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Our final visit for the afternoon was to the A-building in Aomori. Literally a building shaping like an A. It houses tourist information, various shops, and an observation deck on the 13th floor. The tourist information centre on the 2nd floor includes a comfortable and free lounge with tables...

So after a quick look around near the ropeway station we caught the next bus back to Aomori city. Here I persuaded ShelleyB-son to visit the Nebuta Museum after all. The museum is devoted to information about the Nebuta Festival which takes place in Aomori every August. This is a massive...

Day 10 and we are hunting snow monsters. Not actual monsters of course, but snow rime covered trees said to resemble monsters. The effect is the result of special climactic conditions found on certain Japanese mountains, which includes lots of snow (natch!) very cold conditions and constant...

This was the view from our hotel after the snowstorm. For dinner Ash was keen on ramen. Hachinohe has a small yokocho (food and bar alley) called Miroku Yokocho. Many of the places in the alley are really bars serving some food items, not at all suitable for ShelleyB-son. But one place, Aji...

Day 9 and a quiet one today, in advance of a busier day tomorrow. After commenting yesterday on the lack of snow on the ground here is Hachinohe, woke to see snow falling and Hachinohe turning white. As we had no particular plans, had a late(ish) breakfast. No photos (sorry) but nothing...

Sadly the afternoon was spent doing chores, particularly doing laundry having travelled for over a week. Boring. But one of the many advantages of Japanese chain hotels is they all have coin laundry machines. Cheap and easy. Most include detergent, although we do always travel with laundry...

After our short visit, headed one stop back towards Hirosaki to shin-Aomori, the shinkansen to Hachinohe, and a short local ride to Honhachinohe. This is the one bit of our trip where we are not staying immediately near a train station. All the action in Hachinohe appears to be a short walk away...

Day 8. A whole week has passed. Leaving Hirosaka today so was pleased to wake up and find the sky had cleared and Mt. Iwaki showed her face. Not a little reminiscent of Mt Fuji and is in fact sometimes known as Tsugaru Fuji. Today heading off to Hachinohe. Still in Aomori region but on the...

My understanding is tier only affects Qantas visibility. I used the multi city to search partner airlines. We rarely have any luck getting international Qantas reward flights. But JAL have been very consistent in their releases. If you click on latest date apparently selectable in calendar you...

What a shame you can’t find any reward flights. I am only bronze as well but this did not limit visibility of award seats on partner airlines such as JAL on release date. Have no seats been available for the dates you wanted or insufficient/ wrong class? I did have to grab them basically on...

Then back into town for one final pie for ShelleyB-son (who has hollow legs) and a food coma in the hotel room. For dinner tried a well-regarded local hamburger place, relocated into new premises. The premises of Pepe Kitchen were indeed shiny and new and clearly popular with locals. I was...

Then it was back to the bus and onto the Hirosaki City Apple Park. In picking season you can pick your own apples, and picnic in the grounds, but obviously not at this time of year. Consistent with the intensive way apples are grown here, there was quite a bit of work going on in the apple...

Day 7 and today was all about the apples. Buffet breakfast in hotel was extensive (no photos, sorry) although I recognised some of the dishes from the night before. Naturally the fresh fruit included apple, which was very good. One special item was scallop with scrambled egg served in a half...

Not that we were aware of. Small but been in smaller. And 2 staff on duty were not yet super busy at openng time.

As sunset approached we headed up towards the castle grounds. In cherry blossom season Hirosaki is thronged with people for sakura viewing, as there are extensive trees all around the castle grounds, including the outer moat. In winter obviously they are bare of any leaves, but covered in snow...

We were staying at the Art Hotel Hirosaki City, which is right next to the train station. Handy for those snowy days. We were too early for check in, so put our little carry on roller bag in a locker at the station and went off in search of a snack. As an aside we will not see our big bag in...

Day 6 already. Where does the time go? We’re off to Hirosaki today. Only a brief stop of 2 nights (one full day) to view illuminations of the castle moat, enjoy one of the remaining original castles in Japan, and a lot of apple pie. More on all of that later. First we had to get to Hirosaki. We...

From there we planned to visit Nanshoso, a Japanese garden and meiji era residence. However, it was difficult to work out from online information of it was open, and as it turned out, it was closed. Ah well, perhaps we’ll be up this way again sometime. Dinner was our long awaited ramen at...

At the end of our walk we stopped for drinks and sweet snacks (for ShelleyB-son) at a lovely cafe called Cafe Cam on.. Then back on the bus to the Morioka castle ruin park for a more extensive look than last time.

Today was fairly quiet day exploring Morioka. An option we briefly discussed was to visit Ryuusendo caves near the coast. There is a direct bus from Morioka but it takes over 2 hours and would have made for a long day. First stop was Takamatsu Park, a little out from the centre of Morioka...