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.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment