Riding my bicycle along the eastern edge of Fukushima City, I turned my camera to the east and took photos of the mountain range there.

The sign says, “Cycling Road.”

If I were to cross over this river, the city becomes much more countryside.

And also, east of the river there is a mountain range that runs up and down the prefecture. (south—–north)

This mountain range on our east is what separates us in Fukushima City from the coast, and also from the Pacific Ocean.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So instead of explaining it, I drew this not-mathematically-accurate-but-good-enough-for-our-purposes map of Fukushima Prefecture.

You can see that there are LOTS of mountains in Fukushima Prefecture. (Note there there are more mountains in real life than I have drawn on the map. My hand got tired of drawing little triangles.)

Also note that there is a mountain range between the east coast and us in the big cities of Fukushima City/Koriyama City. The nuclear power plant which melted down is located on the coast.

The formally-titled “Exclusion Zone” is the area that was declared to be unlivable due to high radiation. Its occupants were forced to abandon their houses and leave immediately. (Although it is important to note that they STILL own their homes and their land. If a person pokes around inside a home or business without the owner’s permission, it is trespassing.) (Also please note that my map here is VERY VERY VERY approximate. My map is NOT accurate in its depiction.)

I’m hoping that my hand-drawn map can clue the readers of this blog into the locations of places.

Have a nice February. 🙂