14 Days in Tohoku

Dear All, I’m planning to stay at Tohoku area for 14 days from 15/10 basically to experience their Autumn at Lake Towada, Oirase stream & Lake Tazawa, Mt Hachimantai. Will explore other parts of Tohoku areas as well. I’ll be arriving Narita about 7am. Will stay at Morioka Station area( btw is easily accessible to both lake in term of transportation timing)as my base cause accommodation are much cheaper compared to Tazawako Station area. I’m planning to purchase the JR East Pass(Tohoku), Flexi 5 days.
Thanks for reading & kindly input your thoughts & suggestion. Greatly appreciate.

It might be cheaper to stay in Morioka, but it is a big and not specially nice town. I would reconsider and at least try to stay a few days more in the country side and somewhere between Tazawako and Towadako ideally in a place with an onsen. In Morioka itself there is nothing really interesting, so you would be spending each day a considerable part of your day just commuting to the place you want to visit.
You could also look into staying a few days in Tono and / or Hiraizumi which are very nice places to visit. It will be likely too early for autumn leaves there, but you will have enough of them up on the lakes.
Just follow the forecast of leaves on this web page.

Enjoy your trip to Tohoku!

Thanks you Likebike for the information. Will google those places that you suggested. Appreciate very much. Cheers

If you go to Towadako, you better stay in Aomori City or Hachinohe City than Morioka City?
From Aomori City to Towada Lake, or Hachinohe City to Towada Lake, there are direct flights to JR bus.
JR EAST PASS can also ride a JR bus.
（The JR EAST PASS and The JAPAN RAIL PASS are valid for local line of JR bus Tohoku.）
Fortunately, neither Aomori City nor Hachinohe City, the hotel is not that expensive.

Aomori city is famous for Nebuta Festival. You'd better visit if you want to touch local traditional culture. There is a Nebuta experience facility in front of Aomori station.
（http://www.nebuta.jp/warasse/foreign/english.html）

Hachinohe City is famous for "Yokocho". (In Japanese, yokocho literally means "alleyways off to the side of a main street." But it can also refer to the small pubs and bars that are often adjoined in rows along these narrow lanes.)
There are districts where many Yokomachi gathered in Hachinohe City, which is ideal for enjoying local food culture and sake.
（https://hachinohe-kanko.com/english/10stories/yokocho）

I hope you enjoy my favorite Aomori.

Thanks Lina for the recommendation. Greatly appreciate😊

Personally I don’t think you should dismis Morioka completely. It may not be an enchanting looking town but it is very convenient in terms of trains. The station itself is successful ( not unlike Sendai - which is busy, vibrant but a small version) as you can take both the shinkansen and local trains.
There are lots of eateries around the station and reasonably priced hotels.

As an aside, on the other hand Aomori and Hakodate are not so successful in terms of towns with Shinkansen because the Shinkansen leaves from Shin Aomori and Shin-HokutoHakodate. By separating the Shinkansen from the local trains, the 2 mentioned stations are devoid of life.
Aomori is very very quiet. With no disrespect to pro Aomori, the town is bleak and everything shuts down when the sun goes down.

I have only used Hachinohe as a transferring station and it’s not as vibrant as Morioka.

What you can do is try to work out which town /s offer the best connection to yr desired tourist place and use that as a base for the duration. Then relocate if need be to another. Using a base is a good idea instead of moving daily. You need to estimate the time spent on travelling & available connections.

From Morioka you can visit Tono or Hiraizumi. Both these 2 towns have very limited accomodation choices.

If going up the rope way at Mt Hachimantai perhaps Aomori might be better. Jogakura hotel (you can google it and have a look) is close to the rope way. Tsuta onsen should still be open in Oct. Perhaps these are the days you can spend a bit and spoil yourself. Just a thought.

At least when you return for the evening, around Morioka you’d find decent eating places, lots of choices even at the station. And across the road from Daiso, there’s a lovely Yakitori place that you can enjoy with a sake or two. In fact even under the station where the department store is, you can have sake from 11am! There are Japanese, Asian & western cafes at the station - all good and reasonably priced. There is nothing worse than getting back to the hotel at night and having to resort to 711 for dinner. It happened to me once and I was miserable.

Hi Grobea, thank you for the information & suggestion😊