Samurai on horseback, parading through town and competing in contests with a history that dates back more than 1000 years.  That’s what you will witness if you attend the three day Soma Noma-oi Festival in Fukushima prefecture later this month.  A Japan National Intangible Folk Cultural Asset, this event features a parade of 500 armored […]

Tohoku is Japanese for “northeast” and the region occupies the northern area of honshu, Japan’s main island.  Hokkaido is Tohoku’s neighbor to the north, while Chubu lies to the southeast and Kanto to the southwest.  Six prefectures (provinces or states) make up the the Tohoku region: Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata.  Part 1 […]