Japan
Aomori Kō

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    • Day 32

      Aomori, Japan

      October 12 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 63 °F

      Aomori, Japan on a beautiful fall day. We are heading north again so the temperature is dropping, the trees are changing color and it gets dark at 5:00!!

      We saw a traditional musical show today and then walked the grounds of a castle, They moved the castle several times to work on it - I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.

      There is also a huge active volcano here. Somehow it always feels unnerving. We continually hear about Shogun in a the excursions so it seems like something we should watch to put all the pieces together of what we’ve learned the past couple of weeks.

      We’re starting to feel a bit saturated with information and will need to have some time to properly process everything we’ve seen.

      We have one more stop tomorrow in Hakodate, which we visited on the way down from the Aleutian’s so that will be my signing off point.

      We are busy getting all of our clothes laundered
      (free laundry!) so we can pack clean clothes to take home. We have a couple of special momentos to bring home and Jeff has collected dozens of the chocolates that they leave us each night and he’s hidden them in his underwear drawer (not sure what his plan is there).

      It sounds like we are coming home to fall weather so these cooler temperatures are easing us into that.
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    • Day 194

      Aomori: Rassera … Rassera

      June 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 63 °F

      After a fun day of exploring Hirosaki and a forty-five-minute ride on a local train, we arrived back in Aomori a little after 6:00p.

      I’m going to segue here before I wrap up the story of our day to write about an encounter as we were leaving the train station. To me, it represents the friendly, kind, and helpful Japanese people we’ve been encountering everywhere we go.

      We were just about to leave Aomori Station when a young woman who looked a little familiar approached me. She asked if we had been to Hirosaki Park today … to which I responded that we had. She then said, “You ate at the Butokuden Rest House, didn’t you?” We certainly had. She smiled and introduced herself as the cashier who took our order. She had been masked then, so we had not seen her full face, but of course, she had seen our faces and recognized us. Saying that she hoped we had enjoyed our visit to the park and our meal, she bid us farewell and went her own way. Very sweet.

      Back to the rest of the day’s story.

      Since we had not managed to visit the museum at Nebuta Village in Hirosaki, we hurried over to the Nebuta no Ie WA-RASSE Museum near Aomori Station. The museum is associated with the Nebuta Festival held in the Aomori Prefecture annually. The short story is that the festival was born of a tradition for warding off “sleep demons” that would otherwise induce drowsiness and slow down the summer farming season. Costumed dancers accompany the floats, chanting “rassera” to call visitors to watch and join in the festivities.

      We had a mere 30 minutes to wander around before the museum closed at 7:00p. I figured we could always look up more information about the festival and the museum on the internet. So, we focused on taking photos of the four full-sized floats on display from last August’s festival and the Nebuta faces overlooking the exhibit hall. The floats were amazing and the price of admission was worth it to see them in person.

      Since Insignia was in port until 11:00p, we were determined to eat ashore tonight.
      We were on our way to a ramen shop when we walked by a restaurant filled with people. All locals. All having a good time.

      All of the signage was in Japanese, but using Google Translate, we figured out that the name of the place was Daifukumaru … which translates as Good Luck Circle. Mui checked the online reviews and found that the restaurant was well-rated. So, we went in and were seated immediately … the only western people in the place.

      The young man who escorted us to our table gave us a menu … thankfully with English subtitles … and with pictures. After perusing the options, I ordered the deep fried shrimp … tender and crispy; Mui ordered the sashimi tuna, and the grilled salmon … both of which he deemed excellent; and we shared an order of sweet corn tempura from the “most popular” menu … delicious. We washed it all down with a local beer.

      We had barely placed our order when a single, loud drum beat had us jumping in our seats. Turns out that there was a performance to enjoy. Actually two. But the first one is the one that I feel was connected to the museum we had visited.

      A brief segue to explain the WA-RASSE portion of the name of the museum is warranted, I believe. The “WA” is added to the “RASSE” of the festival’s chant (rassera), and represents the “wa” from laughter (warai) and the bonds (wa) that are formed between people through their involvement in the Nebuta Festival. In our case, the laughter and bonds were formed out of the joint experience we had as customers at the restaurant.

      After the first beat of the big drum — known as an odaiko — the waiters put on short kimono style jackets and to the accompaniment of more drum beats and brass chimes, they began dancing around the tables, chanting “rassera.” I had the distinct feeling that this was a version of the ritual festival dance to keep away the sleep demons.

      The chanting and dancing were followed by a musical performance by a man who played a stringed instrument as the patrons returned to eating their meal.

      We had just finished our dinner when the drumming and chanting part of the evening was repeated. This time, one of the waiters came to our table with a glittery hat that she insisted I wear and join in the chanting and dancing. I accepted the challenge and proceeded to chant with the best of them!

      Totally enthralled with our dinner experience, we left the restaurant around 8:30p … waving and smiling to everyone who was bidding us “oyasumi” (good night).

      The streets were dark and deserted. The wind … well, bracing would be a good description. Cutting through Aoi Umi Park like we did this morning, we made our way back to the ship.

      What a delightful way to end our day.
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    • Day 7

      Aomori/Hirosaki Castle

      April 13 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F

      So…. Let’s take a moment to grumble. Since I got on the ship and even before, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get us to the Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival in Hirosaki. The city is at least an hour away by bus or train. We arrive in Aomori at 7, no idea how long it would take us to actually get off the ship and to the main station to catch said bus/train. No matter how I ran the numbers I couldn’t guarantee that we would get back to the ship by all aboard time at 4:30pm. So we bite the bullet and go to the excursion desk. Lo and behold there an excursion exactly where I wanted to go. But not an online listing or even in the NCL app, but printed on a sheet of paper set up next to the adverts for Mandala Spa.

      Great, problem solved, right? Nope-sold out. We were put on the waiting list with 15 people ahead of us. Now, I think I handled the disappointment well (mostly) and mom rallied to speak with a different person whilst I sulked. No dice.

      I proceeded to sulk at dinner. I sulked through my soft serve ice cream. I managed to take a pretty picture of Hakodate lit up at night. Then I sulked back down to our room convinced I’d blown any hope of getting to Hirosaki…

      We had tickets waiting for us at our door. To Hirosaki…I sulked for nothing…

      Now back to our regularly scheduled story…

      Up around 6:30 and had breakfast then headed to the Starlight Theater to meet up with the group. We were in the first bus and our guide was Junko-San. We rode about an hour and a half to Hirosaki.

      First stop was Tsugaru Neputa Village. There we heard shamisen, taiko and shakuhachi instruments and admired their fan shaped floats. The workshop was fun as many artisans were there working. The spinning top toy maker and I kinda gambled what number the top would stop on and I won. I even found Sakura themed Ichigo Daifuku.

      We walked to Hirosaki Castle next. The cherry blossoms weren’t completely out, most were just buds. Still very pretty and our group was pretty cool. We didn’t get a lot of history though. It was built in the Warring States period and was the seat of the Tsugaru clan who were overthrown at the beginning of the Meiji period.

      It was tricky to keep everyone together so one of the participants shouted for everyone to line up, we did, and it worked. Hahaha and there were no kids in our group. But half of us grabbed some Festival food…I got a blue chocolate banana. We got back at 2. We were supposed to get a meal with the excursion but that didn’t happen. Still we were able to see many things and talk to a lot of interesting people.

      Back on the boat we tried the Movie Kiss trivia with Yanar. We did ok but it was all kinda silly. E we made paper flowers with the splash kiddo team and tried trivia again. We bombed spectacularly. Saw the show “We Will Rock You” lots of good music and exceptional dancing.

      Both of us are tired so we will turn in early tonight.
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    • Day 50

      Aomori

      November 5, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

      I continued my journey to Aomori, where I arrived at my Hotel around 3 PM, then I used the remainder of the Day to walk towards the Ocean and visit the ASPAM, the Aomori Prefecture Information Center which is a Landmark that you can't miss as it looks like a flat pyramid. On the ground level were several souvenir stores and the other levels had various city bureaus. 13F had a cool observation deck, and from there I had a great overview of the city and towards the ocean. Hokkaido however was still too far away to be seen. I waited till sundown to enjoy the colors and witnessed a fire on the roof of one of the buildings, they extinguished it efficiently thank goodnes. The rest of the day after dusk, I enjoyed in my hotel room, that feels like a mini suite with enough space to feature a small couch and also a more spacious than usual bathroom. Love it.

      Google Translate:
      Ich setzte meine Reise nach Aomori fort, wo ich gegen 15 Uhr in meinem Hotel ankam. Den Rest des Tages nutzte ich dann, um in Richtung Meer zu laufen und das ASPAM, das Informationszentrum der Präfektur Aomori, zu besuchen, ein Wahrzeichen, das Sie nicht verpassen dürfen da es wie eine flache Pyramide aussieht. Im Erdgeschoss befanden sich mehrere Souvenirläden und auf den anderen Ebenen befanden sich verschiedene Stadtbüros. 13F hatte eine coole Aussichtsplattform und von dort hatte ich einen tollen Überblick über die Stadt und das Meer. Hokkaido war jedoch noch zu weit entfernt, um gesehen zu werden. Ich wartete bis zum Sonnenuntergang, um die Farben zu genießen, und wurde Zeuge eines Feuers auf dem Dach eines der Gebäude, das Gott sei Dank effizient gelöscht wurde. Den Rest des Tages nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit verbrachte ich in meinem Hotelzimmer, das sich wie eine Mini-Suite anfühlte und genug Platz für eine kleine Couch und auch ein geräumigeres Badezimmer als gewöhnlich bot. Ich Liebe es.
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    • Day 194

      Welcome to Aomori, Japan

      June 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 68 °F

      New-to-us Port #59.

      A 9:00a arrival. An 11:00p departure. Plenty of time in port today.

      At first, we were going to stay in Aomori and wander around. But my research pointed to Hirosaki as the better alternative. And since we had a late departure it was doable by train on our own.

      We are waiting for the train as I write this brief snippet … with a few photos to tide you over.
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    • Day 160

      Aomori, Japan - "NEW" TEMPLE 2 of 3

      June 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 66 °F

      We spent the remainder of the day learning about the “modern-day” Buddhism in Japan. We visited Japan’s tallest seated Buddha statue (70 feet) at the Seiryu-ji temple. Known as the Temple of the blue green dragon, it is made of cypress (covered in the surrounding area) as the smell permeates the entire complex.

      The Showa Daibutsu Buddha is the highlight of this ”new” Temple built in 1984. Although Buddhism began in Japan in the 6th Century and has remained an important part of the governing on the Country which Is often based upon teachings of Buddhism, the World has changed. There are those that believe strongly feel that the current corruption of people’s minds, and the spread of increase material desires, increased competition and crime has created an environment where many people have moved away from Buddhist study.

      As best stated, “Because of economic supreme principle and utilitarianism as main values since the post war time”, we have moved to a World that values “More Money Less Peace of Minds”.

      The reason for building this NEW Temple, is to bring back the original meaningful values of Buddhism. We walked the peaceful grounds and learned all about the various areas. First, we saw the Kondo main hall center of the Temple grounds where many visit and pray and many and ceremonies are held. Then, even in the rain, we got to experience the beautiful gardens, the karesansui-sekitei sea/pond stones, sand that represent life in harmony. We saw the statue of Kannon, erected to grant old people life. Our tour guide could not remember the word used to describe the goal of the Statue. She looked it up and it was “dementia”.

      The five story 180 foot pagoda was another highlight, representing elements earth, fire, water, wind and sky. One of the other activities that is offered is the ability to sit in a Zen Temple for meditation or to copy Sutra. Even non-followers, pray for peace and health for family members and people around them by tracing letters of the Sutra. The benefits include, calming the mind, clearing mental clutter and great posture. Lastly, we visited the Daishido, which is the is Shrine and burial place of the founder Acharya Ryukou.

      Of course the Showa daibutsu great buddha was so impressive and moving. It is a 70’ high statue of Dainichi Nyorai who represents the virtue of truth of the universe.
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    • Day 114

      Nach dem Nebuta Museum trinken wir nochmal einen Cappuccino in der Galetteria in der A-Factory. Der Kaffee ist gut und vergleichsweise günstig und die Latte Art ist einfach nur toll.

      Danach geht es als erstes hoch auf die Brücke. Hier gibt es neben der A-Factory eine Treppenhaus, über das man nach oben kommt. Auf Höhe des dreieckigen Gebäudes (das Aomori Prefecture Tourism Office), gibt es wieder Treppen nach unten.

      An den großen Pfeilern ist etwas die Konstruktion der Brücke erklärt. Leider alles in japanisch.

      Wir laufen die Brücke entlang. Die Autos kommen immer Schubweise. Andreas nutzt eine der Pausen, um von der Fahrbahnmitte Fotos zu machen. Oh oh oh... Wenn das die Polizei sieht 😄.

      Anschließend gehen wir wieder nach unten. Vor dem Touristen-Büro/Touristen Info ist ein großes Polizeiaufgebot, und es ist ein Fernsehteam vor Ort. Am Eingang stehen auch Menschen in formeller Kleidung, mit Schärpen. Wir wissen nicht was los ist, aber in das Gebäude kommen wir nicht rein. Gut, also erstmal weiter. Wir kommen sicher nochmal vorbei.
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    • Day 160

      Aomori, Japan - BUDDHA!!! 3 of 3

      June 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 66 °F

      Dainichi Nyorai is the central deity of Esoteric Buddhism. As opposed to the "revealed teaching", understandable to the intellect of the common man, the "concealed teaching" of Esoteric Buddhism offers Buddhahood and paradise on earth to the initiate, through ritual practice and the contemplation of sacred images.

      We took our shoes off, went inside, walked around the various Buddhas representing the years we were born, and then we walked up inside the Buddha to the top. In the top of the Buddha was a beautiful gold Buddha at the front surrounded by many many small Buddhas carved into all the walls.

      Lastly, we read all of the often simple, but inspiring quotes on the walls along with the interesting descriptive drawings. They were so inspiring that i used one that was apropos that evening at Shabbat Services.
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    • Day 160

      Aomori, Japan - FLOAT FESTIVAL 1 of 3

      June 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 66 °F

      Aomori (meaning blue forest) is the capital city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tohoku region of Japan. It is only 318 sq miles with a population of 275,00 people but is considered one of the commercial centers in Japan.

      What is Amoria known for? One of its claims to fame is the Fuji apple (a cross between the American Red Delicious and old Virginia Talls Janet), grown in the 1930s and finally brought to the international market in 1962. You may remember Daisuke Matsuzaka, a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher, who pitched professionally for 23 seasons, 16 of them in NPB, 7 in MLB (currently a baseball commentator). He is the first player to have won both a World Series and a World Baseball Classic, winning the 2006 World Baseball Classic with Team Japan and the 2007 World Series with the Red Sox (and played for the NY Mets 2013-14).

      Aomori has hosted several international curling events, two in 2003 and represented Japan at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy and at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

      The REAL Highlight of Aomori!

      Since the 1600’s, The Aomori Nebuta Matsuri Parade has been the highlight of the Japanese summer festival which became an annual parade in 1792. According to the tradition, the parade is to ward off the sleep demons which are the enemies of farmwork (which can cause drowsiness during the busy farming season).

      We visited the Nebuta Museum WA-RASSE (meaning chant and laughter), to learn about the history and beauty of the Aomori Nebuta Festival. On display are full-sized floats that participated in the last festival and Nebuta Faces that show the individuality of their respective creators.

      The museum stores last years’ 4 best floats. In the museum we learned about the master designers, the process, saw real floats, got to feel the components and see what they look like inside the float when being built, heard the performance of the festival songs and even got to do the festival dances!

      Local teams build the festival's 22 floats, which are constructed of painted washi paper over a wire frame and take a year to design and construct. They are on average 22’ in length, 29’ wide & 16’ tall and often depict gods, historical or mythical figures from both Japanese and Chinese culture, kabuki actors, and characters from popular TV. Often it is based on a scene from kabuki.

      The floats are sometimes 4 stories high and weigh 30,000 lbs and cost over $50k. They are constructed on wheeled platforms and are each PULLED by 300 people along the parade route.

      Aomori had to move their power and telephone lines to allow the safe passage of the floats through town (today, they are still limited by the height of new wires). The floats are assembled in a tall warehouse with a four-story door that opens for the floats.

      The process: Artists research a new theme and design, they begin the production of float arms and legs, temporary studios are built to house them for a year, the wire structure is put on the wooden framework, additional wire is tied with cotton thread for strength, a 1000 lights are put on each float so there is no shaded areas from the inside, next they paste papers on each grid, then draw faces and wrinkles, put melted paraffin wax to make the paper translucent and stop running colors, lastly they add pigments and dyes with brushes and sprays and then they are ready for the PARADE!

      We saw Nebuta masters exhibit, the creators of large nebutas are called Nebutashi, or nebuta masters. They are the specialists who decide the basic design, the entire structure and colors of nebutas. Every year after the Nebuta Festival, the masters start planning the next year’s nebutas, completing the first draft of design during the winter. There are only 4 masters that are honored here for there many years of contributions to the festival.

      The music was led by the taiko, fue, and teburigane instruments. The haneto dancers performed for us to simulate the event.

      Millions attend and view the new floats annually. Every night during the festival the floats are wheeled out onto the streets of downtown Aomori for a parade. The floats are pushed along the street by human power, weaving back and forth, and spinning around for the crowd. Each float is accompanied by teams of taiko drummers, flute and hand cymbals players, as well as hundreds of dancers, called haneto, who follow the procession chanting "Rassera, Rassera" while performing a dance that looks a little bit like skipping.

      What a fun visit this was and so different from everything else we have done on our entire trip.
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    • Day 114

      Aomori bei schönem Wetter - Teil 2

      May 9, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

      Was uns gerade auffällt: Es sind ab heute noch genau 14 Tage. 😩 Wie die Zeit vergeht...

      Nach unserem kleinen Mittagessen mit Celebrity-Einlage laufen wir nun zum "West Lighthouse". Zu erzählen gibt es hier nicht viel. Wir genießen gerade das schöne Wetter. Die Sonne scheint, es geht ein Wind, es hat so um die 18°C, die Sicht auf die Berge ist, durch den gestrigen Regen, sehr klar.

      Auf dem Rückweg gehen wir nochmal Knabbereien für's Abendessen einkaufen. Durch das reichhaltige Mittagessen gibt es heute Abend nur einen kleinen Snack: Käse-Bopfels, Trauben und Chips.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Aomori Kō, Aomori Ko, あおもりこう

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