New Year's Day in Hirosaki

Happy New Year!

After grabbing a few hours sleep, Nancy and I met up with Mel and Jeff at the mall hoping to find a promising Good Luck bag... nothing really caught out fancy though... except for an infomercial that was playing where Japanese women rubbed a tool with testical-sized-disco-balls on their faces... from the before and after shots, we guess that it's to move any fat you have in your face around and not a cure for acne, but... we really weren't sure...

The hell?

Blurry little disco balls

... this is why you can't have nice things, Mel...

Once we'd gathered up the troops, it was time to head out to a shrine to welcome the new year and get our fortunes for the year.

Tori gate at Hachiman-guu (八幡宮/はちまんぐう） shrine

Big line up of people waiting to ring the bells

Fire is the cleanser... of bad fortunes.

I guess I should have snapped more photos, but my fingers were getting a little colder every time I took my gloves off... The fire is there so you can burn your New Years stuff from last year, so you get to start fresh with new items/fortunes/good luck charms that you purchased from the various vendors around the shrine grounds.

I saw lots of elderly folks go into here and wash their hands in that fancy way I haven't mastered... they were also drinking the water that had passed over many other people's hands already... I'm afraid I passed on that part and just stayed in line to ring the big bells.

You'd think after waiting in that big line that I would have snapped some photos close up, but... no... no I didn't do that. Haha. I didn't want to hold up the line... yeah... that's it. So, according to my fortune (and translated to me by the lovely Nancy), I will have a 'small' fortune (the options are small, medium, big or bad) with some focus on love. I will get a puppy. :D

 After enjoying a late lunch/early supper. (lupper?) at Big Boys (cheap all you can eat soup and salad bar, plus a drink bar! Hooray!) Nancy took us on a tour of Hirosaki city. Our first stop was the Hirosaki Eletrical Fantasy... revel in it's majesty.

The old city library. The glass is some of the windows looked like old hand blown ones. Cool beans!

 Before we went much further (because it was close to closing time) we went inside the Hirosaki Tourism Broad building to see the displays they have.

One of the Tsugaru clan leaders... sorry I dunno which one...

Nebuta float front

Nebuta float back

They aren't kidding, there are literally 48 boxes... some of the differences seemed to be so minute that they looked exactly the same... I'll spare you having to go through them all, though the final result is very pretty.

 

The horses reminded me of the Lego ones I have for my castle sets...

Scale Model of the Castle Grounds done by High School students.

Lotsa neat stuff! Not much to say about them as I couldn't read the cards and we were rushing through it pretty quickly to get outta their hair. They made a special announcement that it was 5 minutes to closing time in English, just for us. ;)

As it was pretty dark when we emerged, so we did a quick tour around and saw the miniature versions of historical buildings found around Hirosaki. They are currently housed in plywood shacks that were erected after the snow came (or so it seemed from all the snow and ice on the paths around them), so I will grab some photos of them at a later time when they aren't being protected from the elements.

Finally, we went to the shrine/temple district and drove down the street... reminded me of Rose street in Edinburgh except... instead of a bunch of pubs... it was sacred buildings... wait... those are the same...

So... many... Tori gates... O.O

 Mel and Jeff had some time to kill before having to catch their night bus down to Tokyo, and I had a little bit of time until my train came, so we went for a coffee run and checked out a pet store in a different mall (さくら野百貨店).

So fashionable! All they are missing is the clown face tread like the Canadian Tire ones I had as a child...

 Naturally Japan has some different ideas about things that pet owners want... like kimonos and elaborate dresses for their little doggies... and girdles so that they don't hump things... or did I misunderstand the 'manner belts'

Ok, this I can get behind. Bad-ass. XD

Remember that puppy I said I was going to get...? <3