Engrish of the week

"Worried about God's Damnation : Little Buddy"

Seen on a child's baseball cap in a store in Shimoda.

And once again, more things about Hirosaki....

So, this is the third post about my trip to Hirosaki with Laura and Karesa. This is amazing, considering we only spent one day there, and it was only for a few hours.... I guess I just took a lot of pictures in those few hours or something.

After we were done with Hirosaki park, Laura took us to a Neputa museum in town. Nebuta is the famous yearly festival held in Aomori city, but both Hachinohe and Hirosaki have their own versions. The one in Hirosaki is called Neputa because of some dialect difference or something. Nebuta/Neputa is a festival where giant hand painted floats with interior lights are drawn through cities while people play taiko/sing/dance/etc. The floats are made using this really unique paper, that is apparently incredibly hard to paint on since it doesn't really absorb liquid very well. They look amazing though, and the museum was fun. They had a little section where you could go and see people actually making little floats and painting lanterns. I also got to play taiko drums, which is always, always, always a good thing. :) So.....enjoy the following pictures. :)


This video is on its side...which I apologize for. Apparently I was holding my cell phone the wrong way while I was taking the video. In any case, it's a short clip of two traditional shamisen players, who serenade you as you leave the museum. All in all, Hirosaki was a really fun trip, and I need to go back one day when I have more time... And when it's spring. :) I need cherry blossom pictures!

Things I love about Japan

This thing is considered a valid musical instrument.

Hirosaki Park

Well, I ended up going to bed after the Hirosaki Castle post, so these are up a bit later than they were supposed to be... but better late than never. ;) These were mostly taken in the botanical gardens in Hirosaki park, and unfortunately it wasn't really the season for it. Most of the flowers had already bloomed about a month prior, and it was obvious the park was getting ready for fall, and then afterwards winter with its copious amounts of snow. Still, there were some very pretty parts, and I would love to go back in spring sometime when everything is alive and blooming. :)

This was a giant flower clock in the middle of the park, it was really neat. And before people start posting weird comments or freaking out, no, that is not a swastika in the ground there. Yes, it looks like it, but it's an actual kanji character. I think it means wisdom or something, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

They had this really beautiful rose garden, that had a water feature that went around the whole thing. I would love to just sit there for hours and read or something, it was very peaceful.

Near the water/rose garden, they had peacocks. Why? I have no idea, but they were fun to play with. :) They kept coming up and begging for food and attention from us. ^-^

There were lots of animal shrubs! Some of them were being taken down unfortunately though... The panda one is my favorite. :)

This next picture will be the last one for this post, and it's probably my favorite. I found the Secret Garden, and it is in Japan. Until next time. :)

Hirosaki Castle

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. :)

Things I love about Japan

The Japanese word for bread is 'pan'. So, that would make the above 'Pandapan'! Also pictured: 'Koalapan' and 'Kumapan'. Kuma = bear. :) Seen in a store in Shimoda.

Sannohe Festival

So, the above picture is the only one I have of my town's festival, which was in the middle of September. Sad, huh? The truth is, I was actually IN the festival, I was helping pull one of the floats like you see above, so I was too busy walking and hauling and singing to take pictures. This picture is from before the festival started. Try to imagine a bunch of people around them pushing and pulling them, with students riding on it playing taiko drums and flutes while the pulling/pushing people sing and dance. Then multiply that by about ..16 or so. Each neighborhood in the town makes one of these floats, and they then compete to see who has the best one. They're really amazing, they have huge dolls on them, hand painted backgrounds, decorations, and all the student musicians wear costumes. All the floats have themes too, and they usually seem to depict something from Japanese folklore. The song that the puller/pushers sing is also very traditional, with two or three "main singers" with the rest of the pullers chanting the chorus. After about ten minutes, I memorized the chorus, and one of the "main singers" noticed. The main singers had wireless microphones, and at one point the one "main singer" guy was going around and holding up his mic to various people as they sang the chorus, including me. At one point, his throat got sore, and he decided he needed a little break so... he handed me the microphone and walked off. So, with one hand around a giant rope, and the other grasping a wireless microphone, I helped pull a float through the streets of my town while singing at the top of my lungs in Japanese. It was an amazing experience, I don't think I'll forget it anytime soon. :) To apologize for lack of pictures in this post, have this next one. It's just chilling in one of the restaurants here in town, and yes, it's a real one. I have no idea how old it is, but the restaurant is actually a really old traditional Japanese house, so it's probably as old as the house.... Enjoy!