We went to the market for breakfast at 8.00 this morning. It was nice and cool – maybe 25 degrees, and we were feeling great! We purchased various small serves of food and ate together at a table. Sushi, sweet potato smoothie, igamenchi (chopped squid)…delicious way to start the day.
Michael walked back to the train stsation we were at last night, as he had lost his glasses and hoped he had left them there. Kaoru and I went to the Tourist Information to confirm some plans, as we weren’t sure of the train situation. When Michael returned we had a quick meet-up to plan the day, and decided we had an hour or so to kill, so just rested in the room for a while.
11.45 we met up, topped up our Suica’s, and had “ticket soba” at the train staion. Basically you buy a ticket from a vending machine and just hand it over at the counter, and they make the meal. No need to interact to place the order! It was a small restaurant, and we had to go in separately to get seats as they became available. We were able to sit next to each other in the end, and enjoyed our lunch. Then it was off to catch a 12.40 train. We were lucky to all get seats on it, as it was only 2 carriages long. A nice old lady swapped seats with me so I could sit across from Kaoru. Her friend (who I was then sitting next to) was a very chatty lady, so I tried a bit to talk to her about various things. She always spoke back to Kaoru though, and too fast, so I couldn’t really understand her responses. But she seemed to understand what I was saying so that was good.
After about an hour on the train, we arrived in Goshogawara, where we then got on a local bus. This was quite a small bus, and took us way out of town. After about an hour we got off (along with 2 other groups of 2 people) at some random stop in the middle of nowhere. Kaoru wandered down the road about 100 metres, and then signalled for us to follow her. She had found hte local taxi! He had also received a call from the local payphone (one of the other groups), so he pulled out his 9 seater and took all 8 of us on the 5 minute drive to Fushimi Inari Shrine. We had to walk up stairs (as you’d expect) and then down some others, where we were presented wtih a path of 1000 tori gates! 2 hours of travelling was definitely worth it to see this! We walked through them all to the end, where there was a shrine. And we then made our way back, concluding our walk with an ice cream.
Kaoru had organised for the taxi to pick us up after an hour. The bus we needed to take us back to Goshogawara runs every 90 minutes so we needed to be on time! And like clockwork, we got back to the bus stop, and made the journey back to Goshogawara. We got off the bus and went to the distillery, where we had an apple cocktail, which was nice. We then went outside to watch the giant floats come out of the museum where they are stored for the year. We also had some food from the stalls, and drinks. We then walked further up, towards the station, for when we wanted to make our getaway at the end of the night, and waited for the sun to set. At 7.00, after a few fireworks (which we couldn’t see, as they were behind the building), the floats were all lit up, and were dragged around the city block. They looked amazing! And to think they were all being pulled manually (no motors). People playing the drums and flute followed and led each float. Some of them were stopped and spun around, and some smaller ones were brought close to the crowd, and then the brakes slammed on.
We left about 8.00 and went to the train station, for an 8.26 train. It was already getting full, but luckily we all got seats – just scattered around the carriage. Another hour and we were back in Hirosaki. Then off to the 7-11 for our usual treats, and Michael and Leila came to our room to talk about the day, and the next day. By the time we had showered we were in bed around 11.