Fukushima-ken Visit

I met a fellow ALT a few months ago when she came with her boss to one of our work meetings. We emailed back and forth since, letting each other know what's going on, and finally I got a chance to go visit her up in Sukagawa city, near Koriyama city in Fukushima prefecture. Yes, this is the Fukushima where the reactor is. Life seemed pretty much back to normal in the cities I passed through. Oh, and there was snow! I was pretty excited to see that. No sign of radiation (not that I know what the signs of that would be, truth be told).

The first thing I did on this adventure was forget the paper I'd written all the train info on, at home. Luckily, it was very straightforward (stations further away from Tokyo are much smaller, and it's easier to figure out where you need to go if you're not sure). A little over two hours and about hundred more pages further into my book later, I arrived in Sukagawa and met my friend. The first thing she did was hand me this adorable snack: Totoro melon-pan (melon bread). This is the first straight-from-the-bakery fresh melon bread I've had, and it was absolutely delicious!

She then drove us up to a place called Urabandai, which is the area to the north of Mt. Bandai in the Bandai-kogen Highlands in the northern part of Fukshima, and is part of the Bandai-Asahi National Park. There are tons of lakes and ponds in the area, created from the lava from an eruption over one hundred years ago that flowed upstream into the Nagase River. There is a group of lakes and ponds called the Goshiki-numa (Five-colored ponds) that is particularly famous. Depending on the time of day, the sunlight makes the water appear in different colors. Almost no one was there yesterday since the Autumn leaves have fallen and it's not at its most beautiful this time of year. Still, it was very pretty.

I especially liked the emerald green we saw when the sun came out a little more. It sure was cold though, and, as you can see from the ripples in the water, windy. Near a dock where the hiking trail starts, we sat and fed bread to the huge coy fish gathered nearby. My favorites were some gold ones we saw, though I always like the orange.