Slow Japan: Morioka folk tales

After arriving in Morioka in the north of Japan we decided that we had done enough zooming around and so we booked a second night in the hotel, another Toyoko Inn. These hotels are really a bit of a genius concept and they are everywhere. They are cheap and usually by the station. They have the immediate appearance of any hotel but when you look, all the extras are missing. There is no coffee shop, or restaurant, no function area or gift shop. Nothing but a reception desk and a lobby with tables and chairs. In the morning the lobby becomes the breakfast room where, from a tiny kitchen, a self service breakfast is available. Self service includes taking your tray up, stacking your dishes and even wiping down the table. The rooms are small, very small, there is still a tv, trouser press (folded away), jug for boiling water designed to double as a humidifier, fridge, desk chair and other basic amenities. They are effectively closed between 10:00am and 3:00pm, and sometimes 4:00 when the rooms are cleaned. This has not been a problem for us as we are out during the day anyway.

So, for our day in and around Morioka we took a local train south and then east to the town of Tono which has a strong association with Japanese folk tales and the like. Then it was to the helpful information centre where we decided to take a bus out to the model olde worlde village they have there. This village had a series of L shape buildings that housed both people and livestock, particularly horses, actual,live versions of which were in evidence. The earth ovens were also actually being used and emitted that smokey, charcoally smell that is really the hallmark of any village, real or staged, that I have been too. The same smell as in the huts in the north of Thailand or the gers of Mongolia.

We were a little underwhelmed by the whole experience, tourist attractions not really being our thing. It did, however, get me thinking of, as well as,some sense of, Japan before full urbanisation which I found interesting.

There were also group of cute little pre-schoolers, some of whom we had seen (and high (low?) fived at the railway station when we arrived. They were having lunch on the grass (a rare treat in Japan to be actually allowed to be on the grass), and each child, or pair of children, had a little plastic mat which they sat on with their shoes neatly placed beside them on the grass. They had all brought food from home and after a short group prayer they all tucked in. As they exited, in cute handholding pairs, they also stopped for a group 'Arigatogozaimashita' bow to the village staff.

The buses were scarce and so we slowly ate lunch in the restaurant and then lingered outside for about an hour before our ride back to the station and the trip back to Morioka. That night we just wanted a quick dinner and so we went to a diner kind of set up where you choose and pay for your food through a touch screen machine which produces tickets that are exchanged for the victuals. We took our time but I noticed that the place was turning its customers over at quite a rate and that the customers themselves were a wide variety of people, old and young, women and men and, seemingly, from different walks of life.

Then it was simply back to the hotel for an early night, ready to return to Tokyo the next day.