Stayed at this lovely 400 year old ryokan in Towada for two nights as I wanted to walk the Oirase Stream.
Arrived from Sydney the day before and spent the night at Haneda Airport. Wanted to get an early start with my JR Pass but everyone had the same idea and it took about an hour to finally be able to get on my way.
Caught the monorail to Tokyo Station and the shinkansen to Shichinohe-Towada Station - about 3 hours. Wanted to hire a car as the bus and rail timetables from Aomori were not convenient to get to the ryokan.
I had never driven in Japan before - we had hired cars in the past but Steve was always the designated driver. The car was cute but I wasn't familiar with the controls so I was a little nervous.
The trip took about an hour driving over the mountains. The scenery was spectacular - beautiful autumn colours but there was a bit of ice on the road so I didn't want to stop. Used Google maps from my phone but it kept going into standby mode. Was very impressed when the lights came on automatically when I was in the tunnels, just as well as I didn't know how to turn them on.
Arriving at the ryokan, I turned the car button ignition off and then couldn’t start it again - spent about 20 minutes fumbling around before asking some other guests for help - have to keep my foot on the break to start the ignition. Our current car is a nice simple VW caddy with key ignition. If I had stopped to take some photos as I usually do, I would have been stuck on the road for quite a while.
The food at Yachi Onsen was delicious. In the dining room there was a beautiful wooden display with photos of the Japanese marten
