Daisuke Sakashita

Morioka City is home to the Morioka Castle Ruins Park, which was once known as Kozukata Castle. It is very popular as one of Morioka’s tourist attractions and a place of relaxation for Morioka citizens. Along with the stately stone walls, various flower vases decorate the area throughout the four seasons.In the spring, it is a famous spot for cherry blossoms, in the summer, it creates a green shade in the center of the city, and in the fall, it is decorated with beautiful autumn leaves. In winter, the area is completely enveloped in a snowy landscape that looks like an ink painting, and the illuminated stone walls create a magical winter night. The stone walls of the castle ruins are made of stacked granite from Morioka, and are known as one of the three major castle ruins in Tohoku. The young Takuboku Ishikawa and Kenji Miyazawa also spent time in this park and left behind many masterpieces.

If you take a quick trip, you will find the national natural monument “Ishiwarizakura,” which was grown by splitting a gigantic granite rock with a circumference of 23 meters into two. The tree is said to be between 300 and 400 years old. Even the most gutsy radish cannot compete with this strength of life (lol) Please take a look.

It is the only government-registered international tourist restaurant in Iwate Prefecture. This is a teppanyaki restaurant that focuses on local ingredients such as Iwate’s proud Maezawa beef, Iwate Tankaku Wagyu beef, and Sanriku live abalone. Our chef will prepare the food right in front of you. Our sister stores include “Shabu-shabu Wakana”, a shabu-shabu specialty store, and “Morioka Sakura-tei”, a yakiniku and cold noodle restaurant that opened last year. When you visit Iwate, why not try some food tourism? We look forward to your visit.

Since taking the Iwate Hospitality Tourism Meister training, I have been able to discover many charms of Iwate that I was unaware of. I hope to be able to convey the wonders of Iwate to more people.