Tohoku is cold and snowy in winter, but its people and culture are warm and generous

The ancient Samurai mansions with their exhibition of armours and artefacts were interesting, but we kept getting distracted by the snow falling outside. Our dismay at the raindrops that greeted us when we disembarked from our bus in the Samurai district of Kakudate had turned into sheer delight as it turned into snow that got heavier and heavier. The Japanese garden in the compound of the old Samurai mansion was soon blanketed in white and we simply couldn't look away.

We were in Tohoku, which literally means North-Eastern region, at the north of Japan's main island of Honshu, on a trip organised by the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO). Sendai, the biggest city in Tohoku, is only an hour-and-a-half away from Tokyo on the Shinkanshen bullet train, but this remains an underrated destination for tourists, which means that (for now) it is blissfully free from crowds.