Sushi Deshi, 1 year in Japan

We went on a road trip for 3 days with Takayama Sensei, Takashima Sensei, Igor Sensei, and Yohei San to Aizu, in the Fukushima prefecture.

Aizu was known to be the land of Samourai, and is quite famous for the story of Byakkotai ("White Tiger force"), a group of 19 teenage Samourais who committed Seppuku, while overlooking their Castle in flames, thinking that they failed protecting it. So it`s a place full of history, especially martial arts history.

We continued our trip going further north, passing by many nice villages, that you would think they only exist in movies.

And this was my first experience of Ryokan, or Japanese Traditional hotel. A tattami room, a nice Onsen (Public bath), people wearing Yukata (light kimonos) all over the place, even outside, some very nice food, Futon prepared for you, that would be some of the features of a Ryokan.  And the usual suspects:

We then went to the area destroyed by the tsunami. It was very impressive to see the damage, a huge boat across the road, some remains of the foundations of houses, buildings upside down... As an example here is a before-after picture, where you can see that the entire forest have been wiped out by the tsunami. There`s only one tree left, that is now being visited by many tourists as a Holy tree.

So it was a very nice trip, and a good opportunity to get to know people a bit more, outside of the dojo.

More pictures of the trip: