Tohoku is Japan¡¯s ¡°deep north,¡± through which the famous Zen monk and haiku poet Matsuo Basho walked in 1689, writing one of the most famous travelogues in world literature, ¡°Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).¡±
In the 17th century this was a wild and dangerous region, roamed by bandits. Today, most of Japan¡¯s 120 million people still live on the flat, coastal plains, while the heavily forested mountains of Tohoku (which includes the prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Yamagata, Miyagi and Fukushima) are a place to get away from it all, to experience nature and relax at one of the region¡¯s numerous onsen (hot-spring resorts).
Like Basho 300 years ago, I stop off on the way to the mountains at Matsushima, a seaside town in Miyagi Prefecture fronting a bay scattered with hundreds of pine-covered islets. For centuries Matsushima has been appreciated as one of the Nihon sankei, the ¡°three scenic places¡± considered the most beautiful in all Japan.
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