Woke up six-ish feeling pretty good, jet lag is over with, I think, finally. We have the morning here in Aomori before we head off to Sendai, where we actually stay multiple nights lol
First order of business is breakfast at the Aomori fish market of course! But there’s a twist: in this place, you pay an entry fee to receive a bunch of coupons, then you grab a tray and browse through the market picking and choosing what you want to eat! It’s really fun, and if you run out of coupons you can buy some more. Think of it as a huge cold raw seafood smorgasbord! (Notice I didn’t specify “dead”)
After breakfast we visited a very unusual museum devoted to parade floats, which the locals have elevated to a high art. The floats are created with a wire-frame first, then lights are strung up all over inside, then covered with a very thin paper-like material which is then carefully painted. The results are pretty amazing.
Behind that float there is a large array of drums hanging from the wall, they are each maybe three feet across. A group of elderly Japanese visitors walked by and one of the men gave a drum an experimental tap, then on to the next one giving it a few more beats. They noticed us tourists watching, and gestured we should come over and give them a try also. So I rapped out a quick tattoo on one of them, and the second I had finished and turned away we saw a security lady literally RUNNING into this room, looking around wildly for the perpetrator! I was so happy I had stopped a beat or two earlier, we all just stood around looking innocent and she eventually left the area and so we were able to continue the museum tour 😀
Aomori is apparently well-known for having really good apples and we went inside a place called A-Factory which was full of various apple-based products.
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