Today, we took the local train from Hakodate to Shin Hakodate, then the Shinkansen from Shin hakodate to Shin Aomori via the Seikan tunnel (World’s Longest Underwater Tunnel), and then a local train into Aomori, arriving at 12:30PM. We dropped our luggage off at MyStays Aomori (183 sq ft small rooms where you can’t open a large luggage, but it’s close to the JR station and cheap—only $86/night including breakfast, so I can’t complain. Plus I couldn’t find any hotels near the JR station that had rooms greater than 200 sq ft with a score of 8 or higher in the reviews.). We just packed enough clothes for two nights in the small suitcase the night before, and everything else in the large suitcase so we wouldn’t need to open the large suitcase in this tiny room. It worked out.
Aomori Eats: Apple everything (apple pastries, apple cream puffs, apple ice cream, apple cookies, apple juice, apple cider, apple kit kat), seafood bowls at the fish market, kayaki-miso (a scallop miso egg dish grilled in scallop shell)
Day 1
Aomori is known for the annual August Nebuta festival that draws over 3 million people to the city. But since we are not here in August, the next best thing is to go to the Nebuta Museum. After buying tickets, look at the schedule to see when the dance performances are and base your museum browsing around the show time. Since we arrived at 1PM, and there was show at 1:10PM, we went downstairs to watch the show first, then came back upstairs to read the panels in the museum. Otherwise the next show won’t be until 3:10pm. This is a very well done museum. You have to go! We loved it!
Visit the Nebuta Museum
Nebuta Museum (open 9-6pm, 620yen per person)
The museum has a history of the festival, pictures of all the float design winners each year, and information about current Nebuta artists.
They also do a live performance at certain times (look on the schedule, you don’t want to miss this!)
After the performance, they have the audience participating. The dance is easy. Two hops on the right foot and two hops on the left foot to the tune of the music shouting “rassera, rassera” . During the actual August Nebuta festival, all festival goers can also dance so long as they are wearing a haneto costume.
And they ask for audience participation in drumming and playing the tambourines. Here is David playing the drums. I did the tambourines. It was fun!!! They had multiple rounds until all the people lined up that wanted to play could.
There are 5 floats used in the previous festivals on display, and these are all massively impressive. It weighs 4 tons, and costs $50,000 to build. Right after the festival, the artists already start to come up with a theme, design and construction of the float for the next year. It’s made out of paper, structurally held up by wires and wood, and the inside is lit with small light bulbs with a generator. Usually there are about 20 floats at each festival and the themes are centered around Japanese mythology.
They have a panel on the bottom that explains the legend. This float is about a child with superhuman strength because he was born to a mountain hag and a red dragon.
This float is about the Kamakura shogunate in 1185. A brother fled to the snowy mountains, but a warrior monk was chasing him. Luckily he escaped with some help.
There were also a few cut out pieces on display, like a hand or foot or a wave, where you can touch the paper, parafin and wires and see what the inside of these floats are made of.
I took a picture underneath the float. The floats are wheeled and spun around the parade by people holding the red white striped part of the wooden beams.
Like this!
Take a Classic Picture with the Aomori Sign
Outside the museum, at the small beach, is the Aomori sign and an apple sculpture that you can take a picture with. I think almost everyone takes a picture of this!
Explore the Seikan Ferry Museum —Hakkoda Maru
The Hakkoda Maru was a ferry that was used in the route between Aomori and Hakodate, but retired in 1988 when the Seikan Tunnel was built and people used trains instead as a means to go from Honshu to Hokkaido. It is now a museum (open 9-6PM, 510 yen per person). This museum is better than the Hakodate Mashu Maru one because they provide more English captions, and free wifi to scan their QR codes that explains more specifics about the ship in English. The English explanations makes a big difference, for me at least, in appreciating the museum.
On the ship there are dioramas that depict the scenes of Aomori in the early days (ie the markets on the streets near the port).
And like the Mashu Maru, the Hakkoda Maru on the Bridge also has a small Shinto Shrine to pray for the crews’ safety. Only difference is, here, there’s an English sign explaining what this is!
You can go up the chimney to the very top of the ship for nice views of the port.
And unlike the Mashu Maru, the Hakkoda Maru has on display the engine room! You can see the number of engines needed to run this ship!
Also, the Hakkoda Maru transported trains, so here, you can a train secured on the tracks in the ship. Pretty neat. With more English explanations, this ship museum was more enjoyable than the Hakodate one.
We got a butter scallop and scallop sashimi set (2800 yen)
And a fried scallops set (1900 yen). Delicious and gigantic scallops!
Sunset Views at the Boardwalk and Lighthouse
There’s a really nice long boardwalk that takes you to the lighthouse. It’s a nice relaxing stroll after dinner.
Sunset views of Hakkoda Maru and the Aomori Bay Bridge
The lighthouse is a simple cone with just one green light blinking…
We waited for nightfall, but was disappointed that the Aomori Bay bridge did not light up, so it’s not as pretty as we originally thought it would be. No wonder it is kind of quiet along the boardwalk. We saw just a few joggers and a couple of school kids filming tic toc shorts. (I think it was lit up before Covid???)
Day 2
Usually we don’t eat a big breakfast, just coffee and a Mister Mochi Donut or pastry in our room. But the hotel included breakfast. It was not bad. There was an apple curry and apple juice that was really good, and the pineapples and longan were really sweet. The rest were just Ok (spinach, egg roll, fried white fish, salmon, kabocha, tamago, tofu patty, japanese sausage, ham, coffee). That’s a lot of food!
This morning, we walked to ASPAM to try to go up to the 13th floor observatory, but there were 10 bus loads of kids that just got dropped off!!! OMG! So we browsed around the gift shops downstairs which had apple everything. I found some stuff to buy, but when I went to pay, the line was so long with tons of kids, I put everything back. We will comeback in the afternoon.
Peek at Real Artists Building the Nebuta Festival Floats
Walking out of ASPAM, we saw these huge tents. We had not noticed them last night when we walked out to the lighthouse.
It turns out that these tents are where they work on putting together the Nebuta Festival Floats for August. It’s interesting watching how they put each paper piece on. Cool!
Walk Across Aomori Bay Bridge
The Aomori Bay Bridge is the 2nd longest bridge in Aomori Prefecture (hachinohe ohashi bridge is the longest), but costs 3 times more to build. The bridge up close is very pretty with gold cables.
An upwards view passing under the first tower
At each of the towers are these torch-like spot lights. I’m not sure why they didn’t light up the bridge last night.
And at one of the towers, a plaque explaining how the bridge was built was cool.
You come down the stairs on the other end of the bridge by the A Factory.
And walk back up the stairs to be on the other side of the bridge for a view of the port and Hakkoda Maru. If you have time, you should definitely do this. It’s like walking across Golden Gate Bridge but shorter and less cars and no bicyclists to avoid.
We went to the 2nd floor of the A Factory for some Apple Cider Tasting (while the factory is open til 7PM, the tasting is only from 10:30 AM to 3 PM). We bought an 800 yen card which gives you 4 tastings. You press the one you want to taste and a very small amount comes out—maybe you get a Tablespoon amount??? I felt like going back to the staff to ask if the machine was broken because all I got was a tiny sip for 200 yen each. I felt so ripped off. Definitely NOT worth it!!! Don’t do it!!! The free sake tastings we did in Asahikawa gave out more sake than these cider machines.
We tried #1 and #3 in this first machine. Tastes interesting…not at all like the Martinelli apple cider
And also tried #1 and #3 in this 2nd machine
Then we shared an Apple Pastry (508 yen) at one of the shops downstairs. It was good.
Apple sherbet and apple milk gelato (600 yen) was good too, but the sherbet had a strong apple flavor while the apple milk was more muted. Yes, it’s dessert before lunch!
Lunch at Aomori Nokkedon
Follow google maps to find this place for some customizable seafood bowls. You enter and first buy a sheet of 12 tickets (2200 yen). These tickets get exchanged for slices of sashimi at the market. Some fish are 1 ticket (white fish, salmon), others are 2 tickets (scallops or fatty tuna), some are 3 tickets (like uni). Then walk to the rice station to get a bowl of rice (1 ticket) and top your bowl with whatever your heart desires. Then find a place to sit and eat. What a fun concept!!
Filling our bowl up at the stations
This was our first bowl: two pieces maguro (1 ticket), two pieces salmon (1 ticket), two pieces white fish kanpachi (1 ticket), 2 pieces medium fatty tuna (2 tickets), 2 pieces fatty tuna (4 tickets), 1 tamago (1 ticket), 1 scallop (1 ticket…only stall where scallops were 1 ticket each so I was wary, but it turned out to be really sweet!). We shared this bowl so we can decide which we liked the most and from which stall. Then we bought another set of 12 tickets (2200 yen) to build another bowl with our favorites from the market.
Bowl #2 had all of our favorites: 4 pieces fatty tuna (8 tickets, and she gave me the two salmon for free!!!), 2 scallops (2 tickets), 2 pieces white fish kanpachi(1 ticket each). OMG, the fatty tuna and scallops were so good!!!
Now off to shop some more at a near by Sakuraco in search of salted sakura leaves and silicon spam musubis makers. No musubi maker but found salted sakura petals! Yay!
We purchased this earlier near the JR station but saved it for the afternoon. It is a cream puff in the shape of an apple, and filled with custard and diced apples. Really good. I wish I bought more since it’s only 280 yen!
Visit Utou Shrine
This shrine was only an 8 min walk from our hotel and has a pretty lily pond. We came here on the way to ASPAM
ASPAM For Sunset Views
ASPAM has an observation deck on the 13th floor (open 9AM-7PM), and a 3D movie show about Aomori for 900 yen per person. The last 3D movie show is at 5PM. It was interesting to see the Nebuta festival in 3D. It’s like I’m at the festival! We watched this @ 5PM on the 2nd floor and then headed up to the 13th floor for sunset pictures.
At 5:30PM, we were too early for sunset, so we walked around to take some pictures and then waited until sunset. They have free WiFi and plenty of seats to sit at. It wasn’t crowded. At around 6:40PM, we were rewarded with these views
The Aomori Bay Bridge at sunset when viewed from ASPAM
Dinner at Ootoya near our hotel: tuna wrapped in shisho leaves and breaded and fried
Miso pork and mackerel
Aomori Omiyage
I really don’t have any more luggage space for goodies, but how can one resist all the Apple souvenirs??? I got: Apple cake filled with apple cream, freeze dried apples (two kinds), Apple Kit Kat (you can only find the apple flavored kit kat here, and at a small shop at Mt Fuji. You wont find this flavor at any of the don Quixotes in other Japan cities, so even though it was expensive 1000yen for 9 pieces, I had to get it!), caramel apple cookies, baked apple donut, apple baumkuchen