Tohoku Japan 日本東北

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There are different species of sakura, in different shaps and style.

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The background, the number of sakura and the light all made the place fantastic and beautiful.

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People can enter the castle outer area for free but you have to pay for the inner part. For the inner part, you can enter the castle tower to have a city view but there is not much to see in the evening and the spotlight are shining to the castle tower.

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At night, the moat becomes a must see spot. The sakura trees along the moat are lighted up which makes a stunning scene to see.

Water surface is flat and quiet, amazing.

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The next day morning we went to an old market at Aomori for breakfast, 古川市場. The operation is this, we bought a booklet of tickets and used those tickets to exchange for rice, fish, shrimp, etc to make your own seafood don. You can also pay cash for some other seafood if you wish. The market has places for you to sit down and eat, with tea and water served.

Not very delicious but fresh. A funny exercise too.

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After the breakfast, we went to have our second round of sakura seeing. We went to Ashinokoen 芦野公園.

We took a train there but we found the train was quite old when we were boarding. The train even has a stove built in and someone is toasting squid in the train.

After we sat down, an old man came and sat next to me. We talked a bit during the journey and he told me that this train is 71 years old without any renovation, i.e. the floor we were stepping on is 71 years old. He told me that because he is 71 years old too. He is from Hokkado.

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芦野公園 Ashinokeon station is hot place for sakura seeing. After the season, there are not many tourists going so the station is very simple. You pay cash when leaving the station, not buying tickets.

Most people, especially for the photographers are going to take a picture for a training passing through the sakura tunnel. Mine is without the train.

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This park has a lot of sakura with different species. A big park indeed, there is a camp site for traveling truck and we saw someone camping there. Again, I took the pictures of different species and hope I have time to study them.

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There is a statue for Dazai Osamu 太宰治, a famous novelist in Japan. He was born in this province. There is a museum somewhere near the park.

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This picture explains why I cannot take a picture with train through sakura tunnel. This is the platform of the train station. We bought the ticket and waited for the train back home and thought that we can walk to the end of the platform to take the picture when the train arrived.

However, the conductor caught me and took me back to the place for waiting the train and he did not allow the passengers to the end of the platform. Then I found out that you have to buy a separate ticket for taking picture at that spot. A non-passenger can buy a ticket for photo shooting only.......WTF