***Disclaimer: Please note these posts are retold as interpreted. They also reflect my own personal views and opinions and not those of the seminar, its professors and lecturers, or affiliations. In addition, these photos and stories can be quite tragic and gut-wrenching, so proceed at your own risk. Some of these photos I did not watermark, because I feel it would be a good thing to pass them on.***
So after a very, very long bus ride, we arrived at Hourai Kan, a ryokan where we spent the next 2 nights. Both the ryokan and its okami-san (manager, in this case, the inn owner) have an incredible story to tell as the ryokan was a designated tsunami evacuation center due to the area's history of tsunamis. On the middle left window on the 3rd floor is a sign that says, "Tsunami Evacuation Center."
The Kannon statue in Hourai Kan's 1st floor lobby. This gorgeous room was ours. It is on the 2nd floor and was submerged as the tsunami rose all the way up to the third floor of this building! Needless to say, the first floor was completely destroyed. The reason this ryokan was a designated evacuation area for tsunami because no tsunamis in the past had ever reached this far up the area.
