For the final part of our trip we visited Morioka in Iwate prefecture. As many people living in Japan know, Morioka recently was featured in the New York Times article of places to visit in 2023. If you didn’t know that, go to any medium-large train station in Japan right now and look out for the poster. Nobody fully knows why the NYT chose Morioka, but it’s great exposure to the town nonetheless, in a region that doesn’t get many tourists. One of my students from Morioka showed me the article and discussed it with me when it was first released, explaining that there wasn’t much to see or do in Morioka. I wanted to see for myself, so of course, we had to visit whilst we were travelling in Touhoku region.
My student really set the bar low, so when we arrived earlier this week I was very surprised to discover I loved the place. The vibes and atmosphere were there. The small local businesses were wonderful. Big shout-out to our favourite businesses “Touhoku Drippers” who made the most delicious coffee! If you live in Japan you can order their stuff from their website so do check that out if you like trying different coffees!
Back to exploring Morioka though: the river and the parks we saw were gorgeous and of course having such a beautiful mountain overlooking the city, was to die for. Certainly, Fuji-san looks over Tokyo, so mountains by cities aren’t uncommon in Japan, but high-rise buildings often block the view to the peaks. In Morioka though, there were fewer skyscrapers. There were still many in comparison I’m the UK, but they didn’t block every view of the mountain so the people in Morioka are definitely lucky to have the best of both worlds.
We didn’t get much time in Morioka on this trip, but we definitely would like to visit again. It’s a understatement to say all our expectations were exceeded. Perhaps the NYT was right and Morioka is where everyone should next visit in Japan.
