Coordinates: 40.822139, 140.818500

Last week was Obon, one of the biggest holidays in Japan. It is a weeklong celebration in which the Japanese honor relatives who have passed on to the afterlife. Many Japanese travel to their hometown for the holiday to spend time with family and clean the temples and their ancestors' graves.

Another beautiful part of Obon is the lanterns. The Japanese light them to provide a source of light and help guide their ancestors' spirits home.

Big Buddha is located in Aomori City, which is the large town about an hour to the northwest of Misawa. The grounds are beautiful any time of year, but for Obon, they had hundreds of lanterns sprinkled throughout the site. I think they may have been for different people because the kanji was different on each one, but that is just a guess.

Once we reached the Big Buddha, we saw a celebration of sorts. People were dancing in a circle and chanting. They kept asking us to join, but we didn't feel comfortable and didn't want to mess up the ceremony.

You can actually go inside the Buddha. The base is lined with the story of the Buddhist afterlife process, which is actually quite graphic and bloody. Fortunately, they also had paintings with happy Buddhist quotes between the story to kind of break up all the gore.

It was so cool to be a part of this special and sacred time of year. It was definitely one of the cooler experiences we've had since moving here.