Today we have mostly been up (fairly) early to catch the train out to Hirosaki to go see the park, castle and flower festival. Looked good on the leaflet we picked up at the Tourist Information in Aomori so why not? In the UK I'm famous for not being impressed with parks and "autumn colours" but here... well, it's cultural innit?! 

But first, Doutor again for breakfast. Well, it was on the way to the station and the coffee and rolls are very good.  

Nice easy trip to Hirosaki on the train (covered by the JR Pass so it was free - which was nice). Also, turns out that the train stops at Shin Aomori, so we could have got a train into town after all! Oh well, never mind – at least it stopped us trundling around the town in the wrong direction with suitcases and it wasn’t expensive. Lesson learned though – tomorrow we’ll get the train out instead.

It takes about 45 minutes of travel through the countryside to get to Hirosaki. In our case,  complete with a couple of helpful Japanese ladies voluntarily explaining that the mountain you can see from the train is Mount Iwaki. Since we’d been in Morioka near Mount Iwate I thought I was safe saying “Hai, Iwate San” in a proud confident tone. But they politely corrected me that it was “IwaKI San”. Well done - wrong mountain, you dumb ass geographically challenged idiot. 馬鹿 indeed!  

Once at Hirosaki station (note the big apple!) we hunted around for the correct bus stance for the ¥100 Loop Bus that was advertised on the leaflet. Could we find it? Could we heck as like. Lots of head scratching and leaflet/phone checking.

Then we were approached by a lady and her daughter who asked what we were looking for, and thereafter insisted on taking us personally to the other side of the station to the other set of bus stops. Although the escort wasn’t strictly necessary, it was very kind indeed and did allow time for another brief conversation in my excrebal Japanese (ごめんなさい) so no complaints there. Once across the other side there were bloody great signs for the loop bus and a guy actively and loudly getting people to queue up.

Top tip then (since this wasn’t the first time something similar had happened); if you can’t see the right bus stop, try the other side of the station. In the UK you tend to assume that most local stations only have one bus “station”. Shows you what assuming does!

Caught the loop bus (these are awesome, why don't we have more of them in the UK?) and up through Hirosaki we went. Could you walk it? Yes. Would you want to? Nope. It’s up a (steep) hill all the way and for the sake of ¥100 (about 80p), that can do one.

Nearly missed the stop because it was billed as the Town Hall rather than The Park but made it off in time... just. Then, since there was a Chrysanthemum Festival on in one section of the park, bought entrance tickets to everything. Tracey bought a set of souvenir postcards too. Well, ok, Tracey got ME to buy a set of souvenir postcards. Cop-out. Nice though and currently framed up and decorating our kitchen wall.

Oh, and we bought Koi food too since I spotted it for sale in the ticket booth and the lady showed us on the map where the Koi pond was. Confession though, I thought it was food for Ducks! Not sure why. I knew it was animal food (えさ: Esa) but the “Koi” bit wasn’t in Kanji (鯉) or I’d have spotted the left hand “Fish” part and not mucked up. And anyway, I know damn well what a “Koi” is – it’s not exactly difficult since that’s what they are called in English! Maybe I had it mixed up with the name a duck makes in French (“Coin”). Maybe I’m just terminally stupid. Moving on…

Then we spent the next hour and a half wombling about the park, taking in all the landscaping and the floral displays. All extremely impressive. Especially the Duck Koi pond. Beautifully landscaped and loads of really big Koi in it. Never fails to surprise me that these are unguarded as in the UK they’d last seconds before they were filched. Maybe they’re just more common. Maybe it’s the Japanese society. Probably it’s both.

Just to add to the cultural aspect of the day, Tracey then decided that we should go on the miniature train. You know, the one on which people take their kids. Got some weird looks but in for a penny. Tracey really enjoyed it – can you tell?

Brief stop for a chocco-banana (very nice thank you) and then more touring of the floral exhibits, including a series of historical tableaux where all the models were wearing floral costumes. The “why” escaped us a tad but all very artistic and it must take ages to do.  

Even more strolling through the more permanent sections of the park’s landscaping and eventually back the main lawn where there was a Shamisen recital. We sat and “appreciated” that for ten minutes. Was it good Shamisen playing? I honestly have no idea. It was certainly entertaining but it could have been world class or “Dave and friends” from the village hall’s local evening group having a go. Watch the video and if you know anything about it I’d really like to know your opinion.

Once we’d exhausted the possibilities of the park (which did take a very long time to be fair!) we retraced our steps and headed for the main “Castle”. Which had moved.

Alright, to be fair that makes it sound too much like “Howl’s Moving Castle”. Let’s get the transitivity of the verb right (see – I can sound almost intelligent when I’m not mixing up ducks with fish). The castle had been moved. Or at least the central tower had. About 78m in total.

Apparently it was originally at the edge of the ramparts which had deteriorated over the years to the point where it was in danger of collapse. So in 2015 they reinforced the structure, laid a track, jacked it up and over the course of several months moved it to where it currently stands on new, temporary, foundations. That way they can get on with sorting out the original location’s integrity before they move it back. Ingenious eh?

Having bought tickets we went into the castle “keep” and had a good old nose around for a bit. Good god the stairs were steep though! If you’d have tried attacking up those you’d be too knackered to do anything but wheeze some harsh language.  

Spent a bit of time taking panoramas across the moat and then took out time heading back to the entrance via what turned out to be a fairly circuitous route. Nice grounds though – more than worth the time. 

And you can clearly see the amount of work it's going to take to get the foundations fixed. It's not going to be a quick job! On a geeky note, the notices next to all this say it's going to be completed by Heisei 35 (2023). But since the Emperor is due to abdicate in 2019 the last Heisei year will be Heisei 31. Lots of public work signs have the dates written like this so will they all have to be altered? I don't know - answers on a postcard to the usual address... (Much later note: I checked with Yuka. Yes. Yes, they will!)

Back out again to the main gates, pausing only to get our photo taken by a very helpful local guy and also to watch a wedding photo shoot. Professional curiosity and all that (hope he framed out the car park behind them!)

Out the main gates and then down the hill to find a restaurant that had been recommended to us on Facebook by Yoshida San. Looked very inviting when we got there – and also looked very closed.

Bummer. Never mind – back up the hill and past the most Japanese looking Starbucks we’d seen to date.

I say passed. I mean went into.

Half and hour, a couple of coffees and some very acceptable apple pie later and we were back waiting for the 100 Yen Bus to take us back to the station. I would have been nice I think to have a look round the town but time was getting on and it was getting dark. Ok, it wasn't that dark and it was only just gone 4pm. Apparently we are 80...

Back to Aomori on the train and then to the hotel to get sorted for tomorrow.

Out again to Shinmachi this time for our last meal before Hakodate. Nothing at all wrong with the Okonomiyaki restaurant; loved it in fact. But we decided to take a bit of a gamble on something different tonight.

After the usual indecisive meandering we spotted a small restaurant and went for it.

Was this a good decision? Oh hell yes!

The Sen-Nari restaurant was being run by Harita Kaeko San and Siosake Uriko San (I made sure to ask them to write their names down) and they could not have been more welcoming. We had rather a lot of beer and sake while they rustled up bloody amazing ramen for us. Kaeko San even made origami for Tracey, starting with a box and then later a full blown Santa Claus! (Now part of our Christmas decorations. かえこさん、どうもありがとうございます。)

Had a phenomenal evening; great food, lots of drink and (despite my horrible horrible Japanese) had an intelligible conversation with Kaeko San about where we were from, where she grew up and similar stuff.

 本当に一期一会。

Really a night we won't ever forget!

Back to the hotel grinning like utter muppets.