- 11 things to know before you go
to Fukushima prefecture in Japan.
I'm Chris, this is the Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun, informed and entertaining.
This video is part of my series on Fukushima
and larger series on Japan.
If you wanna see more videos on Fukushima or Japan,
you'll find links in the subscription below.
Each one of the scenes in this video,
I'm gonna be doing in a different part of Fukushima so,
you get to see a bit
of the prefecture as you learn about it.
So the first thing to know is
just some general information about Fukushima
and to start, Fukushima is a prefecture.
It's kind of like a state in the US.
It is the third largest by land area
of Japan's 47 prefectures.
Fukushima is about 200 kilometers north of Tokyo.
You can get here on the Shinkansen,
we'll talk about that in the getting here part.
Fukushima has a population of 1.8 million people.
It's a mostly rural prefecture with mountains,
winding roads, sake breweries, ramen restaurants,
cherry blossoms, hot spring resorts.
There's a lot of great things to do here
and a lot of them revolve around nature and eating.
So, the reason why you wanna come
to Fukushima is for a more authentic experience
than perhaps Tokyo or Osaka or Kyoto
that are full of tourists and everything is touristy.
In Fukushima, you'll be greeted much more
by the local Japanese.
You'll have much more local Japanese experiences
and you'll probably be seeing a lot less tourists here
because only really 2%
of the international tourists that come
to Japan visit north of Tokyo.
Fukushima prefecture is divided into three regions.
The first region is the Aizu region,
this is the mountainous region.
This is where we are shooting most of this video
and this says Aizu by the way.
Instead of just waiving my hands about the region,
I'm gonna show you a little map right here.
We're here in Aizu region.
The central region is called Nakadori.
This is more flat and Koriyama and Fukushima,
the two big cities in Fukushima prefecture there.
This is where the Shinkansen line runs through
and over here on the coast,
this is known as Hamadori region.
This region is cooler and Iwaki is one
of the big cities over here,
it's got a famous waterpark.
And by the way,
the temperatures are generally
gonna be more mild along the coast
and then kinda getting colder in the winter
here in the mountains.
And the second thing
to know before you go to Fukushima is about what to do.
And there's so much to do in Fukushima
that I've broken it out
into its own video,
you'll find a link in the description below
or at the end of this video
to my 20 minute long video about just things
to do in Fukushima.
Fukushima prefecture is often known as the kingdom of fruits
and so there's a lot fruits that are grown here,
different fruits in season.
We are here in winter
and so winter is for strawberry picking
but your season, you can pick what you want
and many of these farms offer places where you can come
and not just pick but you can come
and pick and eat.
This farm that we're at, they charge 1,500 yen.
Whoa I dropped that strawberry.
They charge 1,500 yen
and you can pick and eat as many strawberries as you want.
By the way, there're two varieties
of strawberries in this farm.
There're small ones and there's big ones.
The small ones, they don't grow bigger than this.
They're two varieties.
Aah so, let's see how this little one is.
It's sweet.
It's grown indoors,
they heat this up so it's nice and warm in here.
So if you like fruits,
take a look at what fruit's in season
and find a pick and eat place.
By the way, speaking of eating fruits,
let's go on to the next number thing you need to know is,
what are the things to eat in Fukushima prefecture?
Turns out there's so much great food here that I made
that its own video too.
20 minutes all about the must eat foods in Fukushima.
You'll find a link to that in the description below
or at the end of this video as well.
But what I do wanna share with
you in this video is about sake.
When you come to Fukushima prefecture,
you definitely should drink some sake.
Why?
Because there's over
60 sake breweries in Fukushima prefecture
and actually much of the sake that's made here
is only sold in the region
and so it's a great thing to try when you're here.
Now I will tell you that sake before we came on this trip,
I wouldn't say I was a lover of sake but now,
having sampled lots of sake
and almost every meal here in Fukushima prefecture,
I appreciate more the varieties of different types of sake
and so I would definitely encourage you to try.
There's regular sake, there's fruit sake,
there's sparkling sake and when you're looking at sake,
if you're trying to decide which one is better,
here, let's take a look at one of these bottles actually.
On the back of the bottle, it will generally have a number.
Something like this that will tell you how polished it is.
So this one is 50% polished
which means there's half of the rice remaining
and this one is 35% of the rice remaining.
So, this one's gonna be a higher quality sake.
The lower the percentage number,
the higher the quality because there is less rice left.
You should know when to go to Fukushima.
Fukushima prefecture has all four seasons,
summer, winter, spring and fall.
We are here in the winter
and if you come in the winter,
it is a winter wonderland but Fukushima is quite cold.
But if you like skiing and snowboarding,
you can ski and snowboard in the winter,
you can visit snow festivals.
There's lots of cool things to do in the winter here.
If you come here in the summer,
it'll be hot and it it'll be the rainiest.
I think the best time to come is spring or fall.
If you come in spring, the cherry blossoms will be in bloom,
and if you come in fall,
then you can see the changing of the leaves.
Now your other thing to look out on where to come.
Take a look at some of the local festivals that are in town
and try to maybe time your visit
or your visiting different cities
when they have the festivals.
Ouchi-juku has a snow festival and there's a whole bunch
of other festivals all year round in this prefecture.
So the fifth thing to know before you go
to Fukushima is about getting into Fukushima
and there's a few different ways you can get in
to Fukushima.
The first one, you could fly.
Fukushima has its own airport.
But the airport into Fukushima mostly just has
domestic flights coming from Hokkaido, Sapporo in the north
and Osaka in the south.
So chances are, if you're flying in, like we flew in,
we flew into Tokyo and then we took the train in.
There's two major ways that you can take the train
into Fukushima prefecture.
The one that probably most people think about
is JR Shinkansen.
That's the bullet train, that'll go from Tokyo station
and then there's two stations in Fukushima prefecture,
Koriyama station and Fukushima station.
From Tokyo, it's 80 minutes to Koriyama
or 90 minutes to Fukushima.
Koriyama will probably be your dropping off point
to go to most other parts of Fukushima.
But another train line that many people don't know about,
actually I didn't know about until we came here
for this trip is the Tobu Skytree Line.
They have the Revity express train that you can take.
The Revity express,
it's one train that'll take you from
Asakusa station in Tokyo to the Aizu region
of Fukushima prefecture
which is the mountain region which is kind
of a neat way to get there
and it drops you of in the center.
And there's this one train if
you take the JR way, you have
to take a few different trains
to get into the mountain region.
So if you've taken the Shinkansen
the total travel time with connections
to the Aizu region, the mountain region where most
of the tourist stuff in Fukushima is,
is about three hours and the cost is 9,000 yen.
Now, if you've taken the Tobu line,
it's about the same amount of time.
It's about three hours but it's one train,
you don't have to transfer and the price is about half
of the Shinkansen, 5,460 yen.
Now another option from Tokyo to get to the Aizu region.
You can take a bus.
You can take a highway bus, JR operates highway buses.
They leave out of Shinjuku Station.
They take about four and a half hours
and they cost about 5,000 yen.
So I don't know why you'd wanna do that
'cause for 400 yen
you could take a much more comfortable train.
And the last option is, you could drive.
Actually Fukushima is a pretty rural neighborhood
so if you've ever wanted to drive in Japan,
drive in the mountains,
Fukushima might be a good place to do that.
I would not recommend getting a car from Tokyo
because driving in Tokyo can be kinda crazy.
I would recommend taking the train into Fukushima prefecture
and then picking up a rental car from there.
By the way, one of our favorite rental car companies is
TOYOTA Rent a Car.
We typically rent from them
and you'll find their rental car places all over Japan
by the major train stations.
Once you're in Fukushima,
you'll need to know how to get around Fukushima
and I'm joined by a special guest right here, Labu-chan.
He is the station master
of the Ishinomaki onsen train station
and he told us that really the best way
to get around is definitely to take the train,
since he is the station master.
By the way, if you wanna see more
of him patrolling the station,
you'll see it in my Things To Do video
because visiting him is a great thing to do.
Now, Labu-chan has a chief engineer, his name is Peach.
His kinda tired 'cause he worked all night last night.
But what Peach wants you
to know about taking the trains in Fukushima,
they don't run quite as often here
as they do in Tokyo and Osaka.
Many of the trains only comes once one hour
so make sure to pay attention
to the schedule because you'll wanna make sure you're there
on time for your train.
Hey, you know another way you can get around
Fukushima is by snow shoes in the winter
which is really neat but I recommend
that if you've ever wanted to try driving in Japan,
Fukushima prefecture is a great place to do that.
You can pick up a rental car.
The roads aren't crowded.
It's pretty easy to drive around here.
If you are gonna be driving in the winter,
I'd highly recommend, not recommend,
you need to get winter tyres,
you would need to ask the rental car company
for winter tires
and maybe don't drive if it's like you know,
super snow down pour.
Other options, there's taxis.
You can take taxis though they are not super plentiful
and there's many sightseeing buses
that run through Fukushima
though the sightseeing buses are typically seasonal
so make sure you check the schedule
and then make sure you also get there on time
for those buses because if you don't a lot
of them only runs once an hour just like the trains.
You need to know about shopping.
Some of the great souvenirs
to bring back from Fukushima besides food,
and you'll find food everywhere, are folk crafts.
One of the folk crafts you're gonna
see everywhere in Fukushima prefecture is this guy.
Actually this is the traditional one right here.
This is the Akabeko.
It is a red cow.
You will literally see this red cow everywhere
so this might be the first time.
If you come here you'll see it a lot more, a little red cow,
but take a look at this one.
This is a little priest.
You'll see this little priest everywhere.
There's big ones, there's little ones
and then if we look to your left over here
we'll see painted candles.
See the painted candles have the Akabeko.
You can also get ones that float or you can get tall ones
and see the floating ones right here.
This candle floats in this water right here.
Another craft specialty of the region the lacquerware.
You'll find lacquerware in cups, in bowls, in spoons,
in chopsticks, almost anything you'd want.
And it ranges in price from like 500 yen to 8,000 yen.
And finally, Aizu cotton.
This cotton, it's a fabric that's made here
and it's typical that it will have a lines on it
that'll go in one direction.
You can get these bags,
these are really useful.
I use them to keep my electronics separate.
You can get a koozie.
This one's in my color
and you could even get like scarfs.
You could get coin purses in Aizu cotton.
So when you come to Fukushima prefecture,
if you're trying to look for one place
to buy a lot of souvenirs and do shopping,
Ouchi-juku as a town is a great place to do that.
There's also a great shopping street
by the castle in Aizu-Wakamatsu,
and finally if you're staying in an onsen hotel
they almost have everything you'd ever wanna buy
from Fukushima prefecture right in one spot.
The 8th thing you need to know is about hotels.
If you're looking to stay in Fukushima prefecture,
well you'll find big western business hotels
mostly around Fukushima station
and Koriyama station but my recommendation to you is
to stay in traditional Japanese hot spring hotel known as
Onsen hotels or ryokans.
We stayed in the traditional Ryokan actually
where I'm shooting this right now.
It's a hotel called Okawaso,
in the Aizu Ashinomaki onsen town.
This is one of our favorite hotels
we stayed on this trip.
And so if you wanna stay in a traditional Japanese
hot spring hotel,
this would be one that I'd consider you looking into.
I'll a whole video just about this hotel,
you can check it out later.
But another option is you could stay in guest houses
in the town of Ouchi-juku.
They have little guest houses that are like bed
and breakfast that you can stay in
for an even more boutique hotel experience.
Onsen hotels are like little resort hotels
and I say little because this one's 110 rooms,
it's not like some Walt Disney resort.
But when you come to an onsen hotel,
and you should 'cause I've suggested it for you,
you should plan to check in at the check in time
at 3 p.m. and spend until 10 a.m. the next day.
It's almost like they've got everything here.
They do shows at this particular hotel,
they have like a rice pounding show here,
they have a ramen restaurant,
and then of course they have hot springs
that you're gonna be able to dip into
and we'll talk about that in the onsen section.
But don't just look at onsen hotel as something
that seems expensive
'cause you're just gonna sleep there, you're not,
you're gonna come in at check in time
and you're gonna stay until check out time.
Now before you go to Fukushima you need
to know about onsens.
Fukushima prefecture has over 130 different onsens.
Those are sources
of hot spring water boiling up from the ground
and so there are a lot of onsen hotels here
and we're in the private osen bath
which is really nice because most onsen hotels you have
to be naked with a bunch of other people,
and here we can just be naked by ourselves
for 45 minutes for 3,300 yen, $30.
You do have to be staying at the hotel
to reserve it but it's really nice
and we get this big open air bath all to ourselves,
we get to see the snow, and so I would definitely encourage
you to stay at an onsen hotel when you're in Fukushima.
By the way, if you wanna know more about like,
the etiquette for onsen bathing and things like that,
I've got a whole video to tell you how to do and what to do.
What you do with the towel.
What you do with the bucket and things like that.
So you can totally figure it out 'cause I did.
So if you don't wanna spend the money
to stay in an onsen hotel or you don't wanna go
to public bath 'cause you don't wanna get naked
with other people, another way
of enjoying the hot springs is public foot baths.
Fukushima prefecture actually has a number
of public foot baths.
This one right here that I'm currently feet bathing
in is in the Yunokami onsen station in the Aizu region
and it's free,
the water's hot, it's relaxing,
you should definitely try this.
I feel like this is definitely a only in Japan
and only in Fukushima experience.
And it's particularly best in the snow.
Sitting here in the hot water, enjoying the snow view.
It's February but I can actually have all of my jackets off
to do this because this hot water's
keeping me quite warm.
So the 10th to know before you go
to Fukushima is the answer to the question, is it safe?
And yes, it's absolutely safe.
The nuclear disaster was 10 years ago
and while radiation levels are elevated in the prefecture
from where they were previously, just slightly
and so the radiation levels in most
of the prefecture are similar
to Hong Kong or London which are super safe places
and the off limits zone around
the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
is less than 3% of the prefecture.
It's about the size of the District of Colombia
and you'd have to spend a year in the exclusion zone
to be exposed to a level that's considered unhealthy,
but that's actually off limits
so you wouldn't be going there.
So it's completely safe and a lot
of people wonder about the food.
Japan has enacted strict limits for testing
of radiation in food and their regulations here
are actually 12 times more strict than that in the US
and so all the food
that gets grown in Fukushima is tested
and they make sure it's healthy for people to eat.
And the last ting to know is,
I've got more videos before you go to Fukushima.
You'll find links in the subscription below.
You'll find a couple of them on the screen.
I have a usual farewell that I wish you
but from this video,
I'm just gonna wish you farewell
with the snow from Fukushima.