They looked so cute! The black fox in the photo tried to steal our shoes, while we were wearing them! It was still winter so all the foxes had super fluffy coats. When I arrived the first thing I saw was a giant Gorilla statue (a little weird at first but this is Japan), and then a taxidermy fox. There is no regular bus so we had to take a taxi up to the Fox Villiage, which cost about Y4,200 (about 35GBP). This place is pretty much in the middle of no-where.
This place is situated in the mountains of Miyagi, in the town of ShiroishiZao. From where I lived a return shinkansen ticket cost me Y15,000 (about 125GPB). I wanted to come here after reading about it online, it sounded so cute! Its not very far from where I live however the travel is a little expensive (to be honest, travel is pretty expensive when you live in Japan). It was a pretty fun day, I really enjoyed seeing the ocean. They wield giant knives called Deba knives and can only be pleased by giving them mocha, a famous Japanese treat. They’re a unique version of the Namahage that are famous around Japan (originally from Akita), they punish lazy people who sit under kotatsu’s or scare little kids into behaving better. The main highlight of the journey is the Namomi ogres that appear as you travel through one of the longest tunnels before you get to Miyako. It was pretty great to see how happy they were. It travels down along the Iwate coast line, which is super beautiful, on this day there happened to be a couple re-opening of stations that had been damaged by the Tsunami, the people were waving flags and dressed as mascots. Our plan was to travel from Kuji to Miyako on the santetsudou, also known as the kotatsu train (if you don’t know what a kotatsu is imagine a bed and a table smooshed into one). I stayed at my friends the night before, even though we live in the same prefecture it still takes 2-3 hours to get there. I went by coach from Morioka because it was SO much cheaper than the train. I had to travel to the city of Kuji for this it’s a little difficult to get to.
There is a video you can watch online about it. This was a super fun trip, I`d been planning this for ages.