Hirosaki

Although I had bought a ticket on the scenic ('joyful' in Japanese) train from Akita through to Aomori, I decided to get out one stop earlier in Hirosaki. Most people do Hirosaki as a day trip from Aomori, but I very much think it's worth a number of days. Hirosaki Castle, which dates to the early 1600s, and its surrounding grounds, blanketed in deep snow, are very scenic and I spent quite a few hours wandering this complex and its various temples and shrines.

Also very impressive was the Saishoin Temple Five Storied Pagoda and associated Temple, which was almost literally buckling under the weight of the snow on the roofs. It was also completely deserted other than two men trying to carve a staircase out of the snow to access the shrine. I was surprised these structures were built to handle what was laying on top, easily over 1m thick ice/snow which according to Windy-dot-com had a density of 300kg per cubic metre - that is some serious weight on the roof! Elsewhere I did see many houses, barns etc that had collapsed under the weight. Some of the snow huge cornices hanging out from the roof of this temple were quite nerve racking to stand under.

Again because this city was absolutely covered in snow, it made for some great street photography.

Ending this blog here, photo gallery below.