It’s fitting that my final post about Japan is a mix of different areas. When we set out to spend six weeks in Japan, we knew that we’d be sticking to cities – we weren’t going to rent a car, so everywhere we went would have to be accessed by train, plane, bus, or ferry.
Our first unusual stop was Morioka – our smallest city by far with only 284,000 people. We took the train from Sapporo and arrived in the late afternoon. We had one big reason for our night in Morioka – a tour at Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi the following morning.
But, of course, a “small” city in Japan is larger than many cities around the world. Minneapolis, Minnesota’s largest city, isn’t even double the size of Morioka (Minneapolis’ population is 430,000 right now). So we found ourselves with plenty to see as we began a late afternoon stroll.
Our first official stop was dinner. We love that you can bring food onto the train, but when you’re traveling with as many bags as we were (and I think we may have even used Yamato Transport for our bigger suitcases), bringing enough snacks can create its own hassle.
Every city in Japan is home to at least one vegan restaurant and Morioka did not disappoint. We had an incredible meal at Karakoma. A macrobiotic restaurant, you’re served a variety of sides, which means the flavors in your mouth are constantly changing. I wouldn’t tell you to go all the way to Morioka to eat here, but if you’re in Morioka, absolutely stop by!
After dinner, we decided to slowly walk back to our hotel in order to discover a bit more of the city. We followed our ears and discovered Iwate Park. At the entrance were groups playing instruments, practicing a choreographed dance, and singing.
After enjoying the impromtu performance, we decided to walk through the rest of the park. We found the Victoia-Morioka Friendship Pole, which was created by Kwa-Culth Chief and artist Tony Hunt and given to Morioka by the city of Victoria, Canada in 1995. The park was charming and included the ruins of the Morioka Castle.
As the sun began to set, we heard more drumming and found a field with additional performers. We later learned that the city was practicing for the Sansa Odori Festival, their largest summer festival. In fact, it’s the world’s largest taiko drumming performance with thousands of drummers, flutists, and dancers on parade each year.
We wouldn’t be around for the festival (held August 1-4), but it was incredible to watch the preparations.
Just like Fukuoka, Morioka won us over with its regional pride and local charm. But we were even more excited for day two.
Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi opened on July 20, 2020, but Grand Seiko has been making watches in Morioka for decades. Many of its workers are recruited from Morioka schools right after high school. They prefer teaching their own apprentices, as opposed to hiring people with watch-making experience from other companies.
They offer free tours most Thursday and Friday mornings, but the studio is located outside of the city (we ended up having our hotel call a taxi for us), meaning most people spend the previous night in Morioka like we did. These tours are often fully booked, so we lucked out in sharing it with only two other families.
Yuta was our tour guide and he was a wealth of information. We learned that a Grand Seiko has 200-400 parts per watch. Each watch takes 1-2 months to complete. There are 15 meisters (master craftsmen) out of 700 employees.
Also, there’s only one woman in the whole studio who puts the hands on each watch. So if you’re wearing a Grand Seiko that was made in the last five years, Yuki Okubo was part of the process (no wonder Japan doesn’t have a culture of taking days off!). Their skills are out of this world – they even had microscopes to compare the size of a grain of rice to some of the screws used in the watches.
The new studio was built to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Grand Seiko watch and was designed by celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. It offers stunning views of the surrounding countryside.
The studio also offers something you can’t get anywhere else in the world. The SBGH371 and SBGH373 are watches that are only available for purchase at the Grand Seiko Studio Shizukuishi. Chandler thought long and hard about whether to walk away from the studio with one, but in the end, modern-day Grand Seiko watches have larger faces than what he was looking for. It was absolutely incredible to see the watches and experience the process in person.
You’d think that would be enough activity for one day, but we had decided not to spend a second night in Morioka, so we were taking the afternoon train to Tokyo. Before arriving, however, we planned to hop off in Sendai and do a bit of shopping.
Clearly, we’d done plenty of shopping in Japan at this point, but Sendai, home to 1.1 million people, also happens to be home to another Pokémon Center and, as you know, we were doing everything in our power to visit as many centers in Japan as possible.
I’ve raved about the Pokèmon Center in Fukuoka and Hiroshima, but if I’m being 100% honest, Sendai has the best Pokémon Center in Japan. Luckily, it was easy to get to! From Morioka, Sendai is only 40 minutes away, thanks to the Shinkansen (bullet train). Once we arrived, we put our luggage in the coin lockers at the station and walked over to the Sendai Parco Mall.
I know, BEST Pokémon Center in Japan is a big statement. So let me offer support. The first thing we were greeted by was the Pokémon Garden. Score one point for ultimate cuteness.
But inside was where we really lost our minds. Part of what had made the Fukuoka and Hiroshima Pokèmon Centers so special was how much regional pride had been incorporated into their stores. We learned so much about those cities simply because we’re into Pokémon. Sendai took regional pride to the next level. They were celebrating summer festival season by having displays about six regional festivals – each with a matching Pikachu plushy!!!
Some of the festivals we had already heard about, but most were new to us. And they didn’t just carry matching plushies, you could also buy acrylic stands, Pokémon card protectors, and more!
We learned about the Aomori Nebuta Festival, a fire festival celebrated in Aomori City every August 2nd-7th. Huge Nabuta floats are paraded through the streets, with dancers and musicians interspersed.
Then there’s the Yamagata Hanagasa Festival in Yamagata City August 5th-7th. While there’s a float at the start of this celebration as well, it’s the costumes and dancers that stand out the most. The hats are adorned with safflowers.
There’s also the Fukushima Waraji Festival. Akatsuki Mairi is a traditional winter event that has been held in Fukushima City for the last 400 years. At the festival, a 12-meter-long straw sandal is dedicated to Haguro Shrine. The Fukushima Waraji Festival began from the idea that every August (first Friday through Sunday), a second straw sandal should be dedicated to make a pair.
We also discovered the Akita Kanto Festival, held August 3rd-6th. The city of Akita hosts this summer festival to pray for a good harvest for the region. At night, young men in traditional festive robes balance twelve-meter-high bamboo poles on their hips, shoulders, or forehead. The poles are decorated with 46 paper lanterns.
We were so excited to see the Morioka Sansa Odori Festival represented, since we had just experienced aspects of it the day before.
The final festival was the Sendai Tanabata Festival and this one has been around since Sendai’s founding. Held August 6th-8th, it’s known as the paper and bamboo festival.
All-in-all, we couldn’t believe how much we’d learned about the Tohoku region. We briefly discussed purchasing all six plushies, but thought that might be a bit extreme (also, how would we transport them?). Instead, we ended up going with the two we had the most connections to: Sendai and Morioka.
But the Pokémon Center isn’t the only thing the Sendai Parco Mall has going for it – like all good malls in Japan, we had plenty of anime options to choose from.
We had a blast looking at giant One Piece manga covers, visiting another Gundam store – I lost track of how many models Chandler bought (though I did push for the Gundam/Hello Kitty crossover!), and Mofusand (I’m not sure if I’ve talked about my new obsession with cartoon kittens dressed up in costumes, but it’s wild and I appreciate Japan so much for it!).
That should have been enough, but just as we were leaving, we noticed a small stage area being set up. And wouldn’t you know, WE MET PIKACHU! It was a wild day and we still needed to make it back to Tokyo.
It only took another 2.5 hours on the Shinkansen to arrive in Tokyo that night.
Our final trip out of Tokyo was just a quick day trip to Yokohama. Only an hour away, this city was well worth the trip! With a population of 3.7 million, it’s a destination in its own right.
The first thing we noticed was a significant percentage of train riders wearing Mrs. Green Apple t-shirts and other swag. We stopped for lunch at Vee Sweets Cafe and finally put things together when their entire soundtrack was Mrs. Green Apple and they had collaboration drinks for sale – Yokohama was hosting the Mrs. Green Apple 10th anniversary concert that night.
For anyone not in the know, Mrs. Green Apple is a Japanese rock band – they’re probably the biggest band in Japan right now. You might have heard their song Brand New, a collaboration for this summer’s release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Which meant being in Yokohama on this day was nuts.
But because we’re us, we wandered to random parts of the city, looking for Pokémon and One Piece cards and just enjoying general vibes.
And, of course, we went to the Yokohama Pokémon Center – downright quaint after Sendai, but we scored these amazing fans shaped like Pikachu’s head and they were more than helpful on a hot summer’s day!
Despite the fans, we still needed to stay indoors during the peak heat of the day, so we found our way to Yokohama World Porters – you guessed it, another mall. We knew our glorious mall time was coming to an end and we were still having a blast. The United States could do a lot to revitalize their malls if they leaned into a bit more nostalgia and whimsy.
A Tamagotchi shaped like a robot? Amazing. Life-sized modeling decor? Highly recommended. Giant Pac-Man statues? My only request – can we have Ms. Pac-Man statues too? Adorable seating while you wait? Yes, please. A HELLO KITTY POPCORN MACHINE? Need I say more?
We eventually returned to the outside world and made our way down to the pier. Only to encounter something we never expected to see in Japan…
A Japanese mosh pit. For you see, not only was it Mrs. Green Apple’s 10th anniversary concert that night, but that weekend, the Muro Festival was also taking place. Unlike the other cultural festivals we’d just learned about, the Muro Festival is Japan’s version of the Vans Warped Tour.
Warped Tour was an alternative/pop-punk music festival that I was obsessed with in my teen years. I went in 2008 and 2009 and experienced the joy of seeing Mayday Parade, Valencia, Alana Grace, All Time Low, We The Kings, The Maine, Forever the Sickest Kids, Sing It Loud, and more. We even saw a pretty rough performance of I Kissed a Girl by a young Katy Perry.
It officially ran from 1995-2019, making it the largest traveling music festival in the United States and the longest-running touring music festival in North America. Apparently, they had a comeback in 2025, but the two-day festival only appeared in DC, Long Beach, and Orlando (at about the same time we were in Japan!). It’s happening again this summer in Long Beach, Montreal, Mexico City, and Orlando.
So believe my surprise when I heard screamo and punk rock blaring at the Muro Festival. They had 150 bands across seven stages over two days and just like the Warped Tour of my youth, everyone was dripping with sweat and having a spectacular time.
It seems like that was the vibe to our summer: Everyone having a spectacular time. We’ve had dozens of memorable trips over the years, but our summer in Japan might just be the best one yet.
Abroad With Ashley 