Matsushima Bay (📍google maps) — one of the Three Views of Japan — around 260 pine islands, best seen by boat. Zuigan-ji's cave cells were carved by monks in solitary meditation. Every August 6–8, Sendai Tanabata fills the downtown arcades with some 3,000 hand-made paper streamers. The bay oysters are at their best October through March.

Zao Snow Monsters (📍google maps) — wind-driven ice coats the trees until each becomes a hunched white figure in the fog. The Zao Ropeway carries you up to them, best from mid-January to late February. Yamadera temple: about 1,000 stone steps; Matsuo Basho walked here in 1689 and wrote one of his most famous haiku. Yamagata grows more cherries than any other prefecture.

Konjiki-do (📍google maps) at UNESCO-listed Chuson-ji — built in 1124, gold leaf and lacquer on every surface, holding the mummified remains of three Fujiwara lords and the head of a fourth. Geibikei Gorge: a flat-bottomed boat between 50-metre limestone cliffs, the boatman singing a folk song on the way back. In Morioka, wanko soba is refilled after every bite until you put the lid down.

Namahage (📍google maps) — on New Year's Eve, men in demon masks visit Oga Peninsula homes asking whether lazy children live inside. A UNESCO-listed ritual, documented since the Edo period. Nyuto Onsen: seven inns in old-growth beech forest, each with its own springs, from milky-white sulphur to clear. Lake Tazawa runs a blue between turquoise and cobalt that doesn't reproduce in photographs.

Nebuta Festival (📍google maps) runs August 2–7 — illuminated warrior floats around five metres tall, and millions of visitors over the week. Then Hirosaki, about 45 minutes south: 2,600 cherry trees around the castle moat, fallen petals covering the moat as the blossoms fall in late April. Plan for one, come back for the other.

Bandai Plateau (📍google maps) — 300 lakes from Mt. Bandai's 1888 eruption, cobalt to emerald on the same trail. In Aizu-Wakamatsu in 1868, teenage Byakkotai samurai saw smoke over the town, believed Tsuruga-jo had fallen and took their own lives. The castle was still standing. Their graves on Iimori Hill still draw visitors. Ouchi-juku: a preserved Edo-period post town of thatched inns.