Some blogposts don’t need many words 😉 The sakura speaks for itself. Alright, so it took us a long time to get here (we first traveled from Nikko to Aomori, which took 4,5 hours by train with 3 transfers), but ever since I was young I really wanted to see Japan in the cherry blossom season. My first choice was Tokyo, since this meant we wouldn’t have to travel a long way to see the sakura, but our travel schedule didn’t allow us to travel in mid March. When I looked up the best places to witness the sakura at the end of April, Hirosaki was on top of the list. The distance between Tokyo and Hirosaki however is 700 km… We also read that the cherry blossom was in full bloom more than a week before schedule. They even opened the festival 5 days earlier due to the early full bloom! We weren’t even sure how beautiful the sakura would be and were just hoping to be lucky. To make a long story short: it was worth it. Every second of it! I took about 200 pictures of the sakura. Every tree is magical and I never got tired of the sight of the white, light pink and bright pink flowers. Here are some pictures so you too can dream about the sakura.
This beautiful carpet of sakura leaves fallen from the trees was set in the moat around the park. You didn’t even have to enter Hirosaki Park to witness this!
After walking into the first gate, this is what you see. Magical from the second you walk in. 
More pink flowers!
Hirosaki Castle, perfectly set in the middle of all the sakura.
Playing hide & seek in wheeping cherry blossom tree’s. I think these are my favorite kind!
The trees at the edge of the water make for a very romantic boat trip 😉
The cherry blossom tunnel, so pretty!
In the Aomori prefecture, the apple is very important. After the cherry blossom comes the apple blossom. There were lots of cute elderly women selling their homemade icecream, made of the Aomori (Fuji) apple.
These last pictures were taken in the Botanical Garden of Hirosaki Park. You have to pay an extra entry fee before entering, or you can buy a combined ticket for the Hirosaki Park, Hirosaki Castle Tower and the Botanical Garden. The combined ticket is only 510 yen, but I noticed that not many people entered this part of the park. It was very quiet and we could enjoy the sakura in a nice pace around the Botanical Garden.
In the end, I would highly recommend going to Hirosaki for the sakura. I would even go as far as to say that this is the best place to witness the sakura, even if you have to travel a very long time!
After Hirosaki, our train-roadtrip brings us to Takayama, a small town in the Japan Alps. We have to travel all the way back to Tokyo first and then from Tokyo to Nagoya. This will take around 7,5 hours in total, with 2 transfers and a stopover at Tokyo for an hour. And after that, the travel time from Nagoya to Takayama will take 2 hours and 15 minutes. Another long day of traveling awaits us!
5 FEET FURTHER 
Wow, the Cherry Blossom Festival looks so amazing! I definitely have to visit Japan in that very time next year 🙂
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The sakura was a life changing experience. I would really recommend anyone to go to Japan in the spring 😀
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Even life changing. Wow. That sounds really great. Thanks for that tip 🙂
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