Hirosaki in the Fall

 Last weekend we wanted to visit the Chrysanthemum festival (Kiku Matsuri) and go apple picking. We had been out to Hirosaki to hike Mount Iwaki and had seen all the apple trees so we wanted to go back and check it out. Hirosaki is famous for the Cherry blossom festival in the spring but since we got here right around the time it was peak cherry blossom season we didn't get a chance to go. 

There are soooo many apple orchards though. The city is surrounded by them. I've seen and bought these enormous apples at the stores, but eating a freshly picked apple from Hirosaki...best apples I've ever tasted!

The Chrysanthemum festival was nice, the park and castle were really pretty. It wasn't crazy packed like most of the Japanese festivals we've been to so that was nice. 

Since Hirosaki is a couple hours away we decided to stay the night. We have been wanting to camp since we got here so I thought why not. It gets cold at night but we have cold weather sleeping bags so I knew it would be fine. The girls slept in the van, and we slept in the tent. Of course teenagers never listen so they didn't prepare for the weather and got cold but Adam and I were nice and cozy. The campground was near the base of a small mountain and temple so we went exploring in the morning. The farmer, that I assume owns the campground, started a fire for us and brought us lots of goodies. He put some sweet potatoes in the fire, Japanese sweet potatoes are sooo yummy and sweet, and offered us dried persimmons, fresh apples, and cookies. He didn't speak any English so we communicated with gestures and we just kept saying Arigato Gozaimasu(Thank you) a million times.

It was a great trip and I realized how much I love camping and will definitely be doing it more.