A Christmas Gimmick

Tonight I had dinner with former colleagues.  We were seduced by the Christmas gimmick and ordered beer by the stocking.... Not so easy to drink out of  but a good night.

Go to Tohoku!!!

JR has a new Tohoku campaign. I've been quite underwhelmed by it. The colours of Tohoku are beautiful and yet they came up with a retro 80s looking pink and blue and green and grey campaign.  And then after seeing the Hayabusa, I realised the colours are probably inspired by the new shinkansen.

Go to Tohoku!

there is a special Tohoku 3 day pass happening at the moment.
It's a pity I won't have holiday time to use it.

Iwate  and Akita
 Iwate's ramen is presumably Morioka rei-men -
cold spicy Korean style noodles,  the Akita
picture is Namahage from Oga peninsula

Aomori - Aomori = apples

Miyagi & Masamune Date - Miyagi's most famous historical figure
Yamagata - these also seem rather generic

Fukushima, notably on its own - no prefecture would like
to be boxed in with Fukushima.  Aizu castle. Aizu is actually
a long way from the nuclear plant. Fukushima is the second
biggest prefecture in Japan.  It's a great pity for Aizu area to be
associated with radiation.  I wonder if they are applying to
move the borders to be part of Niigata.

Hayabusa

Misfortune took us back to Akita during the week, a bright spot was the return trip, a ride on the Hayabusa. The Hayabusa is the new shinkansen that goes to Aomori. It's sleek and fast (even though strong winds and blizzards had it running 5 minutes late) and has power points at each seat.   Very very cool.

The Hayabusa with a sign painted on it - let's connect Japan!

Very sleek!

Not the only te-chan on the station, sometimes the people taking photos
are more interesting than the subject of the photos.
than the 

For a moment I was excited....

For a moment, a split second , I was excited - black rye bread.... Japan has come so far... not quite pumpernickel but  black rye bread.... and I even have sour cream in the fridge....

Alas.... closer inspection... chocolate bread.... I should have known.

At least it wasn't like the olden days before I could read Japanese when I bough MSG thinking it was some superior kind of sea salt crystal.....