Kakunodate

We moved toward the north, and travelled to northern Japan, Akita. We enjoyed watching cherry blossoms in Tokyo and warm spring weather, but there was still a winter view in Akita!

Here we are. We arrived at Kakunodate. And the big mouse's power as a bad weather bringer burst away. Heavy rain...

After we had lunch, we checked in a hotel and were stuck in a nice hotel on that day because of heavy rain.

After watery clouds had gone, next day was a perfect weather.

Kakunodate is a former castle town. Despite the loss of its castle, Kakunodate remains remarkably unchanged since its founding in 1620. The town is now famous for its samurai tradition with beautiful weeping cherry blossoms.

We visited there, unfortunately a couple weeks early for a cherry blossoms (late April and early May), but there was no choice for us. Normally many tourists visit Kakunodate during cherry blossoms' season, but it was so quiet. Anyway, it used to be a quiet area, so it was nice.

The town consists of two distinct areas, the samurai district and the merchant district. Once home to 80 families, the samurai district still has some of the best examples of samurai architecture in all of Japan.

We visited 2 high ranked samurai houses. Some of them are opened to the public. Staff explained about samurai's life there.

Many good conditioned items such as armours, kimono, toys etc. were displayed.

We had a nice experience in Kakunodate. :)