Last week, during Mike’s visit to Japan, he and I took a trip up the northern half of Japan’s main island, Honshu (本州). The area, known as Tohoku (東北), tends to be one of the lesser visited areas in Japan but still offers some stunning scenery and a full compliment of shrines and temples.

Despite one missed bus and many hours spent in travel centers we managed to visit many places in such a short time. The whole journey took us through Sendai (仙台), Hiraizumi (平泉), Hachinohe (八戸), Hakodate (函館), Aomori (青森) and Hirosaki (弘前), reputedly host to the most beautiful women in Japan.

While we were away, Mike kept a diary of our various exploits and, undoubtedly, he will condense these into a far more detailed posting at some point. I’ll post a link here as-and-when he does.

Sadly I failed to take many representative photos during our excursion. You can, however, be sure that a link will be posted to the few I manage to salvage.