One of the best cherry blossom viewing spots in Japan! 🌸 Hirosaki Park in Aomori Prefecture

Planning to see Japan’s cherry blossoms this spring?

Hirosaki City has one of the best cherry blossom viewing spots in Japan – at HIROSAKI PARK 🌸, where you can find the Hirosaki Castle and where the Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival happens each year, between late April to early May.

Getting to Hirosaki Park from Tokyo and all the other important details you need to know before coming here are in this video.

This trip is the first leg of a 4-day, 3-night trip to northern Japan so please watch out for my upcoming content on this.

✅Helpful websites for your Hirosaki trip:

🌳Hirosaki Park:
https://www.hirosakipark.com/en/

🚍About the 100-yen Dotemachi Loop Bus (Konan Bus):
https://www.hirosaki-kanko.or.jp/en/edit.html?id=100-yen_bus

ℹ️ Hirosaki Tourist Information:
https://www.hirosaki-kanko.or.jp/en/index.html

🎟️About JR East Pass for Tohoku Area:
https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/pass/eastpass_t.html
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🎵MUSIC: Epidemic Sound

Hello everybody today I’m taking you to Hirosaki City where I traveled with two of my closest friends to do hanami. ‘Hanami’ literally means ‘flower viewing’ and is a Japanese tradition of enjoying and appreciating cherry blossoms. Sakura trees bloom late in northern Japan and we heard that Hirosaki Park

Is one of Japan’s best cherry blossom spots, so we wanted to visit this place hoping to see the last few sakura blooms. Hirosaki is a beautiful city in Aomori Prefecture, located in Japan’s Tōhoku Region. Tōhoku is made up of seven prefectures – Aomori which is the northernmost then Akita

Iwate Yamagata Miyagi Niigata and Fukushima. Hirosaki was once a castle town during the reign of the Tsugaru clan. Now, it’s well known for Hirosaki Castle and Hirosaki Park, among others. The road distance between Tokyo and Hirosaki is 680 kilometers. By train, getting to Hirosaki from Tokyo requires two train rides.

First on the Hayabusa Shinkansen and second on the JR Ou Line, which is a local train. Both trains are covered by the JR Pass, but if you’re only planning to explore Tōhoku region, and you will be coming from and retuning to Tokyo,

Then a JR East Pass is a way cheaper choice. The JR East Pass brings you to all the prefectures in Tōhoku and gives you access to all five shinkansen all JR east local trains and many more. Anyway at Tokyo Station, the Hayabusa couples with another shinkansen –

– the Komachi from the Akita Shinkansen Line. And together, they travel as one train to Morioka in Iwate Prefecture. After uncoupling at Morioka Station, Komachi will head off to Akita, and Hayabusa will gờ all the way to Shin-Aomori Station. We’re finally here at Shin-Aomori Station

And we have another train to catch in a few; but let’s look around first. Aomori is known for its delicious apples. In fact, they’re the largest producer of apples in Japan which explains the huge apple display here. The Ou Line is in the same station

So it only took us a minute or so to find the platform. After 30-40 minutes, we have arrived at Hirosaki Station. There’s a bus terminal right in front of Hirosaki Station where you can take the Konan Dotemachi Loop Bus to get around Hirosaki. But it only operates until 6pm

So we decided to just walk to our accommodation. After 4 hours and 30 minutes of train ride and 20 minutes of walking, we can now check in. Hirosaki Orando is a two-storey building with a cafe, bar, and gallery at the first floor and a guesthouse at the second floor.

We paid almost JPY16,000 or around PHP6,000 for 3 people, which is a little over our budget for a dormitory style and I think it’s because we traveled during the Golden Week which is one of the peak travel seasons in Japan.

After a quick rest, we went out again to see Hirosaki Park which is a 10-minute walk from here. Every year, during sakura season the Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival happens and the cherry blossoms and the castle are illuminated from sunset until 10pm every day.

We’re hear at the outer moat of the park near the east gate entrance. This is just right in front of the Hirosaki Cultural Center where the Konan Dotemachi Loop Bus stops. ‘Yozakura’ means night cherry blossoms and also refers to the act of viewing the illumination of cherry blossoms at night.

At past 9pm, a lot of people are still out here to do yozakura. Most of the stores are closed at past 10pm and we haven’t had dinner, so we’re happy to discover a Bikkuri Donkey near the park. Bikkuri Donkey is a popular hamburger steak restaurant in Japan

And this store is open until 12 midnight. There are approximately 2,600 sakura trees and 52 varieties of cherry blossoms here at the park, making it one of the largest-scaled cherry blossom places in Japan. Hirosaki is a proud home to the oldest Somei Yoshino cherry tree in the country,

Which was planted in 1882 here at the park Apart from it, this place also has more than 400 cherry trees that are more than a hundred years old. There are three facilities in the park which require entrance fee (1) the Honmaru and Kita-no-Kuruwa; (2) the Botanical Garden; (3) and the Fujita Memorial Garden.

Honmaru is the main circle of the castle and where the castle tower is located, while Kita-no-Kuruwa, the second most important area after Honmaru is where the other important structures in the castle were built. If you want to access just the Honmaru and Kita-no-Kuruwa or the botanical garden,

You can buy a specific entrance ticket for only JPY320 for adults or JPY100 for children. They’re open between 7am to 9pm during the festival and between 9am to 5pm on regular days. If you want to access all three facilities, you can simply buy a common ticket that costs JPY520 for adults

And JPY160 for children. The original Hirosaki Castle Tower was built in 1611 but was burned down in 1627 when it was struck by lightning. Today’s castle tower was built in 1810 by the ninth Lord of Tsugaru. It’s now the only remaining castle tower in the northeastern part of Japan

That was built during the Edo period. One of the popular and most pleasant things to do at the park during sakura season is to ride the west moat boat. Can you imagine riding a boat like this with overarching cherry blossoms on both sides of the moat

And with cherry blossom petals all over the waters? Sadly, the trees were no longer in full bloom when we got here. The west moat boat is available from 9am to 5pm and costs JPY1000 for one boat which can accommodate a maximum of 3 people.

You don’t have to worry about getting hungry while visiting the park because there are a lot of food stalls here as well as vending machines. Our trip to Hirosaki was short and sweet and I definitely look forward to coming back when the sakuras are in full bloom.

The Hirosaki Cherry Blossom Festival will be held between April 19 to May 5 this year. And the earliest forecast of cherry blossoms at the park based on the festival’s website is on April 15.