Matsumae Ainu

Curious as to who all these demonic looking fellows were I quizzed a Japanese friend, only to find out they're supposed to be portraits of ten Ainu (Hokkaido natives) who helped out the original Japanese settlers in Matsumae, presumably before the Japanese torched all their villages and slaughtered the inhabitants.

Not only are they depicted as being half animal, with hairy clawed feet and inhuman strength, but they had really scary names like 起殺麻 (Ki-sa-ma: rise/kill/hemp) which coincidentally also happens to be a synonym for an insult in modern Japanese.

Hanami 2006: Hirosaki

Since the cherry blossoms came out several weeks late this year I went South in search of some earlier blossoms. Even Hirosaki wasn't in full bloom when I reached there, but the journey was well worth it. Hirosaki park really puts anything in Hokkaido to shame, with a wealth of cherry blossom trees and some stunning weeping willow style blossoms that look like frozen cascades of petals. All this against the backdrop of incredible mountain views, such as in the first picture.

The most suprising thing about the museum pieces in the castle was how small the suits of armour and clothing were. Even the warrior classes of Japan were really quite small. Dangerous, no doubt, but undeniably stunted. The guy who this suit belonged to couldn't have been much more than five feet tall.

The old wooden castle has remained blessedly free of refurbishing efforts and looks quite fine during the day and even better at night, albeit blurrier after you've consumed way too much alcohol with a bunch (or two) of random strangers who are more than happy to get wasted with a pair of sake-toting foreigners.

Hanami 2006: Goryoukaku park

A beautiful view, and a star shaped fort surrounded by cherry blossoms!
Towering over the puny former tower like a giant... tower.
All the hanami mats out, barbecues and alcohol aplenty!

So there's just way too many great hanami experiences to post up this year, but I'll start here. The new Goryoukaku tower puts the old one to shame, and provides an amazing view of the whole city. I held off going up it until the cherry blossoms were out, and I'm very glad I did.

Try My Bowel!

 I've tried showing this to Japanese people and they're just like "oh, that looks tasty"...