Japan has a lot to offer and impresses visitors with a whole range of things that could not be more different. Ancient traditions on the one hand, dazzling modernity on the other. Sometimes you can't keep up yourself, the trends change so quickly, but often maybe you shouldn't even always pay attention to them. And then there is this special playfulness that you encounter everywhere in the Land of the Rising Sun. And you don't just encounter this in the now well-known “kawai culture”, which makes everything extremely cute and sometimes almost overwhelms you. This idea does not stop at local traditions either and can now be found all over the country.

Almost every community has created its own character as its mascot, which you seem to come across on almost every street corner. Some of these mascots are of more modern origin, while others have a somewhat longer tradition.

The latter applies to the Akabeko - the red cows that originate from the city of Yan-Aizu and can now be found everywhere in the Aizu region. I have grown very fond of these Akabeko over time and I am not the only one in my small team. In the end, I was only too happy to be infected by this spirit, which probably emanated from the smaller ones among us in particular.

And there is even a small park dedicated to the Akabeko, the red cows, at the ourskirts of Aizu Wakamatsu. This is actually a small playground, which we didn't want to miss on our last visit to the region.

Even though it was quite rainy and wet, I wanted to stop here at least briefly and have a look around. The little ones were of course thrilled with my idea and would have loved to run off straight away to let off steam. But the large puddles suggested that it would be better to take things a little slower.