Back in Iwate
Hello again! I have just come back from my annual study trip (called Gasshuku) with my professor and classmates; an annual trip somewhere for 2-3 days to learn about something not necessarily connected to our study. Last year we went to Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture to look at pollution from a century old mining operation and the subsequent cleanup, and this year we went to Iwate Prefecture up in the far North-East (the second most northern prefecture on the east side of Japan) to go to Rikuzentakata, which was one of the towns most hit by the 2011 tsunami. I have had slightly bad luck with my gasshuku experiences in that this year and last were both to places I had been before - admittedly last year was to look at something new, but this year in February I had been to Rikuzentakata to do more or less the exact same thing! Obviously the tsunami and earthquake was a significant event that affected an enormous number of people, but I'm slowly beginning to think that in terms of s