Kakunodate Samurai Village

For the past 5 weeks I have been traveling all over the place, both in Northern Japan and the United Kingdom.  One of the places I had a chance to visit was Kakunodate, an old well kept village of samurai houses.

Above is Kakunodate station, the main gate to the samurai village.The 

The houses are easy to find, but once you get there information in English is difficult to find.

 All around the city is statues and monuments.  I'm assuming the one above is for reading or academics.

Each house had beautiful gardens and were connected between houses with paths or bridges.  You could also go back out to the main street and travel between houses.

Another simple garden above.

Each house belonged to a famous samurai family in the past, but again most of the names were in Japanese, so I was not really sure who lived there.  I even think I went up to a few houses that were not part of the the tour.

The tatami room inside one of the houses.

A popular dish in Kakunodate is mochi in tube shape with miso paste on it.

Another old school tatami room.  This is an interesting samurai house because the 12th generation of the original family still lives here in the back room.  I guess by day they stay in the back room but at night they come out and live in the rest of the house.

The tradition of thatched roofs are still alive here.