Japan Rail goofed in Morioka. At first I was very surprised at the thought of a late shinkansen... What I learned about 5 minutes too late was that the ticket had the wrong track number printed on it. Luckily I'm figuring things out to the point that I avoided mistakenly taking the wrong train towards Tokyo. I went back to the ticket desk and got a reservation for the next train, this time with the right track number. I lost an hour but that was made up for by catching a local festival... Lots of drumming and the same lyrics over and over. The traditional clothing covered with Coca-Cola logos was pretty funny. The trip to Hachinohe was almost over before I realized it. Not much to see with all the tunnels, but that new shinkansen line saved me an hour to Aomori. I'm now stuck with slower trains for the next day or two. Not sure if I'll stop in Aomori or if I'll catch a train in time to get through the Seikan tunnel under the Tsugaru Straits, and into Hokkaido (hopefully as far as Hakodate) for the night.