit more baggage than the average traveller.

The second is the not quite ceiling to floor picture windows, which were the reason why we were here. Looping around the northwest corner of Honshu we'll be looking across the Sea of Japan towards the setting sun, and windows that stretch from just below he overhead luggage rack to below the arm rest are going to maximize the viewing options.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the way things panned out. The sun was shining, albeit rather reluctantly, when we left Higashi-Noshiro, but the cloud cover kicked in big time before we hit the coastline and although the fat old Sun was out there somewhere, he was lurking behind a bank of clouds that ruled out anything that resembled an actual sunset.

Although that was the case the views out across a strangely tranquil ocean that presented an interesting contrast to the obvious anti-erosion work taking place along the actual coastline. That was obvious because the railway line hugged the coast, sometimes with a road in between wheels and water, sometimes, quite literally, looking from picture window almost directly down onto the beach.

Twice, along particularly picturesque stretches of coast, the train slowed to a crawl to allow maximum enjoyment of photographic opportunities.

There were frequent stops along the way, as befits a train servicing a resort area, with frequent comings and goings as passengers moved from one venue to another, but after the Sun had slunk below the horizon there wan't much to see, and I settled back to rea, tossing up between the Neil Young autobiography andthe latest issue of Uncut, digitally downloaded in Kakunodate.

An announcement over the train's P.A. System brought an unexpected flurry of action at Kawabe since the Resort Special took itself forward one more station, then retraced its path en route to Aomori. The announcement advised the impatient aboard our train to switch to a local train at the next station, which would get us into Aomori some twenty minutes earlier than originally planned.

Needless to say a mad scramble ensued, first involving the hasty stowing of the iPad in the back pack, then a frantic hauling of the Black Monster up the station stairs, across the bridge to the neighboring platform and back down again in a situation where you'd have been reluctant to use the escalator even if one had been available.

The line into Aomori would seem, on the evidence available, to be a single line, given the lengthy delays in a number of stations to allow trains higher up the pecking order to travel,in the opposite direction.

The second last stop was ShinAomori, the Shinkansen stop, located well out of the city to allow easier construction of the next stage of the network, a new underwater connection to Hokkaido.

Back on the ground in Aomori there was a brief spell of confusion as to the actual location of the hotel, which was a bit further away from the station than we'd thought, and once the checking in was complete we checked out the laundry facilities on the way to dinner, which comprised a healthy in one sense but hardly likely to attract a tick from the Food Police serve of deep fried scallops, accompanied by the usual trimmings in the form of rice, miso soup and assorted garnishes.

You åçcouldn't have complained about the quantity or the quality, but after around a week of three hearty serves a day Hughesy wasn't keen on the bulk. I made as big a hole as I could in everything else, but was careful to ensure there wasn't a skerrick of scallop in evidence on the plate.

Next time I intend, as I pointed out to Madam, maxing out on the scallops with no accompaniments at all except, possibly, a beer to wash them down, and I'm not even sure about the beer.

Back at the hotel one washing machine in the laundry was available, though it required ¥400 to operate so you can't say it was free, and since it was a neat combination of washer and drier it meant we could avoid the up and down checking to see if the drier needed another cycle or two routine.

Japan 2012: Kakunodate > Dakigaeri Valley > Kakunodate

Monday, 29 October 2012

The big question when I stirred on Day Six of the trip involved the weather conditions outside, and an initial glance out the window was hardly something you'd describe as promising. While there was no way of telling whether there was any actual precipitation without wandering outside there was definite mist and a greyish gloom that didn't bode well as far as light was concerned.

There wasn't any definite plan for the day's activities, more a sort of wish list, weather permitting, and after showering and debating the clothing options we headed down for a very Japanese breakfast, returning to see signs that the weather might actually be lifting. The first thing that needed to be done was to scope out the options for Tuesday's departure, since the preferred option was a non-JR rail motor operation that couldn't be booked on line and check for a more definitive outlook on the day's weather forecast.

The endangered rail scenario looked good, but we were advised to be first in the queue if we wanted to be sure of a seat, which wasn't likely to be too much of an issue since the hotel's on the other side of the plaza outside the railway station.

The informative girl in the nearby Tourist Information Centre had very promising news on the weather front and by the time we were outside waiting for the free shuttle that delivers passengers to the Dakigaeri Valley I was even giving thought to removing the corduroy overshot and doing the scenic walk in a t-shirt. That was a remarkable turnaround from earlier in the morning when I was being advised to ditch the corduroy and using the merino thermal underlay and the padded insulator. The t-shirt bit was probably never a viable option but the fact that it was even considered shows how much the weather prospects had improved.

The bus shuttled off right on time at 10:15, stopping along the way at the Tazawaka Art, Spa, Brewery and Theatre Resort along the way. It's a twenty minute run through the countryside, and while you can do it by taxi the free shuttle, which only runs on October and November is obviously the way to go if you're not inclined to shell out for a taxi fare, though the bus only operates during October and early November.

Reputedly one of the most beautiful valleys in Japan, the Dakigaeri Valley runs along the banks of the Tamagawa River in Akita Prefecture and it's fairly obvious from the time you pull into the car park that you're in for something special, particularly when the autumn leaves are starting to turn.

The tree-covered mountains surrounding the valley would be an attractive proposition any time from spring onwards, and the mail we'd received in town suggested they were somewhere between thirty-three and fifty per cent. If the lower estimate was actually a true assessment, I don't think my eyes could stand the full glory at the height of the season.

You make your way in past the predictable array of stalls offering snacks and regional specialities, and the trail that takes you into the valley starts at a Shinto Shrine devoted to the god of rain before the Kami-no-iwahashi suspension bridge leads you on to the walking trail along the river valley.

The path was originally a railway track used by timbergetters and wagons full of cedar logs were carried to the railway station at Jindai, which the nearest station on the main line.

Given the railway origin the track winds through the valley, complete with tunnels and bridges, though only the first four kilometres (out of twelve) were open to the public when we were there. That four kilometre stretch was enough to take us to the thirty metre Mikaeri-no-taki Waterfall which was the highlight of an amazing little stroll through autumnal forests where the coloured leaves were probably around seventy-five per cent (that's according to The Supervisor, who's more au fait with these things than your narrator).

I was also interested to note the waters of the Tamagawa River are a deep cobalt blue, much like the water in Bluewater Creek north of Townsville. The explanation in that case was, if I recall my High Schoil Geography correctly, the presence of copper sulphate but whether that's the explanation in this case is uncertain. must check on that, though Englislh language material is scanty.

Had the trail been open for more than four kilometres we may well have failed to make it back for the 12:45 shuttle bus, which would have raised issues with lunch and limited the time available to look around the samurai quarter of Kakunodate.

Enclosed on three sides by mountains and Hinokinaigawa River that runs to the south, the former castle town is famous for its samurai tradition and hundreds of weeping cherry trees that line a two kilometre stretch of the river  and make it one of the Tohoku Region's most popular sakura viewing spots and the town has been tagged the little Kyoto of Tohoku.

Founded in 1620, the town comprised two distinct areas, the samurai district, once home to eighty families with some of the best examples of samurai architecture in Japan, and the merchant district. Apart from the loss of its castle, Kakunodate remains largely unchanged since it was founded.

Back in the square outside the railway station he broke for lunch, a rather good curry and a flavoursome product of the local brewery that went down well enough to have me dropping into a bottle shop near the hotel to pick up further examples of the local brewer’s art. The eatery we’d chosen was in one of the outbuildings of a residence in the merchants’ quarter, and a post-prandial stroll through that part of town allowed us to have a good look around before heading slightly uphill to the autumn leaves in the samurai quarter in the northern part of town.

Kakunodate is, by all accounts, one of the best examples of a Japanese castle town though the castle itself hasn’t survived and several of the the samurai houses, now privately owned by descendants of the samurai warriors are open to the public.

We didn’t see too many foreigners while we were wandering around, but the town obviously rates fairly high on the pecking order as far as the scenic side of things is concerned. There were a number of tour parties as well as a swag of families doing the sightseeing bit as we made our way through the quarter, and given the coloured leaves on display it wasn’t difficult to see why.

We took a turn through the public section of one of the samurai houses, which delivered another reminder of how tough conditions must have been in these parts in the depths of winter.

We made our way back to base via a bottle shop, which carried a range of local beers, all of which went down very well after dinner and with the prospect of moving forward on the morrow were tucked away in the cot reasonably early, something that isn’t too difficult to do when nightfall comes in well and truly just after five in the nominal afternoon.

We’d explored most of the scenic options around the town, enough to know that there’d be a definite case for returning in the sakura season, though that would probably be an overnight stop en route to somewhere else. If we do, there’ll definitely be a stroll through the riverbank tunnel of cherry blossoms, designated by the national government as a Place of Scenic Beauty and you’d fancy the prospect of fresh spring leaves as an additional treat.

Accommodation could, however, be an issue. Kakunodate is strong on traditional festivals and you’d assume the town would be close to booked out for the Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom Festival) in spring, There’s also a traditional lion dance with drums and flute (Sasara-mai) in summer, Yama-buttsuke matsuri in early autumn (colliding samurai-themed floats), and Hiburi-kamakura to ward off evil spirits and improve the prospects for a healthy new year  in winter.

You might think that’s rather unlikely, but given the experience on the endangered railway the next day, you can never tell...

Japan 2012: Kitakami > Hiraizumi > Kakunodate

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Given the circumstances when I woke the next morning, seemingly the first human to have emerged from slumber, I did a quick calculation and decided if I was going to sit anywhere with the iPad on the knees and continue to tap out the narrative it was a case of finding the niche at the top of the stairs and ignoring the piteous whining emanating from the living area below.

Had I ventured downstairs there would have been two insistent canines demanding attention, and until someone else surfaced and took up the running that would make the writing bit impossible. I hadn't been at it too long before Our Host surfaced, and I caught up on the rest of the previous day before venturing into the maelstrom for a shower and breakfast.

Readers may suspect Hughesy's engaging in a bit of hyperbole when I use the word maelstrom to describe a living area inhabited by two smallish dogs, but given the nonstop hyperactivity (Red Cordial Dog) and the frenzied demands for attention (Grog Dog) I'm afraid no other, more suitable term springs to mind.

It's equally difficult to come up with a word to summarize the venue that occupied the bulk of the day, the small town of Hiraizumi and its premier attraction, Chuson-ji Temple.

We set off just after nine, heading south to a place we'd visited last time around when persistent drizzle had sent us indoors for lunch rather than up the steps to the temple, and had already taken a look at the town's other main draw card at Motsu-ji, and maybe, if I'd done some homework I'd have been more inclined to venture into the drizzle rather than sit inside and shovel curry down the gullet. This time around, however, I'd done fairly detailed research, so strap yourselves in for a fairly lengthy exposition, boys and girls.

There was a certain degree of concern on our hostess' part as to whether I really wanted to go to Chuson-ji, but I produced the handy PDF with the walking around the town map that seemed to quell most of her concerns. There were a number of places I wanted to go, even if going constituted a brief glance and a photo.

On the surface, driving through the town, there's nothing to differentiate Hiraizumi from a myriad of other small Japanese country towns, though if you reach the car parks outside two major attractions you'd soon realize there's something special in the vicinity.

So, the back story...


A population of just under eight and a half thousand is a far cry from the late Heian era (around nine hundred years ago) and the Kamakura period when Hiraizumi was the home of the Hiraizumi Fujiwaras, the most powerful clan in Japan, and served as the de facto capital of an area that covered nearly one-third of the country. At that point the population was somewhere between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand, and the city’s cultural and political status almost rivalled the national capital, Kyoto.

The oldest structure in Hiraizumi seems to be Hakusan Shrine at the summit of Mount Kanzan (Barrier Mountain), described in 1334 as being seven hundred years old. The shrine has been rebuilt a number of times but its latest incarnation still stands in the same strategic location.

That strategic location, at  the junction of  the Kitakami and Koromo Rivers, was probably what prompted Fujiwara no Kiyohira to move his home to Mount Kanzan around 1100. The Koromo River was the traditional boundary between the Japanese heartland to the south and the northern Emishi peoples.

Japanese hunters, trappers, settlers and missionaries had been in contact with the Emishi since the early eighth century, with a Buddhist priest Gyōki establishing  Kokuseki-ji Temple in the mountains east of the Kitakami River in 729. Military expeditions to subdue the Emishi were repelled in 776 and 787 but a Japanese scorched earth policy of burning crops and capturing and resettling women and children prompted the Emishi leaders Aterui and More to surrender in 802. They were subsequently beheaded.

It’s one thing to defeat your enemies but quite another to keep them subdued, and rather than ruling the newly-acquired territory directly it ended up as half a dozen semi-autonomous districts along the Kitakami River that eventually came under the control of a powerful Emishi clan, the Abe family. Semi-autonomous is the operative word here, and after Abe no Yoritoki refused to pay taxes to Kyoto, led raids south of the Koromo River and acted as if he was an independent ruler he obviously needed to be subdued.

The result was the Zenkunen or Early Nine-Years War (1050-1062) which saw the Abes defeated by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and Kiyohara no Takenori and the six districts handed over to Kiyohara no Takenori. That didn’t work out either, and corruption resulted in the Gosannen or Latter Three Years' War (1083-1087).

Around thirteen years later, Fujiwara no Kiyohira moved to Hiraizumi, right on the former border, planning to rule an area stretching from the Shirakawa Barrier in the south to present day Aomori Prefecture in the north. His new base was located almost exactly in the centre of the Tōhoku region on the main road leading from Kyoto to the north (the Frontier Way).

Kiyohira built Chūson-ji at the top of the mountain and other pagodas, temples and gardens followed through Hiraizumi's golden age that lasted a mere three generations until 1189, when the city was razed by Minamoto Yoritomo, soon to become Japan's first shogun who was in pursuit of his brother and rival Yoshitsune, who was being given protection by the Fujiwara leader. After the fall of the Fujiwaras the town sank back into obscurity, with most of the buildings destroyed. When Matsuo Bashō visited the area in 1689 he reflected on the impermanence of human glory:

Ah, summer grasses! 

All that remains

Of the warriors dreams



It was the contrast between the former glory and  contemporary reality that prompted the desire to visit somewhere and take a look around a few places where there didn't seem that much to actually see.

But, first, there was Chuson-ji.

We arrived in the car park to find the place close to checkers with not one, not two, but three baton-wielding traffic wardens guiding the incoming flow of cars and buses into appropriate slots in the parking area.

Wandering over to the entrance, we were expecting to pay the regulation couple of hundred yen to get in (nominal fee to fund maintenance and upkeep) and, surprisingly, none was asked for, though we did receive a fairly flash English language leaflet describing the town's main attractions.

We made our way up the hill, through a magnificent avenue of ancient trees, passing a variety of smaller structures.

Apart from its status as Hiraizumi's most famous temple, Chūson-ji serves as the head temple of the Tendai sect in Tōhoku, but it is best known for its Golden Hall (Konjikidō), a mausoleum that contains the mummified remains of the leaders of the clan who ruled the region in its 12th century heyday.

The Tendai sect claims the temple was founded in 850 by Ennin, but most scholars believe Chūson-ji was founded around 1100 since there is no archaeological or historical record of Buddhist activity in this area before that time.

Similar to Kyoto's Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion), the Konjikidō is a hall completely covered in gold, dates back to 1124, one of two buildings that survive from the original complex. The other is the Kyozo Hall, which served as a repository for sutra (Buddhist scripture). While not nearly as impressive as the gilded Konjikido, it predates that building by 16 years.

The Konjikidō originally sat in the open air, but successive measures to protect it from the elements saw it housed inside a wooden building that still stands on the site today, and subsequently moved inside a purpose built concrete building behind thick glass so that it's now only visible from the front.

Dedicated to Amida Nyorai (the Buddha of Infinite Light) the structure, which measures five-and-a-half metres on the sides and stands eight metres high, contains altars for each of the first three Fujiwara lords. Apart from the roof, the whole thing is covered with gold leaf, decorated with golden lacquer and mother-of-pearl, and studded with gold and silver, with three Buddha images.


Walking around the network of paths that reach around a kilometre into the mountaintop forest there's more to Chusonji than the golden hall, though that is, of course, what draws the crowds. Other interesting buildings on site include  a number of interesting buildings apart from those dating back to the Fujiwara period. There's the Hondo (main hall), where the main rituals and rites are performed, a Treasure Hall that houses some impressive artifacts and a noh theatre stage.

Having made our way around the temple, it was time for something solid in the way of sustenance, and given the number of tourists and sightseers in the area you'd probably expect a lengthy delay, though one hoped the majority of those inclined to seek out lunch were in the process of being delayed by the booming drums and the Noh theatre performance we'd bypassed.

We were on a sealed side track, separate from the path we'd followed on the way up when we passed a seemingly innocuous building with some Japanese signage out the front. I'd probably have wandered past, but Our Host pulled us up, took a squiz at the sign and suggested we head inside. The description of what we'd be getting inside wasn't the sort of thing that would prompt an immediate Yes! But, on the other hand, if we could get in that took the lunch issue right off the agenda.


Which it duly did, and rather tasty it was, too. We could go into details, but there are memory, space and tapping time issues that keep us moving relentlessly forward. Lunch was also punctuated by frequent updates on the score line from a soccer semifinal, where Our Host's school were battling the local equivalent of Argentina for a spot in the final. At two-nil down things did not look promising.

Back in the car we headed off in search of locations associated with former glories and frequent updates on the soccer score line, which moved from two-nil down to two-all by full time. an own goal had the opposition ahead, then came the equalizer before the team hero slotted in the penalty that won the game.

And there's a little story that goes with that. The star footballer, obviously not a scholastic type, had been looking at avenues of employment once he's finished his schooling and wasn't a candidate for tertiary education. He had, according to Our Host, already applied for a job as a fireman, and had been scheduled for the old job interview that very day. With a morning match against Morioka and a morning job interview it looked like something was going to have to give, and you'd probably assume that a career path would take precedence over temporary sporting glory.

At the same time the Japanese seem to take their school sport fairly seriously. The first full day of our last visit coincided with the Grand Final of a High School baseball competition significant enough to warrant nationwide TV coverage.

I know because I saw it, and we ended up sitting at a table next door to a bunch of celebrating Okinawans, chainsmoking and toasting their home town's national success later that evening.

A soccer semifinal in the Deep North might not be in quite the same territory, but was significant enough to have the Mayor, in his capacity as head honcho of the local authorities, order the Fire Brigade to reschedule the interview so the school's star striker could play.

They lost the Grand Final, but he subsequently got the job.

As far as the locations associated with former glories were concerned, the weather put paid to Hughesy's plan to wander around the place on foot, but we managed to find the ruins of Kanjizaiō-in which once boasted a 'Pure Land' style Jōdo Garden, built by Fujiwara Motohira's wife. That was destroyed by fire in the 16th century, and while many of the structures were rebuilt afterwards today, all that remains  is a park and a pond.

Across the road from the park a sign on the edge of a cluster of contemporary houses represents all that's left of what amounted to the commercial sector of the section of the Frontier Way that effectively represented old Hiraizumi's main street, an area that included several tens of blocks of shops, storehouses and commercial premises.

From there we took ourselves over to the ruins of Muryokō-in Temple, modelled after Byodo-in Temple in Kyoto , but apart from the sign that identifies the location all that remains is the temple's pond, along with a larger sign that gives you an impression of the magnificent structure that once stood there.

We also made our way towards the summit of  Mount Kinkeisan, where Buddhist sutras were once buried, and while, under more favourable conditions I might have been tempted to take a stroll down the paved path  I figured I'd dictated the agenda for long enough, and passed over the reins to Our Host, figuring it wasn't that long before the train left and there were other fish to fry, more than likely in an environment of coloured leaves.

The quest for coloured leaves brought us back to the Genbi Gorge, home of the flying dungo, though you'd have expected the weather to have stifled the dungo trade. We parked behind the Sahara Glass Park,and once again pretend to be paying customers before heading for the gorge, where the coloured leaves weren't quite at their best yet, but weren't too far off.

From there it was on to the station at Ichinoseki, farewell to Our Host, and on to a Shinkansen that took us as far as Morioka, where news of the soccer semifinal defeat didn't seem to have reached the platform. We made our way across to the right line for the Akita Shinkansen, and we're on the ground in Kakunodate on schedule in not quite pitch dark and drizzle just after five-fifteen.

Fortunately the hotel was located right next door to the station, the rain wasn't falling that heavily and the dash across open space was a mere cricket pitch or thereabouts.

Better, a quick investigation revealed a coin laundry, which solved a slight predicament. We'd been on the road for five days, and the laundry backup wasn't anywhere near the desperate stage, but with two nights in Kakunodate, a late arrival into Aomori on Tuesday and an evening appointment in Sendai on Wednesday, it made sense to get what we'd accumulated clean, and push the crisis point back another week or so.

Dinner at the hotel restaurant did a perfectly acceptable job of filling a yawning gap without threatening to hit any heights, and we treated to the room, free Wi Fi and a couple of healthy slugs out of the bottle of sake that had been donated to the keep them warm in the mountains campaign in Kitakami.

Needless to say there was no question of needing any rocking...