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.