Aomori Review

Ship: Diamond Princess

Month: August 2017

We docked in Aomori around 9.30am and as we arrived there were dancers and drummers – these were class! Definitely recommend standing on the deck as you moor.

(We had the ‘Hirosake Castle Park, Nebuta Festival Floats and Gardens’ booked).

The first stop we went to was the gardens which were small but beautiful to see – exactly what you’d expect from a Japanese garden. It was just a shame that it was the wrong time of year for cherry blossom trees as they would have been something special. There was also a small shop and you could walk around inside an old house.

Next we headed to Hirosake Castle Park. I really liked here as you could go inside the castle. It explained how they had to move the castle and showed the process of moving it – reminded me a lot of how they moved Abu Simbel in Egypt. The gardens around the park were stunning with lots of little lakes and bridges – it was very pretty! This was another very warm day and for all tours I recommend that you have two bottles of water with you. Even during the damp days it was still very hot and sticky.

From Hirosake Castle Park we walked for around 10 minutes to the Nebuta Floats museum. I LOVED THIS! The Floats were massive, made with paper mache and then lit inside. The detail on each of the Floats were so meticulous it was evident the amount of time that went into making just one of these floats. There was also a short music performance with the opportunity to try drumming on a festival drum- I volunteered and showed my rhythmic skills off (bit unfair on the rest as I’ve a Music Degree).

When we had toured the museum we went to the shop (always a shop) and bought one of the Nebuta fish ornaments (this was the trademark of the festival). Hubby and the other guy we had befriended decided to get a big bottle of cider each to cool down. Our tour guide thought this was hilarious as she had never seen anyone do this before.

After the museum we headed back to the ship.

As it was the last night of the festival, rather than parade the float they float them to the sea. After each float there is a ‘mini’ fireworks display – their ‘mini’ is our huge! The fireworks went on for hours and kept getting bigger and bigger – wow, just wow! You could also see the floats in the distance. Aomori is such a beautiful place.

There was a shuttle on offer (I think it was for $10) which took you into to the town and you could easily walk about on your own. However, I don’t think you would get to see as much as we did on the tour.

When we were in port we had noticed huge mounds covered in blue plastic. It was very windy after our trip (an effect of Typhoon Noru) and when we were boarding the ship there was a real stink, the blue plastic had also blown off) ! We found out the following day that the plastic had been covering charcoal and it had all blown onto the ship. Everything on decks and pools had to then be cleaned (and pools drained) which the ship staff worked really hard to address.

Very nice trip report and love the photos.

Keith

Thanks for the report

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Great report..

You brought back some fond memories of Aomori, and after reading your review I can't wait to return

Srpilo

Very nice review and photos!

Thanks for the review and information. I know tipping in restaurants, etc., is not the norm in Japan, but I was wondering about tipping the tour guides. Did you? Is it expected?

Thanks for the review and information. I know tipping in restaurants, etc., is not the norm in Japan, but I was wondering about tipping the tour guides. Did you? Is it expected?

We didn't. Felt weird but no one else seemed to on any of our tours so didn't want to insult the person. [emoji51]

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We didn't. Felt weird but no one else seemed to on any of our tours so didn't want to insult the person. [emoji51]

 

 

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Thank you, and for answering the SK currency question as well. I will get small amount of SK currency before we leave, and this helps me plan the amount of yen to take along as well.

This article on tipping might help

https://boutiquejapan.com/tipping-in-japan/