Day 1
I planned a stop in Hachinohe and timed it for Sunday because Hachinohe has one of the biggest morning markets in Japan held every Sunday (except winter time) from 5AM to around 9AM.
Hachinohe eats: nanbu senbei ("rice" cracker that is different from rest of japan because it is made with wheat instead of rice and has been a staple of the hachinohe/Aomori area), famous salt chicken wings at morning market, night life at miroku yokochu food stalls, senbei jiro (hotpot made with "rice" crackers)
To get to Hachinohe, you can take a local train from Aomori (1.5 hrs). It is run by the Aomori Railway company, not JR, and is half the price of taking JR. It’s got the little blue forest fairy mascot of Aomori printed on their trains, and on the maps, it’s the light blue line. We arrived at the station early, so enjoyed our apple custard cream puff before boarding (yes! We got another one from Tohoku Farms cuz it was so good!). Tip: buy your tickets from the Aomori ticket counter at the station instead of the ticket machine. The agent was super helpful and recommended we buy a pass instead of the one way ticket and saved us 700 yen.
After arriving in Hachinohe Station, we visited the tourist info booth there to get bus maps and schedules for going to the morning markets and Kabushima shrine because I couldn’t find good bus maps on the internet. The lady there spoke good English and was super helpful! We then took the JR from Hachinohe station to Honhachinohe (190 yen, buy tickets at machine) and took a taxi to our hotel to drop off our luggage. It will be pouring rain tomorrow, so we have to do our outdoor activities today.
Kabushima Shrine and Nesting Black tail Gulls
We walked back to Honhachinohe station and took the JR train to Same Station and then walked 15 minutes to the Kabushima Shrine. This is a picturesque shrine on top of a hill by the ocean. It almost looks like a castle! In the olden days, Fisherman and the town folks would come to pray for good luck at sea and business. Today, it is a nesting ground for the black tailed gulls.
Look at how many black tailed gulls there are! They nest here from March to August. Chicks are born end of May to June, and they migrate in August.
They have a kiosk to provide loaner umbrellas for protection against bird poop! I’m VERY thankful at their thoughtfulness!
Make sure you take an umbrella on your climb up to the shrine. Most walks to the shrine are contemplative and peaceful. Not this one for me. I was traumatized and quite fearful of the gulls.
There are even more gulls near the shrine because it has more wind protection. Some were nesting right on the shrine steps!
Can you see the nest and eggs ready to hatch? Is that why these two gulls are fighting?
Some have already hatched and the baby chick looks nothing like an adult gull!
Keeping the chick warm. It was super cold and windy here even at the end of May
Let’s not press our luck any more…time to get out of the poop zone while we are still clean
A walk along the coast away from the gulls is more peaceful. I just wish it wasn’t overcast.
. Along the coast, you can see different views of Kabushima Shrine. It is indeed pretty!
We walked past the marine museum to the fishing pier and saw this little shrine. Google maps says its Nishinomiya Shrine dedicated to Ebisu, the guardian deity of fishermen. Originally I had planned for us to hike along the coast to the Observatory lookout point, but that’s another hour away, and it is already 5:15PM. So we turned around to walk back to the JR station.
Originally I had planned on eating at Miroku Yokocho. It’s kinda like the yatai stalls in Fukuoka except these stalls were enclosed. Each stall fits maybe 6-10 people. But after looking through these stalls and seeing people smoking, the idea of being trapped in a cramp space smelling 2nd hand smoke was not appealing. So we found this large izakaya that had lots of people. This is a pepper orzo pasta salad with ham, a jelly fish salad, and an onion and cabbage salad with prosciutto. It was tasty!
The waitress recommended the banana cider as it is a Hachinohe specialty, so we tried it. Not bad! We also ordered tuna, and squid yakisoba. The squid was cooked really well.
And we thought we ordered garlic shrimp tempura, but i think we ordered onion tempura that looks like a shrimp? Well anyways, the batter was very light and it was really good.
Day 2
This is so so sad… I had planned the trip so we would be in Hachinohe on a Sunday to participate in the largest Sunday market in Japan. (See link) But it is pouring today!!!
Well David dragged me to hike in the rain at night in Noboribetsu for night photos of Hell Valley, so I’m dragging him in the rain for good food! 😂
We woke up at 5AM and caught the 5:57AM bus two blocks from our hotel to the morning market. It drops you right off at the market, but it’s raining so hard we were soaked within 30 min because of all the huge puddles on the ground. Not as many stalls were set up as I had seen in videos and pictures because of the rain. I was so sad…
Hachinohe Sunday Morning Market
While waiting in line for pan fried soup dumplings and fried buns, we saw the stall owners try to get rid of water on the roof of the tent.
Ok, got the soup dumplings and buns! The soup dumplings were really juicy and the bottoms nice and crispy
Got some blueberry pudding bread! We will eat this later in the afternoon.
And there is a long long line for salt fried chicken wings. I made the mistake of also picking up these chicken croquettes and ham croquettes. The wings were good—hot and crispy. The croquettes not good—Cold and soggy… I shouldn’t have gotten them, but it’s one of those psychological games where you feel like you waited in line so long, you have to get more than just chicken wings!
Oh thank goodness we found this large eatery at the market where it is covered and has lots of tables. Order noodles from a ticket machine and give your ticket to the noodle folks and wait for the bowls. Hot udon soup was so good on a cold rainy day! We also secretly ate our chicken wings and fried soup dumplings here cuz we saw other people doing this. Otherwise, there is no other protected place to eat your market finds.
On the way back to the bus stop to catch the last bus at 8:03AM, we saw some street performers. The were dancing and singing in rain boots and umbrellas. It was cute.
Hachinohe Art Museum
Looking for things to do in Hachinohe on a rainy day, we decided to go to the art museum. This museum was right next door to our hotel. 1000 yen per person to see the special exhibit of Edo Period Block Printing. There’s no English, so it was google translate all the way. Gets kinda tiresome to translate…This is the Wave with Mt Fuji done with 11 prints. The panel on the left shows what color and pattern got added at each iteration.
A lot of the art work had cross eyed characters. We had to look this up. Apparently kabuki actors would cross their eyes to show deep emotion
The nice museum worker took this picture for us after we watched the film about block printing
Then we went to the nearby Sakurano mall for a bit… and came back to the hotel in time for sake and apple juice tasting at the lounge.
Two types of Aomori apple juices. “tears of hope” and “ripe apples” were the names from google translate. They were both very good. The first almost tasted like there was apple pears juice, and the 2nd one was like eating ripe fragrant apples. David said the sake were good.
Hachinohe Omiyage
Nanbu Senbei (wheat as opposed to rice crackers) and salted sakura petals