Japan - Day 16 - Akita (Oga Peninsula)

Today, we visited a few places on the nearby Oga Peninsula. First was the 11-kilometre Nanohana Road road with a thousand cherry trees and mustard flowers near Ogata. It was stunning.

Then we drove to the Namahage Museum, saw a demonstration of a Namahage visit, and toured the museum. Namahage are scary mountain spirits that visit homes on New Year’s Eve and threaten to kidnap children who haven’t been good and keep the farmers working hard. It was funny and scary.

Then we visited the excellent Oga Aquarium. It was super impressive with tanks of local marine life and the usual set of marine mammals.

On the way back to Akita, we stopped at the Akita City Port Tower Selion, a 100-meter tower with outstanding views, even on a rainy day.

For dinner, we had some problems. We walked and walked and got turned away at five places before going to another fancy Hinai jidori chicken place. It was great.