As light began to filter through clouds over the Tsugaru Plain, climbers holding a banner saying "Ganbaro Tohoku" (Hang in there, Tohoku) welcomed the sunrise on the top of Mount Iwaki as part of the Oyama-Sankei fall festival in Aomori Prefecture on Aug. 29.
As light began to filter through clouds over the Tsugaru Plain, climbers holding a banner saying "Ganbaro Tohoku" (Hang in there, Tohoku) welcomed the sunrise on the top of Mount Iwaki as part of the Oyama-Sankei fall festival in Aomori Prefecture on Aug. 29.
Participants in the festival's main event, "Tsuitachiyama," reached the peak of the 1,625-meter mountain before dawn and watched the sunrise--called the "goraiko" when seen from the mountain peak--at around 5 a.m. The sun was greeted with shouts of "Banzai!" and the playing of a Japanese flute.
"This year's goraiko is the best I've ever seen," one participant said.
Kahoru Sato, a 50-year-old from Aomori city who had climbed the mountain for the first time with three friends, said, "I did not expect the sunrise would be that beautiful."
The climbers prayed for a quick return to normality following the Great East Japan Earthquake.