Hirosaki

June 3:

I always wake up as early as possible, and I see on the map, or one of my maps, of things to do in Aomori is visit the nearby city of Hirosaki, there's a castle and a few dozen temples, a samurai village and the usual festivities that happen when I am not visiting.

I grab the Shinkansen towards Aomori first, and then take the next one towards Hirosaki, all quick and easy, I drop my things in a locker and notice one thing that I missed in a while, bike rental.

I check the prices and it's 600 yen for a normal bike or 1000 yen for an e-bike, at first I think... I should go with normal, can go faster, but then I realize, the price difference, plus the size of the bikes is so small, it won't be comfortable, also on the map it seemed like a 10 minute cycle or so, but apparently the city is quite a bit bigger.

I grab my biking sunglasses, my camera and head straight towards the main castle area, passing by the small museum and some samurai village which is merely a small commercial museum without much else for me.

The castle itself hides in a huge surrounding area of cherry trees, called cherry tunnel in some pathways, which might be the best thing to do in early spring.

I go through the red bridges and approach one of the castle gate, I drop my bike, get the ticket and see that the castle is about 2 stories high, used to be a keep, as most of them , of coins and other precious things, also has been moved around with a few interesting technologies, I enjoy taking the pictures of it and the mountain view next to it, and all the apple orchards that are highly praised in Aomori.

I see a few other people enjoying the view, and I try to snap them through my viewfinder, I grab the bike again and ride around the castle grounds full of other temples, more modern ones, documenting the manchurian battles, which I learned a few more crucial historical points.

After getting my goshuin, I decide to head to the next temple district, and hopefully stop for lunch. I do find a place nearby, cold soba noodles, no extras just plain as they have the buddhist diet here, I eat a larger portion and see they don't even accept card. Gladly had some coins on me that were just enough.

After a good ride, maybe 30 minutes I see the temple district, which is an enormous street with temples on each side, going uphill. There's a type of a tower/obelisk at the top that also has a tremendous view to the moutain in front.

I visit the main temple, it's old and almost falling apart, needing a good reconstruction.  By itself a small museum of relics without much explanation, but the purpose of a temple is clear, I see some people doing their daily prayers, but the sun is quite strong and the pictures don't come out naturally to me.

I take a few more snaps of the surroundings and decide I should head back, realizing I'm almost 40 minutes away from the station. One thing still appears on my map, some multi storey pagoda shrine closer to the station.

I have a wonderful ride following rivers, and arrive at this shrine that is definitely a must in this city. I notice another car from the previous temple district also made it's way here. I see bunnies instead of lions greeting me at the temple gates, and yes, the pagoda is a sight to be seen, the plants around the temple, bring more colour to it, and the rest of the shrines fills me with joy to stop here and take all the pictures I can

It's time to return the bike and head towards my hotel, which is 40 minutes away on the train, I do catch glimpses of the moutains and take as many pictures as I can from the train, the rice fields, the dramatic clouds

I arrive to my quaint hotel in Aomori, and see the sun is still shining bright, and I am just next to the tallest building, the observation deck of all Aomori, I decide to see when the sunset is and head up.

I am alone up here, even to pay the ticket it's automated but seems like no one cares if you actually do pay it, I still do. I enjoy the sun slowly going away to the west, and the city becoming filled with golden light, the main boats, the bridges, everything covered by golden light. My camera savours it all in.

Once the sun sets, I am back to the ground floor, checking if there's more around me, so following the main streets, the shopping streets I end up in a temple that just has a few flickering lights on, not much to see right now.

I head towards a dinner place, that appears to be full of other places nearby, but as I see they are mostly old fashioned izakayas with not much english menu, I head to a japanese american burger restaurant, and order the most interesting one they have on the menu.

I overhear conversations from the local owner and another american who apparently lives nearby, the burger fills me up, and I head happily back to the hotel to process some photos.