Aomori was just as I had expected from what all I had heard from my friends native to there. “Boring”, “cold”, and “always snowing” are ways they often describe their hometown. Truthfully, it is a small town and there is really nothing to do in the middle of winter. Everyone jokes that there are only 3 things to do in Aomori, #1 eat, #2 drink alcohol, and #3 have sex. For your information, I spent the whole time in Aomori doing #1 and #2, but none of #3.

While in Aomori, I stayed at my friend’s family's house the whole time. It is a very big house, their living room is twice as big as my apartment in Tokyo! My friend’s mother and grandmother are excellent cooks and together we ate delicious food, watched TV, talked about nothing in particular, and drank beer, wine, and sake all day every day that I was there.

While in Aomori I had some of the freshest and absolutely delicious sushi and sashimi I had had in a long time. It was much better than stuff I eat back home in Tokyo. My favorite type of sushi, maguro, was absolutely amazing.

Aomori is well known for its seafood and for some of the world’s best apples. Interestingly, one old friend that I met that I hadn’t met for 3 years was the Miss Ringo for 2000. chou kawaii yo. (to tell you the truth, she was nanpa about 4 1/2 years ago)

I did get a big shock from the Aomori and Tsugaru dialect and accent. I have a lot of friends from Aomori but nothing prepared me for when I walked into my friend’s house and was bombarded with the language of Aomori. I had no idea what they were saying at first, but I got used to it quickly and they tried to accommodate to my kantou ears. The Aomori dialect is absolutely incomprehensible to those not from Aomori or accustomed to it.

The only bad thing about Aomori was the weather. Snow, snow, snow. Wind, wind, wind. Neither ever seemed to stop. As I started on my way back home, as soon as I got to Aomori station, so far the worst snow storm of the year started. Just my luck! So the trains were late at their stops all the way back to Tokyo AND the only seats available were in the smoking section. But I had an excellent ride back and arrived in Tokyo by shinkansen at sunset.

A few days after I got home to Tokyo, I sent the friend that I stayed with a mail on my cell phone. Ever since I got back, a question had been left in the back of my mind. I asked her if her family knew that I was her ex-boyfriend. She replied, “un, nantonaku wakatteru deshou” - in other words, they got the picture. And I was embarrassed.

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