Ichinoseki

Time to make a major move northward (we'll head back to Osaka-Kyoto-Mt. Fuji later) - we took the bullet train on the blue-route into Tokyo Station, and then the green-route to Ichinoseki ("Itchy-No-Seckey" - yeah, just like it's spelled) - it was a 6-hour train ride with a 30-min layover in Tokyo.

Here's what you eat on the bullet train - a bento-box bought from the train station - room temperature, but oishi (tasty).

Here's a Google-Translation of the box description - it actually says "Tasty!".

There's 12,400 foot Mount Fuji as seen from the train (out the left window) - back in early June we passed by here, but it was shrouded in low rain clouds.  Hmmmm, Gerri is going to climb this over 10-hours in a couple weeks - Tim is going to cheer her on from the beer balcony.

Getting there - it's maybe half the time we've spent on the slower Amtrak for a long trip (6 hrs vs. 12) - we're covering 1,000 km (620 miles), for an average speed of over a 100 mph with all the stops included.

Here's the view from our Ichinoseki hotel room on the 5th floor - wow!  Okay, here's the "cool skinny" on Ichinoseki:  the town is located inland in the south of Iwate Prefecture, a little over two hours north of Tokyo by the Tōhoku Shinkansen. A large volume of extremely stable granite rock runs beneath the city, and is the center of the site being promoted as a suitable location for construction of the International Linear Collider (ILC) (although the project is currently  in limbo, or worse).  And it's a good layover to break-up our heading north to Hokkaido.

We're off to the restaurant the next morning for our 11am reservation, and it's a beer and sake brewery as well - bonus!

Tim chooses a simple pork shank, while Gerri goes for the more exotic mochi specialty (as were many other guests).

"Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The steamed rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki.  While eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year, and is commonly sold and eaten during that time."

And now the sake for dessert of course.

A shrine on the grounds - an ode to brewing perhaps?

Sake bear, little bear, and studious fox...

It was hot today (95F), and after wandering around a bit, then finding another shrine, we found a nice supermarket, bought a lot of fruit and snacks and headed back to the hotel.

We decided to find a simple place for dinner, and walked about 10 minutes down the street to a chain restaurant that seemed to be a Japanese-Chiles like place with a vibe from 1982.  The food was pretty good and the service even better.

---