Hirosaki

this is a copy of an email I wrote about a trip week took in May 2003...

The park had 5000 cherry trees, 3000 maple trees and a ton of other trees. There were more than 1/2 a million people there, only 200 were American, all in my group. There is a four hundred year old castle in the middle of the park and there were people everywhere, on tarps, blankets and strolling around. Hundreds of food booths and carnival games etc. It was so much fun. I love Japan. We got some really great pictures of the family and the park, no matter where you pointed the camera it looked like a painting.

Some interesting observations. . . Japanese people are culturally more similar to America than Italians, in my opinion. In Italy, everyone is Italian there is very little diversity. The women all wear high heels everywhere, the restaurants are all very similar, menu same set up, lighting, decoration, food selection. There are very few non-italian restaurants. Every house is almost identical. Every car, every grocery store, every church all very much the same. If you visit one Italian city you have seen them all. France is very much like that as well, the French are very French. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and England there is more diversity than in Italy and France but not as much as America or Japan.

Here, the people are all individuals. Some women wear high heels and some wear compfortable shoes, some dress stylishly and some conservatively. Every store, restaurant and home is very unique. There are restaurants from every country in the world in my small little city. Homes come in all shapes and sizes. They have malls here, huge malls with all kinds of cool stuff. And Japanese people are very respectful and kind hard working people. Bathrooms are even cleaner than America, before traveling here, I found American bathrooms to be the cleanest in the world.