Golden Week Part 4: Hirosaki Hanami

(continued from part 4)

Today, we were finally going to Hirosaki! Hirosaki, about 30-40 km west of Aomori City, used to be the capitol of the Tsugaru region, and is well known for it's castle grounds and reconstructed castle keep. However, it's most famous for its sakura cherry-blossom viewing season. Way up here in the north, the sakura season is later than most of Japan, and it usually coincides perfectly with then Golden Week holidays, making Hirosaki a big travel destination. Also, since it's colder up here, the different species of sakura tend to all bloom together, instead of separately like the southern areas.

We all overslept because of the previous night filled with gyoza, but we left as soon as everyone had gathered their things, which ended up being around 11 am. We had skipped breakfast, so we bypassed the castle by a little to eat lunch at Stamina Tarou! Stamina Tarou is what's called baikingu, or "all you can eat." Their main thing is yakiniku, or meat barbecue, but they serve damn near anything. They've got sushi, takoyaki, ramen, salads, crepes, ice cream, and even a cotton candy machine! Of course, I didn't come here to eat stinking takoyaki, so I stayed pure, filling up with only grilled meats and vegetables. Kevin was too impatient to wait for all his meat to cook, so he scarfed down 4 potato croquettes and later regretted it.

As you can see, the grill isn't quite big enough for more than 2 people.

After our 90 minutes were up (yes, you only get 90 minutes), we headed straight towards the castle grounds with Kevin complaining about the road bumps giving him a stomachache. Parking was a nightmare, but we settled for paying 1000 yen to park in an empty lot near the park. It was a bit rainy, but the flowers were beautiful. It's too bad that the darker pink "willow-type" cherry trees were still only budding.

During the sakura season, there's a big festival going on in the park, and you can buy all kinds of yummy goodies from the stands that pop up everywhere. You can also rent rowboats and row around in the sakura-lined castle moat, but we opted not to because it was still cold and rainy.

Festival food stand. They are everywhere.

We only stayed for about an hour and a half because we needed to return the rental car that day. The drive back to Aomori City was clogged up with traffic (it being the last day of Golden Week and all), but we still managed to get back with some time to spare. Since the day was pretty chilly, we went to 極楽湯 Gokuraku-yu onsen to warm ourselves up again.

Gokuraku-yu, unlike the other onsen we've been to, is more like an amusement park than a bathhouse. When you walk inside, the ticket machine, which would only have buttons for "adult", "child", and "shampoo/soap/towels" at normal bathhouses, were FILLED with buttons for various baths, spa treatments, massages, and therapies. They even have therapy fish, which is just a that you dip your feet into so the little fishies can nibble away at your dead feet-skin. Outside the main bathing area itself is something that can be described as a food court, where you can buy drinks from vending machines or ramen/curry/tonkatsu from the cafeteria.

The bathhouse itself is large and extensive. They have many rows of showers, and plenty of pool space. There are also underwater benches and reclined seats that blow jets of bubbly water all over your body, but some of them are poorly placed. I laid down in one and just got relaxed, until a cold water droplet that condensed on the ceiling nailed me right in the eye. Talk about unpleasant...

Outside, there is a large rotenburo, or outdoor bath, along with some stone seats that slowly trickled water down your back. There were also a few single-person stone tubs that looked like huge flower pots. I felt like these were the nicest, but probably only because the water in these tubs were the hottest in the whole bathhouse, even though they still weren't very hot. I like my onsen to be around 42-43 C, but the ones here barely got up to 41.

Past the outdoor bath area was another small building. Inside rests the "special" bathing area, which offers seasonal bathing in different kinds of water. The day we went, they were offering a "grape bath". The water was a murky purple and smelled like watery stale wine. It was a little off-putting in my opinion, but I've heard that other baths offered, like the apple bath or rose petal bath, are very pleasant. Overall, I personally wasn't really digging the commercialized feel of the place, so I probably won't be coming back very often.

We spent as much time as we could bathing before we had to leave and return the car. I managed to refuel and return the rental car with less than a minute to spare, which was a little terrifying. With the car returned and the next day a work day, my Golden Week was officially over. My 2 friends stayed at my place for the next several days and explored the city on their own, and they finally left for Tokyo on the Thursday of that week.

Well, as guess it's back to living by myself and teaching classes at school. I cant wait for the next long vacation, and I wonder where I'm going to explore next! But, wherever I go, you can be sure that I'll share it with you here on my blog. Thanks for reading, and see you again!