Holiday weekends are always a great excuse to travel. Especially when it is a holiday that is not celebrated in the country you are in. Labor Day weekend gave us a great excuse to head across the country to Akita and explore. However, the drive itself was anything but relaxing.
Highways in Japan are different than one would encounter in the US. The only 'highways' are purposely constructed straight, flat roads that are more than likely a toll road. And there aren't that many. Most of the time, this isn't an issue, but for this particular trip, the drive itself was about the same time, but the tolls were around 50 dollars. So, we decided to embrace the adventure and drive right over the mountains. It was a choice. Good choice? Debatable, but a choice we made.
The mountain roads were terrifying. Between the blind corners and tight roads, it was an anxiety-ridden drive. The drive home was even worse. Since we drove home from a different starting point from where we drove towards on Friday, the drive home was slightly different. We ended up going up this mountain where we had a whole stretch where every corner was a one-car-length wide road, except there were about 12 different curves tightly placed together. We were just crawling around the edge of the mountain.
FRIDAY
Arriving in Akita on Friday, we were both exhausted from the drive. We had a late start getting on the road, so by the time we got there, we ended up getting some Udon for dinner and heading in for the night.
SATURDAY
As Akita is both a city and a prefecture, we decided to travel around the city on our first day and visit a few other locations in the prefecture on the other days. In the morning, we ended up at the Kubota Castle Ruins. We walked around the historical location of Akita's government and saw shrines and statues. It was so beautiful. We also lucked out because it started to rain just as we finished, so we went back to the hotel for a little break before heading back out that afternoon.
We went and saw the Museum of Art, a local Market, and the Folk Arts Center (which told us all about the various festivals that are held every year in the city. There is a festival where people balance these giant lanterns on their backs and shoulders. Even young kids do it. It was really interesting to see in the photos and videos. (We were unfortunately a few weeks late to see it in person). Of course, one thing that is absolutely necessary to do when you go to Akita is to see the Akita Inus. Unfortunately, they were closed when we were there, so I wasn't able to see any of the puppies. The Inu is very popular here in Japan, so I see them out for a walk a lot.
Sunday consisted of a lot of driving for us. The first stop was Lake Tazawa. This is the deepest lake in the country. There are a bunch of beautiful stops to make on the drive around the lake, including shrines, the statue of Tatsuko, and views of the lake.
After this, we drove to the opposite side of the prefecture to the Oga Peninsula. The first stop was the Namahage Museum. It was a beautiful part of the history of the area that I had never heard of. The Namahage were creatures who came down from the mountains to take lazy children and interrogate the families about what they did over the year, like their harvests and making sure no one was lazy. This is a tradition that some villages still do each year (without the kidnapping, of course). Next, we continued around the water to stop at the Oga Aquarium. I got to see this adorable polar bear get fish just chucked around his enclosure, and he was running around for it. The final stop before heading back to the city was this really cool rock formation that had naturally been produced to look like Godzilla. We got there right around sunset, so the head against the sky was beautiful.
MONDAY
Before heading home on Monday, we visited a samurai village, where there are multiple preserved samurai houses. It was enjoyable walking around the historic area and learning all about the families that used to live in the area.
