Tamakawa, Fukushima

The Suikō Line stops at Izumigō Station, a small halt that has stood beside these fields since the 1930s. A few minutes east, the Abukuma River moves through the middle of Tamakawa-mura, quiet and wide, threading between low hills that include Kannondake. The village itself was formed from the merger of two older settlements, Izumi and Sugama, and that doubled origin shows in small ways — two station names, two sets of local loyalties, a landscape that shifts slightly as you move from one end to the other.

At the roadside station known as Kobushi no Sato, the produce stalls carry sarunashi — a small, grape-like wild fruit native to the region — alongside whatever the surrounding farms have brought in that week. The nearby Fukushima Airport, opened in the early 1990s, sits improbably close to all this: a full-scale runway emerging from agricultural land, its terminal holding an unexpected Ultraman exhibition inside. The airport park sprawls across a wide area adjacent to the runways, hosting seasonal festivals that draw families from across the district.

Older traces persist alongside these modern structures. The Miyanomai burial mound, dating to the latter half of the seventh century, is a designated prefectural historic site with a stone chamber still intact. Across the village, the Gōrintō stone tower at Sugama Tōfuku-ji and the sharishi stupa stand as quieter markers of Buddhist practice layered into the agricultural plain. The unmanned Kawabeooki Station, opened later than its neighbor, sits near Kawabe Hachiman Shrine — a local focal point that has likely outlasted several rounds of administrative reorganization. Otsujigadaki, listed among Japan's notable waterfalls, lies within reach along the Abukuma, audible before it is visible.