I went to Aomori last long weekend with my wife and her mother. We started our trip by boarding a flight from Itami, Osaka last Saturday morning and landed at Aomori airport around 10:30 AM. We picked up a rental car at the airport and then we headed to Kanagi, which is in Tsugaru area in Aomori prefecture. In Tsugaru, we visited the Shayokan, which is known as the Osamu Dazai memorial museum and had a great time on the “stove train” which has coal heaters in each cars, operated by Tsugaru railway company. Osamu Dazai was a famous Japanese novelist and he was born in the Shayokan and spent time there when he was young. Now this building is registered as an important cultural property due to it preserves an old Japanese style. Plus the stove trains have been running more than 80 years in winter. It was a great experience because both had a long history.
On the Sunday morning, my wife and I enjoyed skiing in Aomori spring resort. Actually, my wife’s mother enjoyed the hot springs in the hotel because she doesn't go skiing. We enjoyed staying in the Aomori spring resort with each other. After lunch, we headed to Tachi-Neputa museum in Goshogawara by car and looked around inside the museum. There're so many summer festivals in Japan and the Neputa is one of them. Especially, Neputa is really popular in Tsugaru area. Of course we've never been to Neputa festival, but the exhibitions in the museum were really interesting, because the Neputa, a traditional Japanese float, were really huge and beautiful. I've never seen such a huge Neputa!
We stayed at Dake hot springs on Saturday just one night and enjoyed the natural hot springs, some local meals and Japanese sake. After checking out of the hotel, we headed to Hakkoda national park, because it was a really fine day and not a windy day on Sunday. The Hakkoda mountains are located in the northern part of Honshu and have a lot of snow fall. These days, not only Japanese skiers and snow boarders, but also foreigners come to Hakkodo for deep snow. We boarded the Hakkoda ropeway to the top of the mountain and enjoyed the nice view from a cabin about 10 minutes. On the top of the mountain, we could see an amazing landscape of the mountains, tons of snow, Aomori city, Mutsu bay and snow monsters (Jyuhyo) which are covered in frozen snow. Thanks to the nice weather, we enjoyed a nice view from the top. When we went down to the bottom, my wife's mother boarded the ropeway again, because she doesn't ski, but my wife and I went down by ourselves for skiing. We enjoyed skiing through the trees for about 5km and it was a really good experience.
We had a really great time on our trip, enjoyed not only skiing, but also some museums, heritage railway and nice views. Tsugaru area has a unique culture, local foods and Japanese sake. I hope we visit there in winter every year.
