Momofuku Ando who founded Nissin company invented Cup Noodles in 1971. I respect him. He did it when he was at the age of 61. He said "In life, there is no such thing as too late." And in 2014, now we eat cup noodles in the world and my today's lunch too :)
I think popular three in Japan are Cup Noodle, Cup Noodle Seafood and Cup Noodle Curry. Today i found a new one with surprise. it's Tom Yum Kung Noodles. I know this is so popular and was sold out for a while. I finally got this with 160 yen...Yes...!
It was most spicy cup noodles I ever had. I coughed when i tasted first. It's real with lemongrass, red pepper and coconut milk. Yes, Thai Nissin supports it too :) Great taste. I love this noodles!
I will travel San Diego next month. This will be the second country as travel this year and the first visit to America in my life (wow). If I will visit Tijuana, Mexico by bus, this will be ninth countries. It's 4 % of the world. The world has 195 countries now.
Why San Diego? Simple reason. I can take vacation in June. I want to travel America and want to run a marathon overseas (last year I ran Tokyo marathon as the first race). I searched marathon races in America and found The San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. (Later I knew the San Francisco marathon in July...)
I don't know my choice was good... but I completed the online registration. I reserved plane tickets and hotels. I registered ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) with 14$ too. It's 22 days before the race day.
My record of marathon is 4:24 last year. Hmm I can run sub four hours in San Diego?
Aomori is the northernmost prefecture in the main island of Japan. It has a beautiful nature , mountain and ocean (and fish). Aomori is famous for the apple-producing center in Japan. I traveled west Aomori called Tsugaru (津軽) district for my family travel and to meet my grandparents live there.
On the first day we moved from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori by Shinkansen called "Hayabusa".
Shinkansen!!
And then moved to Hirosaki(弘前) to see Sakura blossoms around Hirosaki castle. In Tokyo Sakura has no flowers this season but in Aomori it is the time to see just now. There are many tourists, I saw travelers from overseas too. The couple I talked was from Hong Kong and said they will go to beautiful Towada lake. Sakura was beatuful ,and castle too.
Ninja swam here to attack the castle...(once upon a time)
Then we visited a shop called Tanakaya (google map)in town to see traditional crafts made in this place. Tanakaya is make the crafts called Tsugaru-nuri（津軽塗） and sell them. The products of Tsugaru-nuri is expensive but best quality is promised because of this history and trust. It's so different from the one sold in 100 yen store in Tokyo...
Tanakaya
Traditional crafts
Working
Kasose and Gonosen
And I moved to Kasose (風合瀬) village where my relatives live by Gonosen train. This area is fishermen's place for a long time. Yes, family business is "The Old Man and the sea".
Gonosen, this train seems famous for train geek in Japan. As one of the reason this train moves along the shoreline of the westernmost Aomori and we can see the beautiful ocean view in the train.
Gonosen
And the interesting thing is that this train comes only five times in a day. It surprise me and Tokyo citizens. because in Tokyo trains come every 5 minutes. It seems so inconvenient for us but it's not because they use cars, not train. But if I missed the train, I needed to wait 5 hours for the next train in the boring no-man's station.
I found the great train view when I'm teen. This time it's still perfect and I took videos.
