Adventures in Japan

Day 27: Sendai and Matsushima

We got up nice and early this morning so that we could be on the shinkansen well before the morning rush. It is quite easy to fall asleep on the shinkansesn. The only problem with falling asleep on the shinkansesn is making sure you wake up before your stop. I am totally not mentioning this because we missed our stop. Because we totally didn't. Carla is too awesome to let that happen.


Our stop was Sendai. I remember next to nothing about Sendai. We did not spend a lot of time in Sendai, we spent most of our day in Matsushima.

Japan is a big fan of lists, and of ranking things. They rank everything. There is a list of 'the 100 most scenic streets in Japan'. There are also the 'Top 3 Scenic Areas/3 Great Sights'. These are the big three sight seeing spots in Japan, the most beautiful spots in all the land. One of them is near Kyoto, yet we never made it out to see it. Another is Miyajima, which we saw just a week or two ago. The last is Matsushima.


Shima, as you well remember, means island. And Matsu means pine. So: pine island. Or pine islands, Japanese has no differentiation between singular and plural. (And really, I am simplifying horribly because both matsu and shima have multiple meanings, and there are multiple kanji that can mean either. Japanese is both fun and easy!)


There are hundreds of small islands in the bay that have been eroded over the years into all sorts of interesting shapes. You can take a tour of the bay and take pictures of some of the more interesting islands. But it is a very Japanese tour, meaning the boat just zips through all the highlights, never stops, rarely slows down. You have to have your camera at the ready.


And your shrimp snacks. One of the 'highlights' of the cruise, is feeding the seagulls. They follow all the tour boats, knowing that they will be fed. They will pluck the food out of your hand, whilst in flight.

Kind of cool but, since it involves birds, sorta scary.


The cruise was good. The sights were seen.


More sights than we had expected. In addition to the islands cruise, there were a series of caves that were once used in religious ceremonies and such. They were all green and dark and mysterious.



Also mysterious: my foot pain.

You know how sometimes you just step wrong? You don't stub your toes, you don't trip or slip or stumble, you just put your foot down (maybe a little too hard, but that is all) and then there's a jolt of pain. Not a big jolt, just enough to notice, just enough to make you wonder what you did to make your foot hurt. We've all had that happen right? Well that happened to me yesterday. And my foot hurts today. The top of my foot. I don't like it.

But I am sure it is nothing.