Our journey from Nara to the north-eastern city of Sendai would be our biggest train journey of this holiday, over 800km. From Kyoto to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Sendai. At speeds around 300km/hr, the distance just seems to fly by! All our bullet trains to date have been uncrowded and very comfortable, but this last sector on the Tohoku shinkansen was absolutely full (not all skiers, either), and it becomes clear that one possible flaw in bullet train car design is not enough space for luggage if the carriages are full or nearly full.
The transition at Tokyo Station was messy too. The shinkansen terminal is getting a major makeover, probably for the 2020 Olympics, and it was the closest we've seen to chaos in Japan. But the trains were all on time, as they come and go sometimes with only 6 minutes between them, and heavy crowding on the platforms. We didn't have time to take a leisurely lunch at Tokyo Station between trains, as Alan recommended, but managed to buy some snacks on the platform to take with us.
Tohoku Shinkansen departing Sendai under the alert eye of the platform guard,
Sendai is a bustling, modern city, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture, the historical centre of the Tohoku region, and we were to stay here 3 nights en-route to Hokkaido. Our hotel, thanks again to Alan Gibson, was the Metropolitan, extra convenient because it's right at the railway station, and with maybe the best bathroom we've encountered (amongst a lot of very good ones). The Metropolitan hotel chain seems to be affiliated with JR.
Sendai Station with the Metropolitan Hotel on the right.
Some important live-cross on local TV.
Sendai is a coastal city which suffered greatly in the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011, and we got a sense of that when we visited Matsushimakaigan, a village on the edge of Matsushima Bay. We got there in about 40 minutes on a local JR train on the Senseki Line, the underground segment of which we discovered was the first in Japan, open and running a year or two before the Tokyo Metro. It was hard to figure out exactly which train from what platform to get to Matsushimakaigan, but the staff at Sendai station tourist info office could not have been more helpful.
Matsushimakaigan is not a pretty town despite its idyllic location by the bay. It's a mess of ordinary buildings, and the whole thing is aggravated by heavy commercial traffic on the one road through town. The waterfront looks like a battlezone of construction, which we assume to be repairs after the tsunami which knocked out anything low and loose along the coast. A shrine we saw (at sea level) was closed for post-tsunami restoration.
Another childrens' guardian, with little statuettes carved into the rockwall (is it sandstone?) behind.
Interesting Edo style building in Matsushimakaigen, was or is a shrine?
The tourist website for Matsushimakaigan downplays the damage caused by the tsunami because the town was protected by the offshore Pine Islands, and far enough away from the Fukushima nuclear reactor just south of here, but we think the damage was substantial anyway, and it's easy to envisage how awful that day would have been, standing here.
View of Matsushima harbour.
We did a touted cruise of the Pine Islands. It lasted just under an hour. The islands were interesting and scenic enough, in pleasant sunlight, but the cruise was disappointing in two unfortunate respects. Firstly, having paid for the cruise, you don't discover until you are on the boat that there is a surcharge to go "first class" and go to the upper, open deck. This sting is not advertised at the ticket office in Japanese or any other language, and leaves a sour taste. And while there was bilingual commentary (we wonder if they turn the English on for us, the only westerners on the boat), it was totally bland. All the islands we passed were named, and for the one or two inhabited island, we heard the population, but there was nothing on the geology, how these strange islands which poke high out the water were formed, or how they fared in the tsunami.
Our cruise route on Matsushima Bay.
Characteristic appearance of a Pine Island, steep cliff of maybe sandstone, big pine trees on top.
Sightseeing boat passing by oyster beds.
Freakish fissures in this Pine Island.
Details of the Pine Island cliffs, they look like sandstone, but we wouldn't know from the commentary.
The commentator described this feature as a "dragon's head".
This Pine Island has a population of 300.
The bay containing the Pine Islands was quite busy with boat traffic, and oyster beds were everwhere. Accordingly, when we got back into town, we lunched on oysters (a winter specialty, eels in summer) and drank local beer.
After an oyster and beer lunch, what better than a fresh, warm rice cake.
When you're the only westerner in town, you're bound to be asked to participate in a visitor survey.
Tricky footbridge to Godaido Hall.
Godaido Hall, a tiny shrine on a tiny island.
At Matsushimakaigen, our train back to Sendai.
We got around Sendai using the tourist loop bus, a concept that seems to work well in all the medium sized cities we've been in. You can take single rides, or buy a day-pass, which usually costs between two and three single rides. One stop we got off at was Aoba-jo, the remnants of an Edo era castle (built by feudal warlord Date Masamune from 1602) destroyed by firebombing in WW2 and never restored. Ramparts have since been repaired, and a museum constructed.
The Sendai Loople tourist bus at Sendai Castle.
Restored torii gate and rampart at Aoba Castle.
About all that is left of Aoba Castle.
Great view of Sendai as seen from the ruins of Aoba Castle, over the Hirose-gawa River.
Imposing statue of Date Masamune who built Aoba Castle from 1602.
But the site has a magnificent view over the city, and from this vantage point we saw in the distance Sendai Daikannon, a goddess statue, which doesn't appear in any of the tourist information for Sendai, but it is 100m tall, one of the tallest in the world. Someone told us that it's about an hour away by bus. We read that there's a lift to take tourists to the top, and the statue depicts the Buddhist Bodhisattva Kannon who has a wishing gem in her hand. Buddhism is very big on wishes.
Way in the distance and framed by the mountains, the tallest goddess statue of Bodhisattva Kannon.
And we visited the Osaki Hachimangu Shinto Shrine. Off the bus we had to climb a staircase of 100 steps that would make Joanna Lumley proud, but it proved to be an important day here, with a Setsuban festival going on, attracting huge crowds. Setsuban is basically a bean throwing event, where after a ceremony and chanting, Fukumame (lucky beans) are thrown by elders at the crowd who try to catch them. The repeated chanting is Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! which means "Demons out! Luck in!". Adults take it very seriously and try to catch the lucky beans in open bags, and in a separate throwing event, snacks and toys are thrown by the same elders for children to catch. We hope all the children got something good, because they had waited a long time! We caught our own beans, and felt lucky to have seen this ceremony.
Vividly decorated Osaki Hachimangu Shrine (1607), a National Treasure.
Children, momentarily distracted by fireworks, wait not so patiently for the lucky bean throwing.
The elders of Osaki Hachimangu throw lucky beans.
No comments:
Post a Comment