6. Aomori

Aomori is the first port of call on this trip and thankfully the day dawned with clear skies, although a little chilly. As the ship was berthed only 15 minutes walk from the centre of town, it was an easy walk in. Aomori is famous throughout Japan for its very large apples and cider making, and more recently for being directly in the line of fire of the North Korean missile tests.

The first stop was the ASPAM Building, the main tourist office and which also contains an observation deck on the 14th floor. After the gloom of Tokyo it was a relief to be able to see the entire city, the mountains to the south and the other Japanese islands to the north. Nestled in the shadow of the building is the Hakkoda Maru, a ship which used to ply the route between Honshu and Hokkaido before the tunnel was built and which has now been turned into a museum. Although all the information was in Japanese, it was still an interesting half hour or so looking round.

We then moved on to the Warasse Building, another museum, but one dedicated to the Nebuta Festival. This festival is held every August and is famous for its huge, elaborate paper floats, many of which are rather frightening and designed to scare away sleep demons, the enemies of farm work. 

Walking more towards the centre of the city we found the local market. Although the main market trading takes place early in the morning, there were still plenty of stalls selling fresh produce and many varieties of fish (including octopus tentacles so large that they can only have come from the kraken.)

It was also appeared to be a popular place for lunch. Several tables of local businessmen were downing copious bottles of beer whilst being entertained by a female singer playing traditional songs. We found a table and had a rather good set lunch of fish soup, tempura chicken, pork in ginger sauce and sticky rice, and the obligatory glass of sake. A lady on the table next to us was concerned that we would not be able to manage the chopsticks, but we assured her that we we would be okay.

Once refreshed we had a look around the city's most important temple and shrine complete with many large koi carp and also found time for a little peace and quiet viewing the colours of the leaves on the local park.