Morioka is 540km north of Tokyo . I first learnt of this city from Craig Mod, a writer, walker and photographer who lives in Japan. He wrote about the charms of this city with its local boutique shops selling books, roasting coffee and baking bread. One of the charms of this city is that it is a walkable city and tourists can savour the delights of the city by walking from one location to another. I was keen to visit Morioka ever since I read about this city. I thought it would be good to visit as I want to see Japan without the hoards of people and get an inside look into regional Japan.
Over the course of two days, we walked around Morioka, visited the most charming café (Mont Ceri) and checked out a few places Craig Mod mentioned. Morioka is a middle aged hipster. Nondescript shops and seemingly mundane streets reveal themselves to be trendy homes of expensive menswear shops. Fascinating vintage shops sit beside everyday businesses like hairdressers with photos from the 70's . These shops exist in places that most people would not expect.
These independent Japanese business are not in the business of worrying if you like them or not. They exist because they are a creative expression in their own right. Morioka is a walkable city. But it is walkable for fit healthy individuals wearing comfortable shoes
As much as I want to like Morioka, I'm afraid I'm not cool and trendy enough for this city. It's charm did not unfold for me and I struggled to connect my experiences across the city to build a cohesive appreciation of the city. From a photographer's perspective, Morioka yielded a few charming scenes. However, two days of exploring is insufficient to make an accurate assessment.
The saving grace of the Morioka experiment of 2024 is, snow. It snowed the morning we left. The day before, Chris thought it might snow given the way the weather changed as we took the train north. The weather did not disappoint. We woke up on Saturday morning to snow dusted scenes and it snowed when we went out for a wander. Glorious. But unfortunately, it is not enough to give Morioka a higher rating than, "Don't Bother".
