Hirosaki 弘前 (Part 2 of my weekend in Aomori)
Hirosaki is famous for its castle, which is beautiful during the
cherry blossom season. However, in 2015 the castle was moved to a nearby
site for construction to the castle walls. This happens every 100
years. It's particularly impressive because the castle is moved whilst
it is fully intact!
On
my way over to the castle park, I stumbled upon a Yosakoi dance
festival. This is a traditional type of dance that you see at festivals
all over Japan. There were lots of dance teams performing in different
parts of the city.
After
watching the dancing I went to see the castle and the surrounding
gardens. Neaby the park, I visited Neputa Mura, another museum about the
Neputa festival and other loacal specialities. Some staff members
taught me a rhythm on the big festival taiko drums and then we played
them together. Around the museum there were shamisen performances, craft
corners where you could have a go at making some local crafts, and
decorations from the Neputa Matsuri festival.
I
had a local set meal at the museum's restaurant. It included: kenoshiru
- a miso based soup with carrots, radish, konnyaku, burdock and tofu;
kaiyaki miso - white fish, scallops, tofu, onion and egg cooked in a
scallop shell; rice; and pickles.
After
dinner I walked around the Fujita Memorial Gardens. I stopped in a
Japanese house for matcha tea and a sweet to enjoy while looking out
over the gardens.
On
my way back to Hirosaki Station I caught the end of the Yosakoi
festival where someone from each dance group was lined up along a road,
waving their giant team flags to music.
I shouldn't even be allowed a blog, I'm so bad at writing this!
I'm going to try and do some catch up posts this week.
魂走 Soul Run and the ICU festival
Towards the end of summer, I joined the Soul run circle at ICU (or so-ran bushi). Soran Bushi is a traditional japanese folk song orignially sung by fishermen in Hokkaido. I really wanted to do something I couldn't do in England and I also heard there weren't many other exchange students joining the circle. There were only two other exchange students, one four-year foreign student and two half japanese students, so it was a very good chance to practice japanese. The dance itself was really fun to do and a very good workout for your legs. After most practices my legs were quite sore for the day. We practised about 3 times a week until our performance at the ICU festival in October. This is a video of our performance, I'm in a green top on the left hand side.
On the week of the festival we were rehearsing nearly every night while wearing the Happi coats.There were a lot of people sat on bakayama watching our performance and even a few small children in the front of the audience trying to copy the dance. Once our performance was over we had all had some pizza by the gym and then separated to go look around the festival.
In Japan, universities have their own festivals, where all the different groups or circles set up little stalls selling food or drinks and there's performances, martial arts demonstrations, and cafes. I went to watch the Taiko drumming, my friend's karate demonstration and smooth Steppers (a dancing group at ICU). All of the food stalls smelt so good as well; they had takoyaki (octopus doughy balls), yakisoba (noodles), yakitori (like a chicken kebab but nicer), yakiniku (meat), okonomiyaki (japanese savoury pancake, taiyaki (a fish shape sponge cake with bean paste in), chijimi (korean pancake), hotdogs and lots of other things. In the evening Soul run had an after party at an izakaya (pub like place).
Cat cafe
In december I went to a cat cafe, where you could sit and play with lots of cats while having tea. A lot of the cats would ignore you if you didn't buy any chicken to feed them with but luckily we went at feeding time so we could use that food to tempt the cats over with. The cats were all really cute, but most weren't interested in playing and only wanted food. Apparently they have bunny cafes too and even a snake one somewhere!
Ghibli Museum In October I went to the Studio Ghibli museum with the I-Week group at ICU (a group for japanese speaking practice). Outside the museum they had a big Totoro, from the film my Neighbour Totoro, inside a ticket booth and then from there we weren't allowed to take any more photos inside the museum. In the main hall of the museum it looked like a little adventure room with bridges going across leading from one side of an upper floor to the other, little archways and viewing balconies. They had the cat bus for My Neighbour Totoro as well!! The cat bus is literally a cat that is also a bus, which picks Totoro up in the film.
You could walk in and sit inside the catbus, but only small children could play on the slightly smaller soft catbuses. Inside the museum they also had a small cinema where they show different exclusive Studio Ghibli films. The one we watched was about some children who made a boat in school and then the room turned into a sea and they met a whale while on their adventure on the boat. It was in Japanese but I think I managed to understand enough to know what was going on for most of it.
It's getting late, so I will try to update this again in the next few days!
おやすみ～
