Exploring Northern Japan: Fukushima

Hello world, we're in Fukushima and currently my little drone is getting swept away by the wind. I'm desperately trying to fly it back to Komine Castle. We're here as part of a two-day trip sponsored by the prefecture of Fukushima. We're going to visit limestone caves, a couple castles, the elite school for children of samurai, take a small cat train to an old post station town, and eat some good food. Speaking of which, the first thing we did after we safely got the drone back was to fuel up at a local ramen shop. With shirakawa ramen, the soup is a clear light soy sauce based broth made from chicken and pork bones. Handmade curly noodles are a signature feature, originally crafted using soba noodle techniques. Common toppings are green onions, chashu, which is pork, menma, which are bamboo shoots, naruto fish cake, and spinach. This restaurant also had the option of adding wontons, which I did. This is normal Chinese soba. This is shirakawa ramen. Shirakawa ramen. How is it? It's very light. It's a light ramen. There's noodles too. It's a soy sauce based ramen, it's good. Do you want to change the flavor? I'll change the flavor with onions. The wonton is good. I'm glad I ordered the wonton. Up in the sky over here, this is where we almost lost our drone. The wind was so strong, it just pushed the drone way over there, and I didn't realize we were in cinema mode. So it just kept on flying that way, but we got it back luckily. So they used to have the gate over here, but that must have got burned down a long time ago. And so now this is the rendering of what it'll look like when they're done. It'll be nice though, it'll be cool. It'll look like this, right? 1868 in the Boshin War, right around the Meiji Restoration. That's when the castle was basically burned down. There's tofu ice cream. Do you want some? I'll have some later. Healthy tofu ice cream. Because it's tofu? The walls you're looking at now were reconstructed after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011. You can see the surviving wall behind. The region was in the middle of Koyo, the changing of the leaves. These, by the way, are shachihoko, mythical creatures with the head of a tiger or dragon, the body of a carp, and their tails pointing towards the heavens. They are said to have the capability of summoning water, which makes sense as wooden castles almost always end up getting burnt down. This is one of 100 beautiful castles in Japan. Beautiful fingernails too, Ako. The machicolations were used to drop stones and pour hot water on invaders. Ouch! I mean, for a place that was designed for killing invaders and whatnot, I kind of found it cute. The hand-carved wood added a lot of charm. And these secret holes, perfect for ambushing enemies. I guess if you're my mother, you would be climbing up here. I don't think my mom would like these ropes. Mom, reply in the comments. Would you like climbing up here or not? Oh, this looks like a tree fort in here. Tofu milk. Oh, this is rock chocolates. This is recommended? Osusume. You gotta buy it then. Oh, you can get the ramen here. We need a sword too. You like the sword, Ako? You want a sword? It's a kasa katana. You gotta go in the light. It's very thick, right? Okay. It does taste like tofu. Let's see. What do you think? Your first try of tofu milk. Right? It really tastes like raw tofu. What are we gonna get? Isn't that cute? Mountain grape? Let's eat that too. Yeah, let's do adventure. Ako, you can't drink in here today. You're strong, Ako. You're fine. We're going into the cave. You said it was 15 degrees. It's 9.9. Luckily, I brought my jacket. Your head. You gotta watch your head, right? This kind of feels like Star Wars. I'm gonna hit myself sometime. This is cool. Oh, it's moss. We're going on the adventure course now. There's water dripping down. Oh, it's beautiful, Ako. Beautiful. It's a cool cave. I don't think I'll be able to move tomorrow. Luckily, I'm not tall. Are you okay? I'm okay. You can do it. I can't. Can I hold this? You did it. Congratulations. You gotta go under. It keeps evolving. Wow, amazing. Wait, what is this? You gotta walk. Stop it. The water is beautiful. Why is it like this? Watch your feet. Watch your hands. Watch your head. Why do you think it's open? Is it because it's an adventure? Watch your feet. Watch your hands. Watch your head. I wanted it to be normal. It's open. I'm scared. This one too? Here? This almost seems fake. Oh my goodness. I don't think she's going to forgive me for this. She's down the hole. This is warmer over here. Okay, I think it's almost done. The adventure course. Let's look at this. The green cave. It's not really green. It's just the light shining on it. The exploration course. Exit. Good job. I'm glad I paid 300 yen. You got your money's worth. I'm so happy. It's hot. Look. It's scary. Amazing. This is cool. Amazing. I'm so happy. In case you need Wi-Fi while you're exploring the caves. Hako, do you need Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi? There's Wi-Fi here. Really? Free spot. It's going to fall on you. Those spikes. That's scary though. Yeah. There's overload. Too much cave. This is Christmas tree. We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's so quiet in here. And there's no one here. No one at all. Are these wine bottles? Hako. Yes. I found some wine. Wine? There's a lot of wine. Really? Let's go. What's this? This is Hako's kind of cave. I don't know. But it's good at 15 degrees Celsius. Apparently the wine likes this temperature. Isn't this course good? This is how you do it. Look at the beautiful view. Amazing. This tastes like ice cream I had when I was a kid. It's a nice view. Look at this big place I'm in. Look at all the beds I got. Don't worry. She got a nice room as well. Alright. So where are we starting? Like a little bit, a little bit, right? It's big. That's not right. What's that? That's not right. It's squid. I like squid. I'll have some tuna. You have to do it like this. This side is better. You have to do it like this. I'll have some beer. There's a lot of different kinds. Cheers! I think I got two. This is for two people. Two people? You got two? You have to finish the hot stuff. Yeah. We should have got the hot stuff last. How is it? Not yet. What's that? Dessert. It's a common dish. A common dish. It's good. Why did you put this here? It's meat. And healthy stuff. Even before breakfast, Akko was hard at work capturing the beautiful scenery just outside the window. And even though we arrived before the breakfast buffet was to begin being served, there was already a line up. I guess we should have came after 8. This morning, Akko went for typical Japanese breakfast fare. I, on the other hand, chose something a bit more western. Wow, it's totally different. Is this our main dish? One more. One more time. This is our breakfast. And with breakfast in our bellies, we set forth to make our pilgrimage to the former post town of Ochijuku. But before we arrived at the station, we needed to capture some of the stunning scenery of the Urabandai area. With the clouds rolling across the mountains and lakes, the sun shone through like a little slice of heaven across the landscape. Sadly, I didn't get to get a closer look at Mount Bandai, which in 1888 was the cause of one of the worst volcanic eruptions in modern Japanese history. For those of you that enjoy the rumbling rhythmic sounds of locomotives, you're in luck. I'm going no BGM for the ride. Right now we're going to get on the cat train and we'll see if there are actually cats as station attendants there. It's a cat train. Little cute cats. Sakura, station master cat. We're going to come see you, Sakura. I have a question for you. How do your cats usually spend their time? Well, they're usually up late at night so they're often up late. In the morning, when they come to the station at 9am, we send them off on a 9.26am train and then they come back here and then they go to sleep. So they're free here? Yes, they're free here I should mention, we received special permission to film and photograph Sakura. We're told she gets nervous in front of cameras so there's usually no photography allowed. But if you want her image, there's no lack of merch to choose from. In 2008, the first feline station master was Basu, as in bus, named after the cat bus from my neighbor Totoro. After that, it was Love, then Peach, then the current station master, Sakura. Love, Peach, and Sakura are all related, by the way. There's some lovely artwork of the former station masters and I'm assuming this giant plush is of the original station master, Basu. The train is now set to leave so Sakura is finishing off her work trip for the day. With visiting the cat station off my personal checklist, we headed over to Ochijuku, the former post town from the Edo period. Back then, over 150 years ago, travellers would rest, eat, and shop here. Many of the fast-roofed buildings have been preserved as they were before so you can get an idea of what it would have been like back then. The money shot that all modern-day visitors are going for is up this stairway. And here it is, a great view of the town below. And if you're into people-watching, you only need to back up a little bit and there's plenty of activity. While I would have loved to try eating at one of the shops, we had a reservation at a wappa-meshi restaurant that we had to rush to. So wappa is the round containers and wappa-meshi is the dish cooked in those containers. So instead of chopsticks, they give you a leek. But are you supposed to eat the leek while you're eating the soba? But look, how are you going to... This is... It's good though. Here, look at this. I don't know how you're supposed to eat it. Ah, I got it, I got it, I got it. I wonder if people actually do this, for show. I'll need gum after this. Every time I eat that, I see people take maybe two or three bites. And then they use the chopsticks? Yeah. Perhaps some of you recognize that other voice. It's Loretta from Kamushi-chan. She's simultaneously visiting a different part of Fukushima, but our paths crossed at this restaurant, so we chatted a bit about travel in Japan's countryside, the inaka. And for those curious, I'll put the link to her video in the description. I hear there's a lot of chatter online about over-tourism. But when I'm going to visit the inaka, I don't really see that that much. I don't know about you. I feel like when you go into the inaka, it's almost like that time capsule of Japan is still out there. Back in the day, 15, 20-ish years ago, there was no Google Maps. You couldn't Google where to go. You just had to get there. There probably wasn't even Wi-Fi. And you would just walk and discover and explore. But you were always the one person. The one weirdo walking around. I feel like that's the same vibe you get when you go to inaka. Nowadays, yeah. Other than that, I don't really get a sense of over-tourism unless I seek out crowded places. Yesterday, I visited this little castle. And there's basically no one there. We went to Himeji just a few months before. It was just insanely packed. Shoulder to shoulder, we got stuck in the top floor. Oh my gosh, really? We couldn't get out for 10 or 15 minutes. We were just packed. It's just so much nicer. It's so much more refreshing to just walk and still see places and not have to really worry if it lives up to an expectation. It's just yours. The Japanese people in the stores are used to looking at phones and apps. I feel like five years ago, you would say, do you have this? And they would be like, what are you showing me right now? People are just used to interacting now. It's a lot easier. If you want to get especially to really local places, sometimes there's places that you can't book things online. You have to call and confirm in person that they have availability, they can make a reservation. Yeah, that's for sure. And that's kind of like the fun spots though, right? Yeah, I think that's probably the extra hurdle that still makes it that you can get to these places where there's not a lot of overtourism because they have those hurdles of either having to use a Japanese website to book or having to call in person to confirm that you can get there and paying cash. Yeah, yeah. There's slightly, not barriers to entry, but hurdles. Those little hurdles make it kind of protected a little bit. So, what we're saying is that if you want a chiller, less touristy experience in Japan, a trip like ours in Fukushima will get you that. For example, after lunch, we visited the school for samurai children, Nishinkan, and we essentially had the whole place to ourselves. There's swords everywhere. Katana. First school lunch in Japan. Hondo. And did I mention they have an archery range where you can hone your non-existent skills at shooting arrows? Well, maybe you have skills, but we definitely did not. Do you see the arrow in the middle of the target? Yeah, that was sensei's. The rest on the ground there, those are Akko's. But it wasn't like I was much better. Sorry, I lost. In Japanese, they use the word service to mean complimentary, so we received many rounds of service arrows. Wow, I got a lot of arrows. I got a lot of arrows. Ah, this one is broken. I got it. Thank you very much. That's great. Thank you very much. I can't live here. No toilets. It's a beautiful garden. Despite what you're thinking, the manji symbol represents nice stuff like eternity and good fortune. It was Hitler that appropriated this as a Nazi symbol. At the top of the castle, there's an outdoor observation deck. The view of Aizu Wakamatsu at night from our perch up on the castle was a fitting way to end our day and our trip to Fukushima. As always, thanks for watching. See you next time. Peace. If you've traveled outside of major Japanese cities, what was your experience like? Umai, umai.