Day 262: Noboribetsu

While we loved our time with our friends, we knew Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo would be huge cities with lots of tourists. We looked forward to getting off the beaten path and Aomori offered that.

Aomori is home to the Nebuta Festival where artists build huge paper lanterns and place them onto parade floats. The human-shaped floats are 9 meters wide, 7 meters deep and 5 meters high and they resemble ancient warlords, historical characters, and kabuki characters. These floats parade through the streets of Aomori, with Haneto dancers and Nebuta bayashi bands.

There is a museum to learn about the festival and the winning floats from the previous year are on display; we also got to watch a mini bayashi band performance! After Aomori, we trained a scenic 3 hours past volcanoes to get to Noboribetsu on Hokkaido Island!

Noboribetsu is situated below a geothermal valley and volcano, and is one of the most famous hot spring resorts in Japan. The various pools offer iron baths, salt baths, and other chemical compositions due to the valley’s geothermal activity.

We took a bus from our hostel to the valley to eat dinner and hit a public onsen. Because of its volcanic hellscape, the Japanese believe there are demons or onis that guard the town. You can find demon statues everywhere and some dress up on the street to give candy to little kids.

Mary loves the town and we will be returning tomorrow for more activities.

Hostel:
Noboribetsu Guest House AKA & AO（登別ゲストハウス赤と青）

Food:
Curry
Chirashi bowl

Spots:
Nebuta Museum WA RASSE
NoboribetsuRead more