This year we decided to attend Hanami ("flower viewing") in Hirosaki for the cherry blossoms. They are in bloom for a short period each year at the end of April and beginning of May. They were predicted to be out last week, but it has been cold. We made plans with Katie and her family to go on Monday, but they hadn't quite popped by then yet either. Since we had all ready arranged everything, we decided to go and have a good time anyway, in spite of the lack of blooms.

We'd never been to Hirosaki. It's a little far away; it took us about four hours to drive there (without toll roads.) There used to be a castle there but it burned down a couple hundred years ago. The grounds are still there and are gorgeous, and the big gates and tower keep still stand. We drove out there the long way, going past Lake Towada. Then we stopped in Kuroishi for a picnic lunch at the park. They had carp streamers hanging out in the field for Kodomo No Hi (Children's Day) and an awesome playground with a giant Kokeshi doll roller slide. I brought bentos for Matt, Rhino, and myself and we sat and ate on the playground while Rhino and the girls ran around. It was a nice break after sitting in the car for three hours!

Once we made it to Hirosaki and were inside the gates and on the castle grounds, we didn't see any full blooms but everything was still beautiful. There is a moat outside the gate with koi, cranes, and swans. The buds on the trees were all still pretty, just not as stunning as the full blossoms. It was not very crowded at all, which is nice for crowd-anxious people like Matt and for our two bulky double-strollers. I'm sure this weekend and next will be much more crowded. Rhino immediately had an accident which drenched his shoes, so he was left barefoot and stuck in the stroller for the whole day. I always pack lots of spare clothes, but it had never occurred to me to pack a change of shoes. So that's why our toddler is barefoot in all our photos! There is a small, three-story museum inside the tower keep that Matt and I went in. Katie has been to the cherry blossom festival six years in a row, so she stayed outside with the kids and strollers. She said that every single person who walked by her stared in amazement as she wrangled five children under 6. We get a lot of stares for being white anyway, and it seems that the Japanese don't usually have more than two children and often times not until later in life. Some Japanese people took photos with their cellphone of all our kids and apparently found us and our strollers really amusing!

While we were at the festival, we admired Mt. Iwaki, played with the face-in-hole Japanese people, listened to some beautiful traditional music ringing through the trees, tried some delicious deep tempura-fried corn and candy-coated strawberries on a stick, and had our photo taken with some strange samurai bird (the swastika is a Buddhist symbol of peace – that is not a Nazi bird!) It was a great time and we are looking forward to going again! Next year we'll try to make it out a little later when the trees are in bloom. The blossoms still haven't popped here in Misawa, so we still have plenty of opportunities to observe hanami a little closer to home. You'll hear all about that later! Do you want to know how we got to Hirosaki from Misawa? Check my somewhat vague maps and directions here!

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