This included a total 30 mile bike ride on the backroads of Japan to Kuroishi (a small town near Hirosaki) and the kokeshi (wooden doll) museum. We've been wanting to go to the kokeshi museum for a long time, so we figured a nice birthday-bike ride would be a good time to go. However, upon our arrival, we realized the 3 1/2 hour bike ride to get there wasn't worth the rather small museum of endless kokeshi dolls on display. Once you've seen one wooden doll, you've seen them all. There were some cute tiny ones and some unique ones, but still, we quickly realized the journey was much better than the goal itself. 
Of course after 9 hours on a bike, we decided to stay home for the night and make pizza and simply relax for the next day.
On Trav's official birth-date (Sunday) we had a picnic in the park with some Settlers, went to an Azelia Festival in Owani (though unfortunately they weren't in full bloom yet, but there was enough for it to still be rather pretty), and finished the day with some delicious pasta at a small local Italian restaurant.
All in all it was a rather good last birthday in Japan!
1 comment:
I guess it's too late, but did you guys know there's a small local train line that goes to Kuroishi? It has a seperate platform on the far side of Hirosaki station and a small station behind the Universe in Omachi.
Either way, I hope you and Travis had a great birthday!
I'm nearly finished with my first year of my master's degree here. I start summer vacation on Friday. So maybe I can start blogging again. I'll also be working at an English camp in Taiwan for two weeks in August. Drop me a line sometime!
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