Hachinohe

A family wedding took me to Hachinohe on the Pacific side of Aomori in the far north of Honshu this golden week. We came up through Niigata and Akita and just spent a few hours there before the 5pm wedding. My cousin in law and his wife had sent out their wedding invitations the weekend before the earthquake. With the tsunami affecting the port areas of the city, and with both of them working at a local hospital, they felt torn about whether it was better to postpone the wedding till things had stabilized. And yet earthquakes and tsunami underscore the impermanence of life... and they opted to proceed with it, and were glad they did. So was the hotel...

I hadn't been to Hachinohe before but was impressed with upbeat feel to the city. Unlike much of Tohoku, particularly places in the shadow of the shinkansen lines, buildings looked fresh and well maintained, and there didn't seem to be the cancerous Aeon-ization that has rotted the core of regional cities.

Four people were killed in Hachinohe after the earthquake and the phone and electricity blackout lasted for several days. Aomori has has dropped off the radar in reporting in favour of places further south where much greater damage was sustained. There is still some evidence of damage sustained.

Trees along the foreshore.  Shell petrol station in the background
was operating again.

Debris along the foreshore - very orderly, and had presumably been
tidied up, but it was clearly not meant to be there.

We ate onigiri for lunch here - the seat was still fine - just in need of replanting

A rusted out boat washed up onto the foreshore being disassembled

The parking lot at Kabushima - a nesting ground for seagulls

From Kabushima looking north

The seagulls seem to have survived ok

From Kabushima looking north

The toilet block