Our guests this time were Brian and Jessie, a lovely couple with a wedding coming up. They stayed ten nights — long for a guesthouse in Hachinohe. I will admit that at first I wondered what they would do with ten whole days here. As it turned out, it was our family who ended up walking all over Hachinohe with them.
Ten nights, a few minutes from Hachinohe Station
Nvillage is about a ten to twelve minute walk from the west exit of Hachinohe Station. You can drop your bags almost as soon as you step off the shinkansen and start moving light on day one. Sleeping space is private; the lounge, dining area and bathroom are shared. What we can offer depends on the length of the stay and the number of people, so longer stays are always something we work out together in advance.
For a night or two, a place to sleep is enough. Ten nights is a different question. Laundry piles up and belongings accumulate. That is exactly what the washer and dryer are for, and why the shared lounge and dining table has a fridge, a microwave and hot water. Brian and Jessie would spread out whatever they had picked up that day, and we ate together as a family.
Slipping into a local summer
The day I remember most is the one we spent at a high school baseball game. Under a blue sky, in a stand lined with school banners, the two of them clapped along with everyone else without entirely knowing what was happening. That afternoon is in no guidebook.
This is what a long stay is really for. Instead of ticking off sights one by one, you happen to be there for whatever the town is doing that season. Give it ten days and a few of those afternoons will find you.
A visit to Hachinohe Shuzo
You cannot introduce Hachinohe without sake. They visited Hachinohe Shuzo in the Minato district, the brewery behind Mutsu Hassen and Mutsu Otokoyama, with its red brick building and its stack of sake barrels. It is on our area guide too.
Some of it was hard to explain in English, but taking a photo by the barrels and then drinking the same label that evening does the explaining for you. Sake clears a language barrier faster than words do. If you want to get closer to the people who make things here, we also run local experiences.
Bar hopping through Hachinohe's yokocho
Nights in Hachinohe mean the yokocho. Several of these alleys sit clustered in the town centre, narrow lanes packed on both sides with tiny counter-only bars. Because each place is small, you do not settle in for the night — you have a drink and move on. That is the whole point of bar hopping here, and it is how Hachinohe drinks.
One of the bars we visited that night was Yoshu Kissa Prince. Its neon sign glows out into the alley and people keep stopping to photograph it. Inside it is genuinely tiny, with no distance at all between you and the next stool — which is precisely why a conversation with the locals starts within minutes.
The yokocho are in the town centre, a little way from the station side where we are, so it is worth sorting out how you are getting back before you set off. We tell guests the best option for the night they are going.
Not just us at the house
Someone else lives here long term, too. Brian and Jessie hit it off with them straight away, and with the people from other countries staying at the same time. On some evenings the whole group headed into town together.
A hotel does not do this. A stay where you never learn who else is under the roof and a stay where you go drinking with them on first-name terms are two different things, whatever the booking says. Days like these are the best part of running a guesthouse.
On their second-to-last day, they turned around and gave our family a wonderful present. We were the ones meant to be doing the hosting, so it caught me completely off guard, in the best way. Every happiness to the two of them as their wedding day arrives.
I am looking forward to the day we can share a drink again, here in Hachinohe.
If you are thinking about a long stay in Hachinohe
Ten nights, two weeks, a month. Here is what you need to decide whether Nvillage suits that kind of stay.
- A washer and dryer you can use — the thing that actually makes a long stay workable
- A shared lounge and dining table with a fridge, a microwave and hot water
- An outdoor barrel sauna (paid, reservation required) to reset mid-stay
- Free parking, though spaces are limited so please reserve
- Ten to twelve minutes on foot from Hachinohe Station West Exit — straight off the shinkansen
- Smart-lock self check-in, so an unpredictable arrival time is not a problem
- Ask us about long stays and we will work something out for your dates
Hachinohe is not a town you finish in a few days. There are the yokocho, the port, the morning market, the coastline. The longer you stay, the more it opens up — watching those ten days go by reminded me of that. Get in touch and we will help you plan it.