Harbour town Sakata ⚓️🛶

#timetotravel Sakata is a gorgeous harbour town in Yamagata, Northeast Japan. Located along the coast of the Sea of Japan, it’s only an hour away from Tokyo by plane, and it’s rich in nature, culture and tradition. During the Edo period, many ascetic mountain monks sought to go under a strict training consisting of meditation and gradual self-starvation, which was meant to lead to self-mummification. This practice is known as ‘sokushinbutsu.’ There is now over a dozen sokushinbutsu left in Japan, and 6 of them are in Shonai (the area of Sakata), which is more than any other region.