As we travel down the road toward the 20-kilometer (12-mile) exclusion zone, the entryway is blocked by half a dozen police officers and a large sign flashing red lights. The sign reads: "Keep out. Don't enter."
This is Japan's exclusion zone. No one lives here, a place where 78,000 people once lived. Nearly a year after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, the exclusion zone remains off-limits due to high levels of radioactive contamination.
My goal today is to see the town of Tomioka, a farming and factory community which sits in the southern section of the exclusion zone. It's a town that was once home to 52,000 people.
It's hard to imagine that many people once lived here, as we drive into the center of town. That's what strikes you first about the exclusion zone -- what you can't see, the people. Even though I know the residents have been evacuated, it is still eerie to be in a town where it seems the people have simply evaporated. Bicycles near a bus stop lie tipped over, as if owners forgot to retrieve them. Cars sit in a shopping center, seemingly waiting to have groceries loaded into them. A 7-Eleven convenient store sits in disarray, the items shaken from the shelves from the March 11 earthquake. These communities are complete ghost towns, frozen in time. (CNN)