4290-4290 Travel Guide

Cape Tappi, on the northern tip of the Tsugaru Peninsula in Sotogahama, Aomori, is the northernmost headland of Honshu, with the Sea of Japan, the Tsugaru Strait and Mutsu Bay meeting around it and fierce winds giving it the name 'Cape of Wind'. The white circular Tappi Saki Lighthouse, first lit in 1932 and 13 metres tall, is one of the 50 selected lighthouses of Japan. Nearby stand a song monument to Sayuri Ishikawa's Tsugaru Kaikyō Fuyugeshiki, monomials to Osamu Dazai and Yoshida Shoin, and 362 steps of National Route 339 — the only stretch of national highway made entirely of stairs.

Inakadate is a village in Aomori famed for 'rice-paddy art' (tanbo art). Each summer, different rice varieties 'plant' giant pictures in the fields — themes from anime, history and famous paintings — best seen from elevated viewing decks, a unique earth-art of the Tohoku summer.

Seibien (盛美園) in Saruka, Hirakawa, Aomori Prefecture, is a strolling pond garden built over nine years from 1902 by Seito Seibi, 24th head of the Tsugaru Seito clan, with landscape master Obata Teiju; its roughly 3,600 tsubo (1.2 ha) are designated a National Place of Scenic Beauty and it is counted among the great Meiji-era gardens. Centered on a pond in three parts—Shin, Gyo and Soha—with a Shinsen island planted with Matsu-zakura pine, it borrows the Tsugaru Plain and distant mountains as scenery. The Western-Japanese-style Seibikan house and the Goho-den hall (home to the national treasure Kongokai Dainichi Nyorai) stand within; the garden also inspired the settings of Studio Ghibli's 'Arrietty'.