111108

Irrashie mina!
Well I think I got my Picasa mess sorted. Now have the one album with all the pics in it. Bad news is it appears all but three or so of my Nikko pics are corrupted. Hopefully when I get back to my system at home I will be able to work some magic as there were many very nice pics.
Goshogawara, should be billed as 'City of barbers'. Today and last night I have seen more barbers than in my two weeks in Sendai. I finally got to an onsen today too! It was really nice. I think I did the right things, cleaning before hand and all. I'm not sure if this was a naturally occuring one or not. Most of them here are all inside buildings which is understandable but caused doubt, I really should have gone to the one in Matsushima as that I know is naturally occuring. They had three pools, one cold, one bubbly warm and one you could poach an egg in. It took me a while but I finally braved all three. Bubbles were real good on my poor feet and shoulders. I freaked the staff out when trying to figure out the sauna as I saw a switch on the wall and thought, needs to be turned on. Wrong! that was the "I'm melting!" button but after a few apologies It was all good.
Managed to get a good dinner last night, there are a pair of take out places down the road from the hotel. Last night was grilled fish in a sauce not unlike teriyaki, not as sweet though. Tonight was little dumpling things with fried chicken, pink ginger and some yellow ginger(maybe). All very tasty and quite filling. The picture had what looked like natto but there was none in my dish so I hope that was the only thing they changed for me! Oh, when I got my dinner last night for the first time they asked if chopsticks were OK! I was like, muchironde(naturally) so the poor lady was bowing and apologising till I was out of sight.
I am not going to be able to do Aomori or Hirosaki from here as it takes too long to get there and the first and last trains for here don't allow for alot of time. For that reason and all the things I've seen advertised for around the two places I am going to Tokyo Thursday and Friday for the cash drop then back up and staying in Aomori for a week. From Aomori I am sure I can see most of the things I want to. I also saw an ad for a festival in Okinawa but I don't think I can get there in time and do Aomori + Hirosaki properly. Fortunately with this new cash injection I can stay places longer and maybe get closer to seeing everything there is in each place. This doesn't mean I can get all of Japan done without coming back : >
Anyhow, In my latest set of pics uploaded is a pic of one of their enourmous apples, had to get a knife for it as there is no way I could eat all of it in one go. Delicious too so their quantity and quality. Thats about it for now, the school kids in Goshogawara love saying hello and bye bye to a real life gaijin too so that was amusing.
Couple more shrines for tomorrow and gotta organise my trip back to Tokyo.
Also gonna see if I can find a place that does this omlette type thing with Oysters, they cook it all in the shell, they add a fish stock to the oyster then mix an egg through so should be tasty if I can find it. Apparently there are a buch of places that do Fugu around here too but I think I'll try that in a big city were there's not so much risk of a dodgy chef!
Till the next installement.