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Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/6 10:54
Hallo,

Our family will travel to Tokyo and I interested to visit traditional village/ old town (such as what you found in old town Takayama). As we will only purchase JR East Tohoku Area pass at this visit, are they any traditional village/ old town in the area covered in JR east Tohoku pass?

Thank you in advance

by Puspita (guest)  

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/6 19:07
Tono valley and Kakunodate would come to my mind.

But drill down on the Tohoku page of this webpage to find out more:
https://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1102.html

I personally liked Tohoku area much more than Takayama. Actually I didnft like Takayama at all because of the hordes of tourists and the center of the town being completely touristic.

Enjoy your trip to Tohoku!
by LikeBike (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/6 21:17
What exactly are you looking for?

As mentioned by LikeBike, look through the Tohoku page as there are many (and I mean many!) places to visit. I will say that many of the towns (apart from Kakunodate) are much smaller than Takayama, but then again they are also less busy which is a great thing.

Tono is great but it's best to hire a bike to ride around the countryside. I did not find the town itself fantastic but with a bike it's one of my favourite locations in Japan.

Aizu is a nice place - with a good castle. Kakunodate probably has the best large samurai residences in the country and the main street where they are found are definitely impressive.
by mfedley rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/6 23:14
Hi!

I've not been in close to a decade, but during sakura time, Kakunodate does get hordes of tourists or it felt that way to me. It's still absolutely beautiful and if I was in Japan during sakura time I would not hesitate to return. Since you didn't mention time of year, Kakunodate does get a lot of snow and is quite cold in the Winter.

Hirosaki and Hiraizumi are two other smaller cities that are quite nice. Hirosaki is also particularly lovely with sakura and it was a less crowded than Kakunodate, but to be fair the shinkansen stopped in Hachinohoe at the time so Hirosaki was harder to reach.

They're different from Takayama but you might like Sakata and Tsuruoka in Yamagata. Sakata has old rice warehouses you can tour and Tsuruoka has Haguro-san (I'm sure Gas-san and Yudono-san are great but both were still closed for the Winter when I visited.) When I went a decade ago neither was getting a lot of tourists. I'm trying to remember what Yonezawa looked like outside the huge koi banners for Children's Day. I've not been to Kaminoyama, but it's someplace I would like to go at some point.

There are lots of very tiny towns in Tohoku, though some of them are more accessible via car. I really loved Oyu onsen just south of Towadako. But my friend drove us there and I just don't know if you could easily get there without one.

Enjoy your travels!
by rkold rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/7 01:22
Thank you all for the advise for Kakunodate and Hirosaki.
However as I research further in japan-guide and other site, i found out that many place such as samurai house in Kakunodate and Hirosaki and even Hirosaki park are closed during winter.

As Aomori is quite far from Tokyo and if we decide to go there we need to stay for one night, is it worthed to go to Aomori area during winter? What kind of activities that we can do in this area as many of the places are closed during winter.
We will bring two kids below 12 in this vacation so any "adventure" trip is out of question.

Thank you again in advance
by Puspita (guest) rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/7 02:18
Generally, people who go to Tohoku in the Winter are going to ski or snow shoe or do some other Winter activity. The area is cold and snowy. I know some of the onsen are also popular to visit in the snow because it's fun sitting in hot water in the snow.

I've been to Aomori. The city was not particularly scenic and I mostly used it as a base to visit other areas, most of which are closed in Winter. The same is true of Morioka and Sendai, which I've also been to. I've heard Matsushima is lovely in the Winter. We went on one of the cruises of the bay this Summer, my elementary aged child enjoyed it a lot. But Aomori, Morioka or Sendai are nothing like Takayama and are not going to remind you of Takayama at all.

I would look at Aizu-Wakamatsu and Kaminoyama, since most of the places in those areas appear to still be open in the Winter. From Kaminoyama, you could take a bus (not covered by the pass) to Zao onsen. The best onsen is closed in the Winter, but the others are still nice and you could ski or see the snow monsters. I believe they even offer evening light up events. Lots of people take children under 12 skiing, it's not that wild.

You could look into some of the snow festivals: https://www.en-aomori.com/culture-047.html
I would recommend overnighting at Towadako post the fireworks as I think trying to get back to Aomori might be harder than one would think.

Here is more info on buses:
https://www.en-aomori.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/wintershuttlebus2...

I've personally always regretted not going to Towada's Art Museum when I was in Towada.

Hirosaki also has a snow festival if your trip happens to coincide with their dates.

Aomori has a snow festival in February, though it seems to be more slides vs. night time illuminations.

Akita-ken also has snow festivals:
https://www.kyuhoshi.com/2017/09/21/winter-festivals-in-akita/

And finally a snow festival in Iwate-ken: https://visitiwate.com/article/4769
More info on it: https://www.kyuhoshi.com/2015/11/28/iwate-snow-festival/

Good luck!
by rkold rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/7 04:30
The other idea is if you do not yet own a pass, you could instead get the JR Nagano-Niigata Pass. You could visit Matsumoto which does have a more similar vibe to Takayama, Nagano, which has a famous temple, do a bus tour or pay for the non JR train to Yamanouchi and see the snow monkeys and look into Kaurizawa and Bessho onsen. You would need to do the math to make sure the pass is worth it.

I really liked Matsumoto so did my grade schooler. We also both enjoyed the Zenkoji in Nagano. We've not been to see the monkeys in Yamanouchi, but the people I know how have gone enjoyed it immensely.

Good luck
by rkold rate this post as useful

Re: Old village or town in JR Tohoku east pass 2019/1/7 16:31
On Takayama, if you actually get away from the preservation and touristy areas (one crowded, the other not crowded), the place is much like any other modest sized city with pachinko parlors, supermarkets, shopping and houses.
Personally I like my visits to Aomori and it is only about three hours from Tokyo so not far in terms of time. Hirosaki is an easy day trip, but I normally travel there in the warmer months - my next visit is cherry blossom festival/season. I like the feel of Sendai, and Matsushima Bay could be a good location to stay if you wanted to holiday like some of the domestic market.
As for small places, it depends a bit on if you want to be based in a larger centre and just visit, or go somewhere small (Ginzan Osen as an example). There are hundreds of places, and the prefectural tourism boards are working hard to create interesting day activity/suggest course for people.
by JapanCustomTours rate this post as useful

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