For the penultimate leg of our trip we visited Akita. From Aomori, we took the tsugaru E751 limited express train through the mountains. It took just under 3 hours, but it was a beautiful ride. The train was comfortable, however I did take a travel sickness pill before leaving, for the first time when riding a train. I was nervous about how rickety the ride was going to be considering the altitude, the slow speed and all the stops we had to make. It was fine though, either the route was no problem or the medication worked. Either way, there were no problems.
once we got to Akita, we did some exploring. We walked all around senshu park, went to a shrine nearby, saw the old gates inside the grounds l, went to see the lotus blooming and our friend got some ice cream. It was so hot that day I thought I was going to die. We had to keep in the shade and I kept needing to stop and drink water. I was so surprised at the heat considering how north Akita is, but summer in Japan has just been crazy all over these last couple of years I guess. Everyone we saw it Akita was preparing for Kanto festival, the famous summer festival in the area. We saw many lanterns and paper decorations being made. I wish we could have stayed to see the festival itself, however it’s at the start of August and my new job begins on August 1st, so it’s just not possible this year unfortunately. Maybe next year.
When we couldn’t stand the heat any longer, we headed to the museum of art. We saw this amazing mural, which spanned the entire width of the room. It was taller than me in height, and maybe 10 times that in width. The scene depicted showed various traditional things in Akita, from kanto festival preparation to food stalls. It was so breathtaking, but we could take any pictures. We did but a small print of it though, so I’ll photograph that so you can see something like it. The amazing thing about this mural really was the size, and the fact it only took the artists fifteen days to complete it. I have no idea how he did it. He must’ve not ate or slept that entire time because this piece was so gorgeous and detailed and the size was bigger than any painting I’ve ever seen or heard about.
