Golden Week in Tohoku ~ Days 3 & 4: Yamagata

Sunday & Monday, May 5th-6th (Children's Day)

On Sunday, Aaron and I met on the train headed towards Yamagata.  From Ayashi, it's about an hour train ride.  Once again it was super crowded due to the holiday.  But about halfway through enough people got off so that we could finally sit down.  While on the train we annoyed the other passengers by playing a new game I downloaded onto my app.  It's called Head's Up.  It was actually created by the Ellen Degeneres Show and it was made to be like all the games she plays on her shows.  Since Aaron and I have recently gotten into Ellen, we tried out the game for the first time.  And it was very addicting.  We laughed like crazy on the train, and Aaron got pretty loud.  So I'm definitely sure we annoyed the other passengers.  But overall the train ride was very nice.  We passed by lots of greenery: mountains, trees, waterfalls, rice fields...

Since we've both already been to Zao and Yamadera, we decided to check out the city.  When we got there, there really wasn't much there.  We were very surprised at how much smaller it was than Sendai.  But it was also a very nice change and very quiet and peaceful.

 

We spent the first few hours walking around the city, checking it out and finding a place to have lunch. We ended up spending a small fortune on sukiyaki and a gyudon.  After walking around for a while, we checked into the hotel, which was right across from the station.  The rooms were very nice and comfy.  It'd been a while since I slept on a real bed, so I definitely enjoyed it!  Plus, it also came with a nice tub that you could lay back it, unlike the itty bitty one that I haven't even attempted to squeeze into in my apartment.  I shoulda took pictures.

Aaron and I were tired from the adventures from the few days before, so we both spent the afternoon taking naps.  On our nice comfy, real beds.  When we got up, we went exploring some more.  We both pretty starving.  We wanted to get something quick, so we looked around the area that we thought would have nice food courts, but couldn't find anything decent.  Finally, we passed by a sign on top of the bus station (very weird).  It said Yonezawa beef.  The week before, someone at our church told us we should try Yonezawa beef when in Yamagata, so we did.

When we found the hidden restaurant, it was really small.  Only a few tables.  It was yakiniku style, but man was the beef good.  We ended up getting two orders.  And paying something like $130.  Crazy!  But worth it.  Especially after living in Japan for so long, it was the best part of our vacation!  We could finally enjoy MEAT!

 

After being so stuffed, we walked back to the hotel and ended the night by playing more of Ellen's game.  Aaron's description of a platypus was especially funny: "It's a reptile.  Well, it's an amphibian too.  And it has a beak."  Um... what?

We also checked out a children's science museum.  It was pretty cool and we pushed a lot of buttons.  We found a giant mouse trap like contraption.

 

And Aaron played with bubbles.

Look at that big kid with all those little kids!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to do all the things we wanted to do.  We wanted to check out a park and I wanted to check out some hiking trails and waterfalls, but things didn't quite work out.  It started to rain in the middle of the afternoon and we had to go home early.  We also got into a big fight.  Somehow that always happens on the last day of our vacation.  But the good news is, we found some giant grapes.  I had to take a rest on it.  Aaron just got hungry. 

Overall, the best thing about this trip was probably the beef.  We'll probably go back in a month from now.  Just for the beef.  Mmm... meat.  And also discovering a new game with Aaron was fun as well.

The end.  Can't wait for next Golden Week!