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The original was posted on /r/japantravel by /u/nahbestie on 2024-08-16 06:54:03+00:00.

This is my second trip report here, this time on a recent summer road trip through Tohoku. We were a group of three, all foreign residents living in Japan. I know Tohoku isn’t as explored as central Japan so I hope that this is helpful for people wanting to explore up north! I have had the Aomori Nebuta Festival on my bucket list for a while, and was originally going to do a shorter trip just to Aomori to see it, but decided to expand to a week long road trip with the objective of seeing Tohoku’s Three Great Festivals (Akita Kanto, Aomori Nebuta, and Sendai Tanabata), plus Nagaoka Hanabi, and invited my two friends to come along.

I included way too many details, so this report came out way longer than I expected. Sorry for the long windedness!

August 3rd-Niigata/Nagaoka Hanabi

Flew into Niigata Airport at around 2:30. We took a taxi directly to our accommodations to check in and drop off our bags, then went straight to Nagaoka station via local train and shinkansen. 

We arrived at Nagaoka Station at about 4:30 and it was packed with people. They were funneling everyone off of the platform through one exit. Once we got down the stairs to the main floor of the station we were then mixed in with the crowd of all the trains from Tokyo as well, which led to significant bottlenecking. It took us about 20 minutes from getting off the train to getting out of the station. And it was hot in there. The long line to get out wasn’t a huge deal because we still arrived with plenty of time to get to the riverside, find our seats, and grab snacks and drinks. However, it did make us quite anxious about getting home, as we needed to make sure we could catch a shinkansen that would get us back to Niigata station in time for our last local train back to our accommodation. 

The fireworks were beautiful, and once the sun went down, the heat was a lot more tolerable. There were a lot of food stalls at the venue, and also local stalls set up along the streets to the river, and many of them didn’t have long lines, so finding food was easy. The conbinis were packed though.

This was the only event on this trip we purchased tickets for. We entered the ticket lottery which was for residents outside of Nagaoka. There is a separate ticket sale for foreign tourists but I am sorry I don’t know the details for that one. We got our first choice of seats, which was the Phoenix Block, or block 10 if you look at the seating map. The downside of these seats was that when I looked at the map, I thought there would be fireworks going from multiple places, one being directly across the river from us. This wasn’t really the case, as the majority of the fireworks were launched from the southernmost point on the map, and the spots across the river were really only used two or three times during the grand programs. It didn’t ruin the experience or anything, as we could still see great, but had I known, I likely would have tried for seats further south, like block 11 or 12. I would have thought they would try to alternate spots a bit, as that area did end up getting pretty smokey. 

Still worried about catching the shinkansen, we decided to pack up and slowly walk back to the station just before 9:00. We thought the staff would have been really strict on keeping people moving along the walkways, but there were a lot of people standing up there taking pictures, so we were still able to see most of the show. We were walking down the street by the time the final program started, but we could see most of it, and got some really cool pictures of fireworks above the buildings and street lights. 

The set up for getting on the trains was really well done compared to when we arrived. The main street leading up to the station was completely shut down for cars, and they had signage indicating what line you needed to be in, way before you reached the station. All we needed to do was follow the signs for shinkansen to Niigata, and everything moved really smoothly. I can’t say for sure, but it did seem that they were running more trains than was indicated online. These were also the only train tickets we bought in advance, which I really recommend doing if you attend this festival.

We got back to our accommodations, which was the I Eco III Niigata. It was a decent way away from Niigata city centre, and cost about 30k yen between the three of us, for a room with a double bed and a single futon. This place was more of a share house situation, that seemed to do short stays, as well as long term rentals, so all bathrooms and showers were shared. Overall, it was really clean and quiet. It would have been nice to be closer to Niigata station, but the only option I saw started at 26k yen for a single room and 35k for a double. 

August 4th-Akita/Kanto Matsuri

After checking out the next morning, we headed to Niigata Station to pick up our car from Toyota Rent a Car. We had a long drive to Akita this day so as soon as we were set we headed out. One of my friends is really into collecting stamps and tickets from michi no ekis (roadside stations) so that was one of our primary goals during the drives. We made sure we hit stops in all the prefectures we were in, which was really fun as they all offer something a bit different. We didn’t make any other stops on this leg of the journey, and I think it was around 4:00 or 5:00 when we got to Akita city and checked into our hotel. 

We then walked to the main street of the festival to find a spot to watch the show. We did not have tickets, but there was plenty of free seating along the sidewalks. By the time we got to the main street, most of the curb was claimed by either people seated, or by mats and blankets people had left. This was really common at these festivals, but everyone is really respectful about not moving other people’s things. There was plenty of room to start a second row behind everyone, but no one had really started doing that yet, so we were worried we’d be committing some festival faux pas if we sat behind people. But, we went for it anyway, and sure enough before the festival started, the second row was full of people standing or sitting. We didn’t bring seats or blankets ourselves, but after claiming a spot, I ventured out for food and came across a man selling foldable cardboard seats for 400 yen each. We each grabbed one and they were perfect for sitting behind the people along the curb. They weren’t super comfortable or durable but they lasted long enough for both the Kanto and Nebuta Matsuri.

The festival itself was amazing. I had seen pictures of the lanterns, but really had no idea what to expect. It was pretty mind blowing to see the performers lifting the lantern poles, and honestly it was fun and dramatic whenever the lanterns would fall. Definitely make sure you stay till the end when they connect all the poles together and lift the lanterns super high. After the festival the performers wait in the street for a bit and let people get up close for pictures. One man even had our guy friend try to lift the lanterns himself, which are apparently significantly heavier than they look.

After a stop at the beer garden we walked back to our hotel at the Dormy Inn. Highly recommend this hotel chain as they usually have baths and free noodles in the evening. It was a great location, but definitely our most expensive accommodation at 28k for a double room and 18k for a single. I’ll talk more about booking hotels later, but the extra cost was definitely worth it. 

August 5th-Iwate

This was a free day with no events or festivals planned, so we did a lot more road tripping and focused on stopping at places along the way to Morioka. First thing, we wanted to find Kanto Matsuri goods. We wandered downtown Akita a bit after checking out of the hotel and came across the Akita Inu Station. There are no dogs on site on Mondays, but the shop was still open and we got some cute akita inu goods. We also came across the daytime Kanto festival, which is competitive and performances are judged. We didn’t stick around for long but it was still cool to see. 

After leaving Akita city we drove to Lake Tazawa. We hit up two beautiful shrines along the lakeside. It was pretty hot so our stops weren’t long. We decided to get lunch near the lake, and at this point we had mostly only eaten festival food, so we were pretty keen for a sit down meal. Since it was later in the afternoon, most places were closed between lunch and dinner services, but we came across a pizza place called Yama no Hachimitsu Ya. I find pizza to be hit or miss in Japan but this place was definitely a hit. Honey on pizza might sound weird but honestly it was some of the best pizza I have had in Japan. We also checked out the honey shop next door where you can sample almost every flavour of honey you can think of. 

From here it was straight to Morioka, with the odd michi-no-eki stop. We stayed in the Morioka Grand Hotel Annex. 16k for a deluxe room with a double and single bed. We had dinner at a nearby ramen shop. I cannot remember the name of the shop, but we were a little worried because it wasn’t until after we ordered and sat down that we realised all the broths were made with anchovies. No allergies to be worried about, but we were expecting some really fishy ramen to come out. However it was actually really tasty ramen and the fish flavour was quite subtle and nice.

**August 6th…

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