On the drive up to Tohoku it has become a tradition to stop at the very first rest stop on the Tohoku expressway and take a team photo in front of the beautiful flowers laid out there especially for such occasions. A kind Japanese man took this photo for us so these are all the members of our team.
Another tradition we have always faithfully observed on these trips is to purchase a cup of coffee from the Excelsior coffee shop, especially to enable the driver to stay focused on the road. Laura and I took advantage of the extra big cups to keep us going. Laura is the official videographer for our final vision trip to Tohoku.
Of course, wherever I go I am looking for beautiful flowers. Today I found this Iris in the city of Ayashi. In Japanese Ayashi is written using two Kanjis and looks like this. 愛子 The first kanji means “Love” and the second one means “Child”