Favorite Place: Tohoku, Japan

My heart will always belong to Tohoku (Northern Japan) because so many of the places I loved are gone. This is a photo I took in 2003, modified in Photoshop. I lived in the Fukushima Prefecture (first in the town now known as part of Minamisoma and then in Tomioka where the nuclear power plant was damaged in the earthquake) from 2002-2004, and I will never forget my dear, dear friends there.

This rice field was a few minutes from my home stay family's house in Kashima-machi (now Minamisoma), on the way to the beach. I'm pretty sure it's not there anymore, but nowhere else compares to Japan for me.