Golden Week in Japan is basically a few public holidays that run consecutively, and depending on their timing with a weekend can make a nice long holiday at the start of May. Last year I went to Hiroshima for these holidays. This year a group of us went to Hirosaki (弘前) and Lake Towada (十和田湖), both in Aomori prefecture just north of Akita.
On Saturday 2nd May 5 of us departed in two cars, Phil's and mine, bound for Hirosaki Park. And after about 3 or 4 hours we arrived in the park, with food, BBQ and copious amounts of drink. We found a nice spot under a sakura tree and did like the locals, have a laugh and get drunk!
A little disappointment came when we realised that there were no fire signs up all around the park. So we had to make do with snack foods for the night. But a fantastic sunset make everything right again.
The next day we headed for the famous Apple Park (りんご公園). Aomori is famous for it's apples, and it has apple flavour
everything! I had apple
ramen. It was quite different to a normal ramen, but nice for a change! And for dessert we had apple ice cream cones.
We then headed for the lake Towada. We first set up out tents at Oide Campground (生出キャンプ場) right beside the lake and headed to the small town for dinner and a look around. When we returned we found that somebody had decided our tents were not pitched very well, and had actually re-pitched one of them!!
We got some drinks and had our BBQ,
finally. It rained lightly, but nothing like we had expected, thankfully.
The next day we were about to go to Oirase River, but we discovered that the other driver had lost his car keys! And after searching almost everywhere, including the communal camp bins, full with stinking meat trays, we failed in locating the keys. So we contacted another guy who we knew was planning on making the trip north and managed to convince him to backtrack to pick up a spare key.
In the meantime we all got into my car and headed for the very beautiful Oirase River. This is the river that drains Lake Towada and it has many waterfalls and a walkway along it for a nice few kilometres. Below is probably the most impressive waterfall along the way; Choshi Great Falls (銚子大滝).
After returning to the camp we met up with David, who had brought us the spare key. And after a further 30 minutes Phil found the original key - in his one man tent! We went to the Towada Prince Hotel onsen, which was quite close to our campground, and it had an amazing rotemburo!
We actually met a bunch of other people we knew at the same campground and drank together that night. While we were sitting around our campfire a random, incredibly drunk, Japanese guy appeared out of nowhere, sitting down beside us! He was pretty entertaining.
The next morning we packed up tents and headed for Shingō village (新郷村), to visit the
Grave of Jesus (キリストの墓). I had actually been here before, and had no interest in returning, but the others did want to visit it. Have a read of the following information if you want to know the
real truth about Jesus:
After our short visit there we headed to a place that requires even more imagination to believe, the ancient Ooishigami Pyramids (大石神ピラミッド). Apparently among the oldest pyramids, it's a little difficult to understand how these could ever have been pyramids. But apparently that is because of an earthquake that knocked one of the large boulders with all the inscriptions over, burying all the evidence.
Zannen (残念) as they say in Japanese; too bad.
On the way home we all stopped at
Yuritori Land onsen. The we separated into cars of people who wanted to go directly home and those that were in no rush, as it was starting to get late, considering it was about a 4 hour drive home from where we were. Just Sophie and I decided to take our time on the way home.
We stopped at a place called
Oyu Stone Circle (大湯環状列石) in Kazuno city. We didn't really understand what exactly this place was. The information centre was closing as we arrived. But whatever it is, it was a lot more believable that our previous two stops.
Overall it was a fantastic few days. It's always nice to get away from the norm to awaken the sense perceptions, which quietens the mind!
