Hirosaki

Last weekend we went to Hirosaki, our friendly neighborhood castle town (and by nearby, I mean, only a 2 hour drive and only $15 in tolls each way), for the last weekend of the hanami, or cherry blossom viewing party. Unfortunately, the cherry trees had mostly finished, but it was still a beautiful festival day with other types of blooming trees.

When we got to the town, we couldn't find parking anywhere. Eventually, we found a little lot whose attendants said it was for the garden. So, as long as we paid admission to the garden, we could park there for free and see the castle. 600 yen for admission for 2 to the garden vs 1000 yen to park in a castle lot. Sold! I love how accommodating everyone is. They easily could have told us that parking was for the garden only. And, what a lovely garden it was.

While there wasn't a whole lot to see at the castle, it was in full festival mode with food stalls everywhere. Now, the Japanese don't really eat food while walking. They do make exceptions now for ice cream and mochi on a stick, but that's a relatively new relaxation of that etiquette. There was some weird (to Westerners) stuff being sold. Like whole mini octopuses to pop into your noodles.
(Please excuse my formatting issues with the pictures. If anyone knows how I can do the formatting on my own without using the blogspot editor, please let me know).


There were people everywhere having picnics underneath huge, blossoming trees (no, I don't know what kind). Just like everyone takes off their shoes to go inside a home, people take off their shoes to sit on their tarps. I've even seen homeless people with shoes lined up outside their makeshift homes. In Kyoto, I saw a woman sweeping her 2x2 ft home of cardboard. It was really kind of surreal.

On our way home, we decided to stop on Aomori for dinner. Even though it's only an hour away, we don't get there very often. While we were parking, we heard the drums that told us we'd stumbled on yet another festival. Now, Aomori is known for their huge float festival in August (the Nebuta festival). We arrived at the end of their weekend of the cherry blossom festival, but they still had one of these massive and lit floats. In addition to the floats which are unique (to the best of my knowledge) to Aomori and Hirosaki, every festival we've been to has dance troops (traditional and something that's like a traditional/Japanese hip hop blend), joined by people of all ages from 3 year olds to 80 year olds. They also all seem to have fresh grilled mollusks. I really wish I liked scallops b/c I have a feeling they'd be the best here, grilled in their shells fresh from the ocean.

I'm so excited that it's finally spring/summer since that means just about every weekend, no matter where we go, we're bound to stumble on a festival. Most aren't all that interesting to be perfectly honest, but we still like going where we're usually the only gaijin. If we're lucky, we even get invited to play sake drinking games which makes everything more enjoyable!