Final Nebuta

On Saturday we travelled to Aomori City, which is about an hour away, to watch our final Nebuta. This is quite similar to Hirosaki's Neputa, but much more up-beat and the floats are 3D instead of fan-shaped. So we left at 1:00pm and did some random shopping around town. We are super excited about the city's (as well as the whole Tsugaru area) new developments. As the Shinkansen (bullet train) will be coming to town in 115 days (they have a count down too!), they are preparing the city/area for its arrival. For example a new Mister Donut in the station, a coffee shop in the station, new bus platforms, new much nicer tourist office just outside the station, and a Nebuta Museum. Anyway, after doing some shopping Angie went to get her hair cut at our regular location.

After running our errands, we went to stake our spot for the festival. Fortunately, we had talked to a very nice man about the festival, so, to our dismay, we found that there was no parade tonight. They would only float the floats in the bay, which is the main reason we went. The very nice man also told us not to go to the regular location to view the floating floats but to a different location that would be much less crowded. So we headed there and found one spot left, luckily!


Well, that was at 5 and the parade didn't start till 7, but as the evening marched on, in marched the people to take hold of the positions they had laid claim to earlier.

So the parade started but we were a little disappointed because the floating floats did not come very close to shore, but stayed just beyond good picture taking distance. We attempted to snap a few but the quality was rather poor. As you can see in the picture, the floats were floated on barges while the people sang and played the common song.

A bit further offshore stood a cruise ship that went to sea just to view the floats. Wonder how much that spot costs and how early you have to claim it! Ours was free and we claimed it 2 hours before, but the floats didn't come 10 feet from us.

During the parade there was also a fireworks show. We didn't stay to watch the fireworks, but did get a few nice pictures of them! Although it wasn't the night we expected, we did see the floating Nebuta for the first and last time of our lives!