Useful Information

Fishing at Aquamarine Fukushima

Fishing at Aquamarine Fukushima

I know what you’re thinking... Fishing?? At an aquarium?

Well, this isn’t a typical aquarium.

Aquamarine Fukushima is an Environmental Aquarium focused on research and providing educational information about sustainability and conservation.

The aquarium is most well-known for its triangular tunnel that separates two large tanks that represent the part of the sea where two currents meet. The Oyashio current (home to a high degree of diversity and reef environments) and the Kuroshio current (home to fast-moving fish and wide open sea environments). This was my first time seeing large schools of fish moving together, and it was really mesmerizing!

After getting hypnotized by the swirling school of fish, we headed over to the fishing pond to catch some lunch!

At the fishing area, I was handed a rod and some bait. You pay (1000 yen) to use the rod, and then it is a small fee (100 yen) per fish you catch.

The fish in the pond were really cute, so I was nervous about eating them. I love eating sushi but when confronted with a cute little fish swimming around, I start to think less with my stomach and more with my heart.

I’ve never successfully caught a fish on my own, so I was shocked when I almost instantly felt a tug on the fishing pole. I pulled the rod up and suddenly there was a flopping fish in my hands!

In the same way, I was able to quickly catch two more fish. So, one for me and each of my coworkers. You aren’t allowed to return any fish to the water, so be careful not to catch more fish than you can eat.

Catching the fish here is pretty easy, so I think this is a great activity to try!

Most of us have very little experience with fishing or hunting. When you source all of your food from the local grocery store, it can be hard to remember or come to terms with the fact that the meat we eat was once alive. Faced with a living fish, some visitors (mostly children) have broken the rules and released what they caught once no one was looking! However, rather than feeling sad about the fish, I channeled the mindset of gratitude towards the fish for providing me with life-sustaining nourishment. Thank you, fish friend!

We carried the fish friends over to the cooking area, said a little goodbye, and handed them over to the chef. Quickly, the fish were swiftly prepared in front of us and cooked. A few minutes later, we were handed a plate of hot fish fry.

They smelled really good. We said a heartfelt thank you, “itadakimasu,” and ate. The taste was so fresh and delicious. I have never eaten such fresh fish before, and my coworker and I agreed that the meat almost tasted more like fried chicken than fish. It felt good to know exactly where our food had come from.

In order to consume consciously, it is good to remember to value the life of the creatures that we eat.

By keeping our oceans clean, we can honor the lives of sea animals. After we ate, we walked around a bit more and took a look at some of the exhibits. One had a lot of information about beach cleanups and efforts that the aquarium is making to stay environmentally conscious which I hope you will check out if you visit!

It was a lot of fun visiting Aquamarine Fukushima, and I hope that you will consider visiting!

Latest posts

  1. Destination Spotlight

    How I Joined the Kohata Flag Festival

    Held yearly on the first Sunday of December, Hata Matsuri - the Kohata Flag Festival - is a bustling display of colour and community in a beautiful part of rural Fukushima. Here’s what I learned from joining the procession myself, complete with some tips for the future if you’d also like to attend!Since I arrived in Fukushima, I’ve been trying to go to every festival I can. Attending local festivals is a great way to learn more about lesser-known areas of the prefecture and the local people are always eager to welcome new visitors.With that in mind, after seeing pictures of the Kohata Flag Festival online, I was keen to visit the area and see the colourful flags for myself. That’s how I ended up getting up early on a chilly Sunday morning and heading to the sleepy mountain village of Kohata, a district of equally sleepy Nihonmatsu City.(If the name sounds familiar, Nihonmatsu itself is widely known for its extravagant three-day lantern festival in October, and the Chrysanthemum Doll Festival which takes place roughly around the same time to coincide with autumn colours.)The flag festival, meanwhile, is the biggest yearly event for Kohata. Although the main procession takes place on the Sunday, there are also festivities on the Saturday, including mizugori (purifying oneself with buckets and buckets of cold spring water), dancing and a foot race while holding the great flags.This first day is also when first-time participants to the festival – usually boys who have come of age – are taken halfway up the mountain via the woodland trails to complete their initiation into the flag-bearers. This involves slipping through a narrow gap just barely wide enough for an adult to pass through, before heading up to Okitsushima Shrine to pray and be inducted as a member of the procession.Unlike the all-whites of the regular flag-carriers, these first-timers wear red and are treated as adults. Although usually there are two or three new members, this year there was only one, who was forced to take photos by his family at every step of the journey.The festival traces its history back nearly a thousand years. A defeated Genji army in 1055 barricaded themselves in meagre defences on Mt. Kohata, and it’s said that their pursuers among the Abe forces mistook the heavy snow for Genji banners and fled from certain victory. This is one of the reasons that white flags appear alongside the more colourful ones in the flag procession.The flag-bearers depart from the Kohata Community Center at 8:30am on Sunday. They first gather at 7:30, and there is an opening ceremony from 8:00, but this is mostly speeches from local officials and guests of honour, and since the grounds are surrounded by rows of trees, it can get fairly chilly at that time of the morning – I would say arriving shortly before departure time would be fine for most people.That being said, this is where I met Hatarou, the local mascot (this is a pun, since 'hata' is Japanese for flag. It'd be like calling a mascot 'Flaggy', but funnier.) This also makes Hata Matsuri one of the few Fukushima festivals with its own mascot.The procession lasts for several hours, taking the marchers from the community center in the west part of town up into the foothills of Mt. Kohata, and eventually leading to the magnificent Okitsushima Shrine deep in the mountain woodland. There are multiple good places for taking photos – it quickly becomes obvious where they are, since a flock of local photography enthusiasts follow the procession wherever it goes! I’d recommend the road bridge shortly after leaving the main street of town.When I stopped in someone’s driveway to get a good photo of the marchers heading through the torii gate, the home owner came and spoke with me for a while about what brought me to the festival. She said in her childhood, the flags numbered nearly two hundred, whereas nowadays the number is closer to seventy or eighty. When I thanked her and went to follow the parade, she handed me a wrapped sweet and told me to have a great day – this is exactly the kind of wholesome experience that makes it worthwhile going to lesser-known festivals.In fact, this happened multiple times over the course of the day. Both the members of the procession and regular attendees struck up conversations with me about my hometown, my experiences in Fukushima, and my thoughts on the festival. Some offered suggestions for places I should visit in the area, while several local school-age children spoke to me in English they’d been practising in class.I got chatting to one group of flag-bearers about the festival and the area, and one of them asked if I’d like to try carrying his flag, which I did for about five minutes! (His friends bantered him relentlessly about getting the visitors to do his work for him). Although the flags are as heavy as they look, the most strenuous part is simply how large they are – the village is beset with power lines and overhanging tree branches, and making sure the flags don’t catch on anything requires constant vigilance.Making that task more difficult, of course, is the fact that the flag-bearers are drinking robustly from the moment they assemble at the community center at 7:30 in the morning. Every so often, when the procession slowed and took a break, members of the group carrying hefty bottles would pour a sweet sake into small bamboo cups that each man carried on his hip.It meant that wherever we walked, there was always the fragrant smell of the sake in the air, and more than one member of the procession arrived at the shrine a little worse for wear. One younger flag-bearer drank a little too much and was bundled into a fire engine to go home about halfway through the route...And so we headed to Okitsushima Shrine. Although we passed the front entrance during our walk up the mountain, the flags must first be taken through the back route to the Tainai Kuguri Rock, where a prayer is said for health and good fortune before continuing up the trail. In the woods the slopes can be fairly steep and the footing a little slippery, so this was where I wished I’d worn slightly more rugged shoes with a better grip. Fortunately, you only need to pass this way once, as you’ll use the front steps to leave the shrine later.In addition to the beautiful old shrine building at Okitsushima, the grounds also play host to a beautiful deep red pagoda that is a central pillar of the shrine’s history. It’s said that when famous warlord Date Masamune set Mt. Kohata ablaze in the 1500s that the pagoda would not collapse, and these days it is a power spot for those wishing for academic success and the prevention of disease.When they reach the top of the long steps up to the shrine building, each flag-bearer group stops to say a prayer for long life and celebrate a job well done. Then, the groups come together to hear words from the shrine’s caretakers, after which the festival comes to an end.Overall, the festival began in earnest at 8:30am and ended around 1pm. There were several breaks during the march to allow people to rest up and recharge – not realising how rugged a walk it was, I didn’t bring anything in the way of snacks or water, so I’d certainly recommend that for people thinking of joining all the way to the end.Also, while the walk back down from the shrine avoids the woodland route and thereby takes less time, it still took me about 45mins to walk from Okitsushima Shrine back to the community center where I parked, so you should factor that into your schedule. There is parking at the shrine, but space is limited and the roads can get crowded at home time.Final Thoughts & TipsApart from the great atmosphere, friendly people and the colourful flags, for me the most lasting impression of the festival was the beauty of the local area. Even though the festival is held just after the peak of autumn colour season, there were still streaks of orange in the hillsides, and there’s more than one viewpoint looking over the town as you make the climb to the shrine.Although you don’t have to follow the procession all the way to the top, I think it’s worth it to see the final ceremony with all the flags lined up at the shrine, and the pagoda alone is worth the trip. Several people congratulated me for making it all the way to the top, or said they looked forward to seeing me next year.If I were to go again, I’d be keen to see the other ceremonies and events on the Saturday, and I’d probably aim to arrive shortly before departure to skip standing in the cold. Otherwise, as I mentioned above, good walking shoes and snacks / water will come in handy, and bring your camera!For more festivals in Fukushima, why not check out the Aizu Festival or the horse riding samurai of Soma Nomaoi?

    How I Joined the Kohata Flag Festival
  2. Destination Spotlight

    A Guide to the Aizu Festival – And How to Join Yourself

    If, like me, you’ve been watching Shogun on Disney+ and been blown away by its dramatic depiction of Japan’s Sengoku (warring states) era, you might be interested in learning more about samurai history during your trip to Japan.Fortunately, there are plenty of options for someone looking to get involved with samurai culture.Tsurugajo Castle severely damaged after the Siege of Aizu in 1868.The Shogun’s Last StandOne of the best places for this is the historic city of Aizu-Wakamatsu on the west side of Fukushima Prefecture. Before the advent of prefectures in the Meiji Restoration, this region was ruled by the Aizu Domain, a powerful clan of samurai who remained loyal to the shogun even after ruling authority was returned to the Emperor in the 1860s.This culminated in the Boshin War of 1868, when imperial forces moved north and besieged Tsurugajo Castle at the heart of the Aizu Domain’s sphere of influence. Though the defenders were ultimately defeated by the Emperor’s modernised troops, the fortress remained standing, and this would be remembered as one of the final battlefields of Japan’s shogunate history, before it became what we recognise as ‘modern’ Japan.The Aizu FestivalAlthough Aizu is now incorporated into the wider Fukushima Prefecture, the roots to its powerful ancestor run deep in this part of the country. Local people come together every September to hold the Aizu Festival, honouring the warriors who walked these roads centuries ago with a series of events, processions and performances.Most notable is the parade on the Sunday of the festival. Schools, organisations and local residents of all ages dress in the traditional garb of every strata of Aizu clan society, and walk through the city streets waving to hundreds of attendees. Possibly most striking are the samurai lords, who proceed on horseback.Popular actress Ayase Haruka, who played the ‘Japanese Joan-of-Arc’ Nijima Yae in an NHK drama in 2013, reprises her role every year in the procession and gives a speech before the main parade.The procession starts with a short walk through the grounds of Tsurugajo Castle itself, leading to an opening ceremony held on the lawn under the shadow of the fortress.The samurai lords sit together on the dais, while an announcer heralds each samurai troop that enters the field. This also includes Western historical figures of import and significant noblewomen of the time in traditional dress.Once all the participants have entered and taken their seats, the opening ceremony takes place, with speeches from the city mayor and visiting dignitaries, samurai performances, and gunnery displays.This ceremony is also viewable to the general public, although it’s best to get to the castle early as the spectators’ area typically gets busy.How to Join the ProcessionThe 2024 rendition of the Aizu Festival was beset by heavy rain, but visitors still turned out in huge numbers to watch the procession. This also included an international troop comprised of local residents from a variety of countries: England, Scotland, Canada, the US, Australia, Taiwan and Japan.This experience, organised by a local tour company, is aimed at making Japanese culture more accessible to residents and visitors from overseas. It also included an English-speaking guide, who explained to us not only about the history of the area, but helped with logistical elements – how to dress in the traditional gear, where to go, and how to put our swords away properly...Our troop dressed in the dark navy armour of foot soldiers of the Aizu gunnery units, who were trained both in muskets for ranged combat and katana-style samurai swords for melee. As such, each soldier of the troop was given one of each, as well as a banner of the Aizu Domain (which, for the record, is very easy to bump against door frames and street signs).With the onset of the bad weather, the festival organisers made the difficult decision to protect the traditional armour from water damage with protective rain gear. Although it took away some of the mystique of the samurai atmosphere, it was better than the parade being cancelled altogether, and the rain made for some dramatic photos.Despite the weather, we were cheered on relentlessly by local people throughout the parade route. The main street of Aizu has covered sidewalks, so it was along this route that saw the most spectators, and where the samurai troops performed their main war cries.Overall, we walked for a little over two hours, but including the time to get changed and the opening ceremony, we were in Aizu from about 8:00 in the morning to around 13:00 at lunchtime.The international troop will be recruiting in 2025, too, so if you’re looking to join, feel free to send us an email to i-info@tif.ne.jp and we’ll keep you posted when bookings open.Visiting AizuFor more information about the festival, see our page here.Looking for more samurai experiences in Japan? Try the monthly kengido experience, learning samurai sword techniques in a historic dojo in the mountains.

    A Guide to the Aizu Festival – And How to Join Yourself
  3. Destination Spotlight

    Following Fukushima’s Footpath: A Forest Walk in Nishigo

    The tranquil village of Nishigo (西郷村) is situated just west of Shirakawa City, a naturally abundant region at the south of Fukushima Prefecture. We met with a group of community leaders, tour guides and members of the local government to take a Foothpath Tour around its many sights.What is a Footpath Tour?Inspired by the British culture of taking countryside walks in spots of natural greenery, Fukushima Footpath Tours encourage visitors to local areas to wander around and explore the nearby region.In particular, by walking through smaller and lesser known areas, eating at local restaurants, and interacting with town residents, you can play a role in Fukushima's diaster recovery efforts.A big part of the intrigue is visiting an area that people are less likely to frequent than famous tourist sites and discovering interesting places - perfect for people who like taking photos!Although there are self-guided tours available - take a look at our guides for Katsurao and Tamura - our tour featured about twenty visitors, and was led by a local long-term resident.Getting Back to NatureMy outstanding impression of our tour - and this, suitably enough, reminds me of similar walks back in the UK - was the abundance of woodland and the fantastic scenery.Our group worked its way through narrow corridors of beautiful pine trees, the terrain occasionally sloping up into the canopy, and wherever we went, we stumbled on to something interesting. Most striking was when we came to a clearing on the banks of the Abukuma River.We took a break here to take in the scenery. Later, when we shared our opinions of the tour, this was the highlight for many of us, thanks to the calm atmosphere and relaxing sound of the flowing river.Some people took this time to skip stones or try out the tree swing.Hidden TreasuresOne of the benefits of having a local resident show you around is that wherever you go, you can ask questions about the things you stumble across. Our guide also often pointed out local stores and workshops and told us about the crafts or folk art that they specialised in.The deeper we went into the woods, we also found some old abandoned houses, which had an intriguing, eerie atmosphere, and the local Christian church.A Well-Earned RestBy the time we made it back to base camp, we'd been walking for about two hours, doing a loop of the main woodland area of Nishigo. We were starting to run low on energy, making it the perfect time for lunch - our guide had been cooking since before we arrived, and a huge pot of Japanese curry had been bubbling the entire time we'd been walking.That meant the flavours had infused deeply into the sauce, and combined with the use of local Nishigo vegetables and rice, this was exactly what we needed after a long walk.Our tour was a really valuable experience - for me, the main attraction was having the chance to visit somewhere most tourists wouldn't usually go, learning about the area from someone who knows it well, and enjoying the peaceful woodland atmosphere.More informationInterested in trying a Footpath Tour for yourself? You can learn more here (please be aware that this page is in Japanese). 

    Following Fukushima’s Footpath: A Forest Walk in Nishigo
Show All (128)
Top