Mark Does Japan: Day 20

6 November 2025 Filed in: Photography | Travel

Wednesday, 5 November

Another day with a small transfer and museum visit before a longer transfer to my hotel. This may seem a little chaotic but it is a relic of a previous iteration of my itinerary where I couldn’t get to the appointed place for the transfer to the hotel by the appointed time. Also not helped by the second museum I could have easily visited while in Shin-Aomori being closed for two weeks (possibly an exhibition change).

While waiting on the platform at Shin-Aomori I noticed this vending machine. Nothing overly remarkable, although it does take payment via an IC and not all of them do but this one won’t accept the new 1000 yen note. The old one is fine but the new one is not good. I have 4 1000 yen notes in my wallet at the moment and they are all the new one so I’d be needing to use coins or my Suica, not that I typically use vending machines, I normally frequent the kombinis.

A drinks vending machine on the platform of Shin-Aomori station

just a random vending machine

A closer look at the slot for feeding it notes shows that it doesn't recognise the new 1000 yen note and so you will need the old one

but the new 1000 yen note is not good in it

Aomori station is the next station down the line and it took a whole 6 minutes to get there.

I don’t know if this classifies as street art. It was in the overpass from the station to the west exit.

A small table with two bench seats. On top of the table is a model of a red apple.

art being useful?

The main museum target of the day was the conveniently located Nebuta Museum WA RASSE. Yes I know I went to a Nebuta museum a couple of days ago in Hirosaki but this one actually has floats (and the building looks good for just a facade covering a box).

Where are we again?

On the city beach is a sign, really a series of yellow letters that spells out A O M O R I

oh yes Aomori

And look it has a beach, of sorts.

A small beach in the harbour area with some sand. Behind it is the rust red Nebuta museum

a beach

And that building is the Nebuta Museum. Looks better from the front.

The museum building appears to be a large rust red facade hiding the actual building. The facade part is a series of vertical strips and where they need an opening, such as the main entrance on the corner, they are stretched apart to create a space at ground level.

Nebuta Museum

Let’s go inside and have a look.

To get to the main hall you are lead through a tunnel that contains small copies of the Nebuta images

a tunnel of imagery

And then the main hall

The main hall is darkened so that the illumination from the floats is highlighted. To say they are colourful would be an understatement.

one of the floats

You’re on a mezzanine level looking across as it so not real sense of size from the photo.

A close up of one of the figures painted on the float

a bit of a closeup

And once you are down at their level you can walk around.

another float

and a third

and a fourth

Originally the structure was made of bamboo.

a look inside

And a human for scale.

An overall picture from the ground floor looking at the floats. There is a person in the middle of the frame taking a photo and others closer to the floats in the background

they are big

There was also a live performance of the festival music “Nebuta Hayashi”, which included taiko drumming and then they got some audience participation where some brave/crazy audience members had a go with the drums and cymbals (not always successfully) but the people clearly enjoyed themselves.

After this I bummed around for a bit before grabbing some lunch and waited out my appointment with the coach that would bring me here to the Oirase Gorge where I am most definitely not staying in a businessman’s hotel. While I was counting the minutes to departure an unusual train pulled into Aomori station. The Shiki-Shima is a luxury train that cruises around Japan. It is wildly expensive and it is so popular that tickets are allocated by lottery. It would be hard to organise a trip to Japan to ride on it.

<https://www.jreast.co.jp/shiki-shima/en/>

The Shiki Shima is an outrageous looking machine where the journey is the important part but it does make extensive use of the narrow gauge railways across Honshu and clearly visits Aomori.

front of the shiki shima

While I arrived in the dark they have trees lit up outside and this place is a tiny bit flash, OK it is over the top flash.

Looking out from the main entrance of the hotel and there is a fire pit if you want to brave the cool conditions

at the main entrance

it will be interesting to see this in daylight

yes inside is crazy too

And having a welcome drink (apple cider) in the bar area

in the bar

Not roughing it here, this is my room.

The main part of my room. Tatami on the floor, raised platform for two beds. There is a sofa under the windows at the back.

my room

I’ve spent the evening doing laundry. The coin laundry is down one level and perhaps half way between the two hotel wings making it a hike for everyone to reach it. It’s very inexpensive at 200 yen for a wash and other 200 yen for each 20 minute drying cycle.

Anyway the gorge is tomorrow’s target activity

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