Today, we travelled from Sendai to Hirosaki's Neputa festival. The train we were on was standing room only, so we made like the rest of the Japanese sarariman and camped out in the aisles between trains.
After making our way to our ryoken (a traditional Japanese inn), we headed to the Hirosaki Visitor's Center. There,we learned that Hirosaki is especially well-known for its apples, and had some of the best apple juice ever. It tasted like liquid applesauce and was 100% juice and apple pulp. Delicious! We also spotted some of the Neputa floats, constructed of wireframe and paper, lit from the inside.
We then walked over to Hirosakijo and took in the grounds. The castle is 100% original construction, during the Tokugawa era. While the castle itself was closed, I took some good pictures of a number of moats, as well as the exterior.
The Neputa festival consists of a parade of fan-shaped lanterns known as Ougi-Neputa and figure lanterns known as Kumi-Neputa. These images are based on "Sangokushi" and "Suikoden", as well as other ancient Chinese novels. The Ougi-Neputa have the image of a battle or death on one side and the image of a beautiful woman on the other. Each float is followed by its own group of flutists and drummers. The drummers play enormous 2 meter drums (about 6 foot in diameter). Sometimes they ride them. There are also sometimes people playing finger cymbals and dancing in the street. Many of the lanterns are too tall to pass under the powerlines, so the floats either fold down or move up and down on risers. There are some ENORMOUS floats, some over three stories when fully extended. Sometimes, a group swing the float around in the middle of the street, showing off both their strength and both sides of the float. There are also guys playing 4 foot tall drums while carrying them strung over their back. A man dressed in Shinto garb blew a conch horn, and a katana group also performed.
After the parade, Grace and I returned to the ryoken. She went to sleep and I wandered the streets for a while, eventually coming across a group of college students playing guitar and singing in the street. After stopping to listen for awhile, they invited me in to sing with them. Lots of blues, jazz, and poppish blues like Clapton went down that night. It was a blast. I then went with them for some noodles, and headed for bed.