It took about 40 minutes to reach Morioka by shinkansen. Before going for Morioka's famous Wanko Soba noodles, we had a little wander round the city. The first place we visited was Sakurayama shrine. At the entrance to the shrine was a purification ring 茅の輪. There was a sign telling you how to walk through it.
茅の輪のくぐり方
最初左にまわります。
次に右にまわります。
最後左にまわって、お進み下さい。
茅の輪を三度くぐる事により
今年上半期の罪や穢れをお祓いしましょう。
First you walk through the ring and turn left, next walk thrrough and turn right, finally walk through and turn left. Go through the ring again and carry on walking towards the shrine. Walking through the ring will purify you of any misdeeds or impurities from the first half of the year.
Once purified at the shrine, we carried on through the shrine and came to Morioka Castle Ruins Park. While there is no longer a castle at this park, it's quite nice for a walk around the ruins, stone walls, and little red bridges in the park. It was quite quiet when we visited but it gets very busy in the Spring for cherry blossom viewing parties 花見. We walked back into town along a little stream and saw some turtles on the way.
Next we went to find a restaurant that served wanko soba called Azumaya. Wanko soba is a speciality in Morioka. You eat as many mouthful servings of soba noodles as you can.
We both sat knelt at a table, where we were given a variety of toppings for our noodles like raw tuna, mushrooms, seaweed, daikon radish and a few others. The server stays standing by the table with a tray full of small bowls of mouthful servings of noodles. When we took the lids off our bowls, wanko soba eating began. Everytime we finished our serving she would pour another serving into our bowl while saying something like 「じゃんじゃん」「頑張って」「はいまだまだ」「もう一杯」 which is things like "One more bowl" or " keep trying" in English. She stacked the empty bowls next to us. Every 10-15 bowls we would have a couple of minutes break while she went to refill her tray of noodles. (She was serving Will, me, and a man who was sharing our table.) When we were full we had to make sure we had emptied our bowl and put the lid back on, or else we would get another serving. It was very fast paced and sometimes noodles would fly everywhere while they were being poured (thrown) into our bowls. I managed 69 bowls and Will had 111. We got a little certificate and a little souvenir that said how many we had eaten. The souvenir kind of looked like the little wooden ema boards that people write wishes on at shrines. It was a fun experience and definitely something I wanted to try while living in the Tohoku area.
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Not wanting to head straight back to Sendai, we had another wander round the city. We decided to go into an owl cafe. Owl cafes were becoming very popular at the time so it was something I wanted to try before leaving. At this one, unlike cat cafes, there was a small cafe area and in the next room there were owls and other birds around the edge of room sitting on perches. You could stroke them or ask a staff member to help you hold one. I tried, and held an owl for a few minutes, but actually I was a bit nervous of them haha. While there were a few cute owls in there and it was another fun "Japan" experience, I wasn't sure how I felt about how all the birds were all just sitting round on perches, with some sort of lead attached to their claws. This cafe did seem to have an area for owls to be away from cutomers, so that they don't have to be bothered by people all day. So maybe they limit how long the owls are "working". It was kind of fun to try out another novelty cafe though.
There were two cute owls that seemed very attached. If someone held one of them the other one would seem irritated.
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