Most tourists visiting Japan probably head south of Tokyo, towards Osaka and Kyoto, rather than exploring the northern part of Honshu island. However, there is a lot nice scenery towards the northern end.
This trip, visiting friends, we found ourselves in Hirosaki. It's a pretty town I had never heard of before, but apparently it is well known in Japan for its cherry blossom festive which is held in the very large and attractive grounds of the old Hirosaki castle. There's only one main bit of the old castle left standing, which has a bit of a museum inside:
Here's the Hirosaki version of samurai armour, which is featured in quite a lot of Japanese castle museums, but hey it's still cool looking stuff:
For an evening meal in Hirosaki, I can't recommend highly enough Restaurant Poo:
No one was quite able to explain the name, and I suppose it was just a little juvenile of me to take so much pleasure from reading a menu with "Poo" written on it repeatedly. But we really did eat there, it being close to our friend's house and one of their regular haunts. The food was meant to be Chinese, but it was quite different to your average Chinese restaurant experience (in either Australia or Japan), perhaps because of the Japanese chef. "Poo" was also very cheap, and outstanding value. It served "beer cocktails", one of which was beer and tomato juice. (Ugh). I don't hang around bars in Australia much, but this was the first time I had even heard of the concept of a beer cocktail.
For a day trip from Hirosaki, you can do a lot worse than drive to Lake Towada. This is a large, caldera lake which is quite deep, and (apparently on a fine day) has famously blue waters. From Hirosaki, the road is very windy (two of the passengers were overcome with carsickness). Still, the view from the lookout is great, even on an overcast day:
That little dot you can see to the right of the island is fairly big tourist boat. Pity you don't get a good idea of scale from the photo.
Being quite the fan of "You Only Live Twice", I naturally hope that I will find the Japanese lake which conceals a secret rocket base. However, once you get to the shore, you discover that Towada only conceals the silly swan paddle boats that every Japanese tourist lake provides:
The waters of the lake are exceptionally clear, and there's a pretty little "island" just off the main beach. Lovely:
Being near water, and Japanese, the shops naturally provide fish on a stick as a snack:
Nearby, there's a stream that flows out the lake that provides a very pleasant walk amongst waterfalls and greenery:
A very pretty part of Japan, perhaps even better right now when autumn colours have more fully taken hold.
I can't think of a clever way to end this post: just hope you don't mind the photos. I can bore you with many more.
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