Iwate– category –

Picture this: 10,000 dancers moving in perfect rhythm through the streets of a small northern Japanese city, backed by an army of taiko drummers whose thunder you can feel in your chest from two blocks away. This is Sansa Odori, and if y...

Picture this: waist-deep, bone-dry powder snow that squeaks under your boots, 21 lifts and gondolas spread across a mountain nearly the size of a small city, and barely another foreign face in sight. That’s Appi Kogen — one o...

Picture a woman in a white cotton diving suit, no oxygen tank, no wetsuit tech, plunging into the cold Pacific off Japan’s northeastern coast to hand-harvest abalone and sea urchin from the rocks below — a skill passed down through...

Picture this: you’re behind the wheel of a rental car, windows down, the Pacific Ocean stretching endlessly to your right. Dramatic 200-meter (650-foot) sea cliffs plunge into jade-green waters below, fishing boats dot hidden coves...

Imagine sitting on a wooden bench beside a rushing mountain river, watching a basket whiz across a rope overhead and land at your feet — inside, freshly made dango and a cup of green tea, delivered from a shop on the opposite cliff by a ...

Rising 2,038 meters (6,686 feet) above the fertile plains of Iwate Prefecture, Mount Iwate is the largest volcano in Tohoku and one of the most iconic mountains in northeastern Japan. From the green fields of nearby Koiwai Farm — Japan&#...

There is a single pine tree standing on the Iwate coast that changed Japan. In March 2011, a 70,000-tree forest called Takata-Matsubara was almost entirely destroyed by a tsunami that struck the town of Rikuzentakata with a wave reaching...

When the Rugby World Cup came to Japan in 2019, Kamaishi — a small coastal city of around 33,000 people in Iwate Prefecture — became one of the competition’s most extraordinary stories. Just eight years after the devastating 2011 G...

Imagine sitting on a tatami mat, chopsticks in one hand, as a server stands over you with a ladle — and the moment you swallow your soba noodles, another portion is slapped into your bowl before you can even draw breath. This is wanko so...

Every spring, Japan goes sakura-mad — and for good reason. But the most famous cherry blossom spots — Hirosaki, Yoshino, Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyoen — can attract crowds measured in the hundreds of thousands. If you want the same soul-s...