I'm taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in December, just to see where I'm at, and I had to get an application to take said test. Unfortunately, the application is only sold in Kinokuniyas, which are a huge national bookstore chain in Japan..... and there's no one anywhere near where I live. The closest one is in Hirosaki, so I went with Laura and another ALT from Misawa City named Karesa about two weeks ago. Hirosaki is about a two and a half hour drive from where I live, so it was a bit of an excursion. While we were there, we decided to go to Hirosaki Park, which is famous for two things: one, it has an existing, still standing ancient castle there (pictured above), and two, it's an amazing place to go see the cherry blossoms in spring. Unfortunately, this isn't spring, so there were no cherry tree blossoms to be seen, but the castle was still there! Even without the cherry trees blooming it's still a beautiful park though.
As Hirosaki used to be an actual, functioning Japanese warlord's castle... it has a moat. A FREAKING MOAT! It surrounds the entire park... and is now inhabited by ducks and monster koi.
A picture of the actual castle itself. Now imagine all the green trees replaced by pink cherry blossoms, and you'll have an idea of why everyone comes here in spring. :)
You can actually go inside the castle and look around, it's been turned into a museum. Everything displayed is as old as the castle, which is pretty amazing. The last picture is of a diorama of what the entire castle compound looked like back in the day. The actual watchtower/castle part is the only part still standing today.
The view they had from the castle compound. There's a huge famous mountain in the background..which I completely forgot the name of. Oh well. That's me with Karesa posing. :)There's also a botanical garden in Hirosaki Park that I took lots of pictures of, but this post is already picture heavy, so that will have to wait until next post, which I may or may not get to later today... we'll see. :)
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