HACHINOHE, Aomori Prefecture--After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami ravaged the Tohoku region in 2011, Thomas Kohler walked from Hokkaido in northern Japan to Kagoshima Prefecture in the south, attesting to the nation's safety.
HACHINOHE, Aomori Prefecture--After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami ravaged the Tohoku region in 2011, Thomas Kohler walked from Hokkaido in northern Japan to Kagoshima Prefecture in the south, attesting to the nation's safety.
Now, the 47-year-old Swiss man is back, this time as a travel agency owner riding a bicycle around coastal areas and sightseeing spots in the Tohoku region to introduce its charms to Swiss travelers.
When Kohler was a child, he heard stories about Japan from a classmate who had returned from the country to Switzerland. The stories piqued his interest in Japan and made him an admirer of the country.
When the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011, Kohler was in charge of Japan at a Swiss travel company he was working for. The disaster and the subsequent nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant were extensively reported by the Swiss media. As a result, the number of travelers who contacted his company to book trips to Japan dropped to zero.
“All of the areas of Japan were not necessarily contaminated by radioactive substances,” he thought.
Four months after the disaster, Kohler came to Japan. Spending five months, he walked from Cape Soya at the northern tip of Hokkaido to Cape Sata in the southern tip of the Osumi Peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture.
During his travels, some of the people he met walked with him on some stretches. They also answered his questions.
“There are many kind people in Japan,” Kohler thought.
In 2012, he established his own travel agency in Switzerland. Some Swiss booked trips through his company to parts of western Japan, including Kyoto. However, none sought to visit the Tohoku region.
“Unless I go to the Tohoku region myself, it is difficult to convince tourists to go there, even if I enthusiastically pitch the region to them. I want to convey the cultures and delicious foods of Tohoku on my own,” Kohler thought.
Starting in Hachinohe in southeastern Aomori Prefecture on Nov. 8, he plans to pedal to coastal areas in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, which were damaged by the tsunami, and sightseeing spots in inland areas of Fukushima Prefecture.
Kohler is scheduled to arrive at his final destination, Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture, two weeks later. He plans to post his experiences from the bicycle trip on his blog.