Did you know?: Northern Japanese city of Aomori

(Stripes Japan)

Just 40 miles west of Misawa Air Base on the northern extremity of mainland Japan (Honshu), Aomori City is known as the gateway to Hokkaido Island. Surrounded by orchards, it’s famous for production of apples (446,000 tons annually), as well as the yearly amounts of heavy snow (up to 60 inches a year), holding the nation’s record for both. In 1945, about 90 percent of the town was destroyed during an Allied Forces bombing and most of the city had to be rebuilt during the postwar boom. Today, the city center is a model of urbanity.