ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For Japanese newlyweds Jun and Chisako Shibata, the perfect honeymoon meant standing on a steep Alaska mountain in the freezing darkness, gazing up at the dancing lights in the sky.

"Amazing," Chisako Shibata said of the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

"I saw it on television a long time ago and it was so beautiful."

Growing numbers of Japanese tourists are visiting Alaska this time of year to see the aurora borealis, helping to create a lucrative winter tourism market in a cold, cold state.

Japanese culture is fascinated with natural wonders, and the aurora borealis — a luminous phenomenon produced when charged solar particles strike the upper atmosphere near the North Pole — is celebrated in travel and adventure shows in Japan. Many Japanese save for years or take out loans to see the aurora. For some, it is almost a spiritual quest.

"Some ... feel it's one of the things they must see before they die," said Pete Redshaw, a guide at the Chena Hot Springs resort deep in Alaska's interior, 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks. "Others want to see something so magical, something so unimaginable. I've seen some people cry."

Japanese tourists account for 90 percent of the guests at the resort as well as at the Aurora Borealis Lodge, at Cleary Summit 20 miles north of Fairbanks.