CHERRY BLOSSOM & HOT SPRING

Organized group Photo Tour to Tohoku, Japan (6 people)

9 days tour – April/May 2018

In the past month of April, our photo tour to Tohoku, “Cherry Blossom & Hot Springs 2018” took place. We organized a photo tour for a small group of 6 participants from different countries: Spain, Israel and The United States, and different ages from 29 to 82 years old! We are very happy to say that the tour was very successful in spite of the multiple languages and age difference. We believe all participants had a great time!

Akashi Travel cherry blossom photo tour Japan

The six participants from the Cherry blossom & Hot spring photo tour organized by Akashi Travel. Spring 2018. ©Akashi Photos

Our main goal was to photograph cherry blossom trees in different locations throughout the northern part of Japan, a region known as Tohoku. We basically started from Yamagata city and from there we drove all the way up to Aomori, the northernmost prefecture in the main island of Japan, during the 9 days of the photo tour. Here is a small photo-diary of our adventure!!

DAY 1 ~ ZAO

Israel, one of the participants, getting a close up of the huge cherry blossom tree with the typical Japanese transparent umbrella! ©Akashi Photos

Tina, Akashi Travel’s tour leader and umbrella holder, assists the participants to the tour in every sense! 🙂 ©Marc Cases

Even if the weather were against us, we believe that it is always possible to take advantage of the situation. No matter what, there is always a way to take interesting photographs. And often, pictures come out more interesting than perfect postcard picture weather. And this was the case. Without rain nor fog we wouldn’t have got this nostalgic cherry blossom picture!

In spite of the light rain and thick fog, we still managed to take beautiful pictures of cherry blossom trees up in a hill, on the way to Zao. Probably, without the fog we would have missed this nostalgic and romantic look of the picture! ©Akashi Photos

Once in Zao we walked around the small village with its little hot spring wooden houses here and there, and all the steam coming from pipes everywhere. At dusk, with the rain and the fog, pictures turned out mysterious, as if it were a movie set! In our tours we always try to take pictures of the amazing blue hour at least once or twice!

Blue hour at its best time, orange street lights and a man walking by, what else could you ask for? ©Akashi Photos

After shooting under the rain we got our retreat. This is the wooden hot spring of our ryokan in Zao! Hinoki bath and blue water! Relaxing time after a long day! ©Akashi Photos

DAY 2 ~ YAMADERA

The next day we visited Yamadera temple, an amazing Buddhist temple located on a hill. The stone path of more than 1.000 steps that leads to the top is as beautiful as the amazing view of the valley that you can enjoy from the top. This place is definitely a must in Yamagata prefecture!

Cherry blossom petals start covering the ground at the very bottom of Yamadera temple drawing a beautiful pinky natural carpet! ©Akashi Photos

Along the 1.000 steps that lead to Yamadera temple we can find many small sculptures of Buddha and jizos (children and traveler’s protectors). The long path is as interesting as the view from the top. ©Akashi Photos

Sakura in a small river on the way to Naruko from Yamadera. ©Akashi Photos

DAY 3 ~ KAKUNODATE

Another hot spot for cherry blossom viewing is the samurai town of Kakunodate. Along the river there is a long row of huge cherry blossom trees, a perfect scenery to practice our skills with landscape and nature photography.

Cherry blossom trees in Kakunodate. ©Akashi Photos

Marc capturing a low point of view of sakura flowers with his smart phone. Any type of camera is good to capture the beauty of cherry blossom trees! Some of the participants had big DSRL cameras while others used their smart phone as the only tool to photograph throughout the whole tour! ©Akashi Photos

Cherry blossom at Kakunodate. ©Akashi Photos

After our visit to Kakunodate we headed towards our third ryokan, lost in a deep valley in the mountains. Even though the hotel wasn’t far away from Kakunodate town, while we drove up to Nyuto Onsen Village, and as we were approaching to our final destination, snow started appearing beside the road.

This is the aerial view of our “fairy tale” ryokan with thatched roof old buildings at dusk, all surrounded by snow. We were provided with boots and ski poles to go down! This was a big surprise for everyone, even us! ©Akashi Photos

DAY 4 ~ LAKE TAZAWA

The Lake Tazawa is a caldera lake and the deepest lake in Japan at 423 meters. We stopped there to photograph the transparent crystal water and Shinto shrine on the lake.

Torii, Shinto Shrine Gate, of Gozanoishi Shrine on the Lake Tazawa.

Gozanoishi Shrine on the Lake Tazawa. ©Akashi Photos

On the way to the next ryokan we made different stops to photograph cherry blossom and the beauty of the Japanese landscape here and there. One of the best things of our tours is that whenever we find anything worth shooting, we can just stop the mini van and take the picture.

Here all participants photographing the landscape! ©Akashi Photos

This is Jose on the road, always willing to reach the next stop, and specially the next restaurant, since he really enjoys Japanese cuisine! ©Akashi Photos

There are many aspects that make our photo tours to Japan special, but definitely one of them is food. Japan is probably one of the best countries in the world to enjoy raw fish as well as wild vegetables cooked in a million different ways. And it is not only about the food or how it is cooked, but also how it is displayed to the guests. It is art in Japan. So, we take food very seriously!

Kaiseki dinner in one of our carefully selected ryokans for this spring tour. The beauty of the dishes is just … breathtaking! ©Akashi Photos

DAY 5 ~ HIROSAKI

Next day was the climax of cherry blossom photo session! Hirosaki castle and park are one of the most famous spots all over Japan to view and photograph cherry blossom trees. This year we were lucky enough to get there at the best time of the whole two weeks that this natural phenomenon takes place! Outside the castle sakura petals were already falling, covering the inner moat of the castle with a pink carpet. Inside, sakura were at its full bloom!

Hanaikada, flower rafts of cherry blossom, in the inner moat of Hirosaki Castle. ©Akashi Photos

Here we have two of the participants enjoying the park at its own peace. Hannah taking a rest while Israel couldn’t stop photographing everything around him! ©Akashi Photos

Cherry blossom lighten up in Hirosaki Castle with full moon. ©Akashi Photos

Cherry Blossom along the inner moat of the Hirosaki Castle are lighten up and people enjoy Hanami on the boats. ©Akashi Photos

The whole team (except for Marc who took this picture) after the night photo shooting! ©Marc Cases

DAY 6 ~ Mt. HAKKODA

After such an intense day full of Sakura, cherry blossom, we headed towards Hakkoda mountain, still covered with snow. We decided to go back to shoot nature, rivers and naked trees. Take a look at the following pictures, taken the next day, and not too far from the city! Japan is just amazing, you can enjoy “hanami” (cherry blossom viewing) at the same time that you can go skiing, all within 50km!

Israel, the most energetic photographer in our group, in action! ©Akashi Photos

Group photo!!!! ©Akashi Photos

Rose and Israel, the two most passionate photographers of the tour, taking advantage of every little moment to take pictures, even from the van! ©Akashi Photos

Wonderful swamp near Mt. Hakkoda. ©Akashi Photos

Reflection of trees in a swamp near Mt. Hakkoda. ©Akashi Photos

DAY 7 ~ TOWADA CITY & OIRASE RIVER

After so much nature we dedicated a couple of hour to culture, stopping by Towada city to visit Towada Art Center. This museum has the peculiarity of allowing visitors to take pictures in most of its gallery space, which turned out to be a lot of fun.

Oirase river was our next destination, again a must for nature lovers and photographers in general. In the river we practiced slow shutter speed photography with filters to capture the flowing water.

After Oirase River, we arrive at a ryokan lost in the valley without electricity. But nothing impede us from taking pictures!!

When the sun goes down, the only light this ryokan has are oil lanterns and the moon … a very special experience!!

DAY 8 ~ Mt. OSORE

Finally, we arrived at our final destination, Osorezan, Mt. Osore, one of the three most spiritual mountains in Japan. We find this place so special, peaceful and somehow out of the world.

To make our last night really special, we actually slept in the temple, had vegetarian dinner like the Buddhist monks and woke up at 6:00am for prayer. It took a long time to reach to this isolated temple, but it was definitely worth it!!