Tohoku Caravan Day 1: Kickoff, Travel, Dairy Farm

Start of the Tohoku Tea Relief Caravan: Hanamaki – Morioka, Iwate Pref.

花巻～盛岡・岩手県～震災復興お茶キャラバン

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Report

Today was mostly a travel day. We arrived from the Kansai (west Japan) area via plane to Hanamaki Airport in Iwate Prefecture, and picked up a few volunteers including our overseas manager, Ian, at Morioka Station.

This area is in the center of the prefecture behind mountains. Beyond, the snow covered mountains is the Sanriku Kaigan area that was hit pretty hard by the tsunami. In our ten-person van, we drove through the snow covered mountains, and stopped off at our partner for the Jan. 5th event, the dairy farm, Yamachi Rakunou Gyunyu (Free Range Mountain Dairy, yamachi.jp).

After meeting with Yoshizuka-san from yamachi.jp, we had an amazing dinner in their wood heated house. Yoshizuka-san is amazing. One of a handful of free range dairies in Japan, he spent nearly forty years developing his farm in this remote area, living in a pre-fabricated house poorly insulated against the wind and cold for 24 years, and living in without electricity for 10 years.

Powerful.

…and probably the best milk we have ever had. If you raise your cattle in the most natural way possible, without chemicals, without unnatural feed…you get some pretty delicious milk. Not a lot of quantity, but very delicious. We wish you could taste it!

Route Map

Hanamaki Airport – Morioka City
Morioka City – Iwaizumi Junior High School (Central Point)

Thank you to the following coordinators

(Japanese websites)
Xiaoxiang Maeda-san
Color Therapist Hisako Kawamura
ARIV Hideki Furutate

Where we are staying

Fureai-land Iwaizumi

PHOTO GALLERY