Japan - 7

Hi, Aomori, our final port on the Hokkaido portion of our cruise proved to be very interesting.

The city has some intriguing buildings and

covered streets downtown.

We visited a fish market (above and four below) where the seafood was so fresh there was no odor.

Octopus tentacles and

what looked like snails were for sale.

Outside was a car with an Akita pup.

Next we viewed what I will call rice plant art from the tower to the left in the photo above.

Also from the tower I spotted this interesting arrangement of roof tiles.

Here is one of the two rice pictures (both based on Gone With the Wind) with part of the second one at right.  They are produced by planting different types of rice.

This a closeup of Tara in the center toward the bottom of the first photo.

Another interesting translation.

Space is at a premium in Japan and therefore is not wasted.  These homes have rice paddies for a backyard.

Ruthe enjoyed photographing some of the homes we passed from our bus.

Before lunch we visited visited the Fujita Memorial Japanese Garden in Hirosaki, the entrance of which is pictured above.

Ruthe and I found the gardens to be photographically very rich (above and six below).

After our visit to the gardens we had lunch in the restaurant located in this building.  The area is Japan's largest apple producer and we sampled two of their pies.  They were not as American as apple pie.

After lunch a garden associated with a castle in town was visited.  The castle had a number of concentric walls and/or moats.  This is the first of the gates and the garden begins inside it.

Japanese castles are very different from their European counterparts.

Our last stop was the Nebuta Mura, a museum devoted to the Nebuta Festival.  The festival includes a parade after dark.  When we arrived a performance was in progress (above and below).

Here is one of the floats that appeared in a past parade.

This young lady was doing drawings for sale in the museum gift shotp.

Outside the museum a large pond with Koi, a decorative Carp, attracted the attention of a class of visiting children.

Thanks for looking.