Aomori, Japan Summary

Honshu’s most northerly city, AOMORI, sits at the bottom of Mutsu Bay, sheltered by the two claws of the Tsugaru and Shimokita peninsulas. It’s a spacious, but rather characterless, city which has lost a good deal of its Hokkaido-bound visitors now that trains run straight through to Hakodate via the Seikan Tunnel. However, the crowds still turn up for Aomori’s Nebuta Matsuri (Aug 2-7), one of Japan’s biggest and rowdiest festivals, featuring giant illuminated floats and energetic dancing. It takes less than a day to cover Aomori’s main sights, of which the most appealing is a park displaying _ nebuta_ floats, followed by a couple of decent museums of history and folkcraft.