Sendai 仙台
29th - 31st October
The last leg North of our journey through Japan is to Sendai, the capital of the Miyagi Prefecture set up by the ruthless domain Lord Date Masamune in 1600.
‘Why are we going to Sendai?’
A question that a few people have asked us and one that has been at the back of our minds for a while now. Described by Patrick as ‘it’s just somewhere that people live and work. Not much to see there’ and more or less dismissed in TLP in one paragraph that highlights the proliferation of trees and the fact that ‘it has a nightlife district that is impressive for a small city’, Sendai is only really famous for being almost completely destroyed by fire bombing in WWII and being close to the massive tsunami and earthquakes that hit this area in 2011.
The answer is that the first rep that we spoke to at inside Japan used to live here and he recommended for inclusion in our itinerary. It also fits with our desire to see as much variation as possible during our trip to Japan and a craving for places that are a bit off the beaten track and therefore less full of rude tourists.
Finding our hotel was really easy as it is the tallest building in the city and only ten minutes walk from the station. Collecting a ⭐️ rating in TLP, this luxury hotel has a rack rate of around a third less than the Classic Station Hotel Nikko and is around three million times better.
The room was so comfortable and had spectacular views to the East and South with the Pacific as a backdrop and the city spread out before us.
A beautiful sunny day added to the satisfaction that we had made the right choice in coming here with memories of any discomfort in Nikko now long gone.
By the time I had walked off lunch in search of a knife shop, it was evening so we went in search of some ‘surprisingly exciting nightlife’ with the assistance of our last guide for the trip Miyama. It wasn’t really that surprising nor was it terrifically exciting but the maze of tiny side streets leading off the inevitable covered mall provided an endless amount of tiny eateries that each had so few covers in that it was hard to understand how they all remained in business.
Our guide had pre booked one such outlet where we act deep fried chicken bits and folded over omelet washed down with some very good local sake. We then wandered up and down the narrow lanes picking a couple of other places to stop for beer, more chicken on sticks and gyoza. Miyama was more used to showing Japanese business en around the city and her English was limited. She knew enough to express her disbelief at our aversion to ‘anything from the sea’ though.
It was good to have her showing around though because otherwise we would not have entered some of the places we went into. Everyone was very friendly and interested to talk with us. It was a happy distraction from the sometimes dubious hygiene standards of the kitchens.
The tour finished with the photo opportunity snap and further proof that tour guides are rubbish at taking pictures!
Next morning we bought a two day pass for all local transport and headed off to find the giant wally trolley bus that looped around the city’s highlights.
There may not be many western tourists here but there are plenty from Taiwan, India and China. We found out later that the small airport here caters mainly for cheap flights from each of these countries.
We found where Masamune’s castle was before it was bombed to oblivion in WWII.
And found a photo of what it could have looked like.
And a statue of the main man who, it appears, liked to go around with slice of a giant water melon on his helmet.
A quick look at the rebuilt temple then back on the tourist bus that circled around the top of town.
It felt like hard work finding places of outstanding interest in the city and we wondering again ‘why are we going to Sendai?’
As a last resort we called in at the architectural award winning mediateque museum come gallery come library.
It had some pretty cool spaces internally and an interesting display showing the devastation on the city caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Remarkably this building remained almost unscathed.
After a late lunch and a partially successful knife shop visit we headed back to our nice hotel with a bottle of wine from the shop next door. Due to the lack of tourism and the remoteness of Sendai everything is as cheap as it’s going to be anywhere in Japan. I was amazed that the bottle of Bordeaux that I bought was less expensive than it would have been in an off-licence at home.
Glorious sunshine awaited us on our last day in Sendai which was perfect for our planned day trip Matsushima which apparently ranks in the top three must see places in Japan! Whether it is first, second or third in this ranking I don’t know and neither do I know what the other two places are or indeed who put the list together in the first place but we needed something to justify coming this far North so off we went.
We are finding transport links pretty easy to navigate now and made our way out to the port on the local train without any issues.
Our Sendai pass got us a little bit of discount for the ferry tickets and also an upgrade to the top deck seating. Wow!
Relaxing in our ‘luxury’ seats watching the marine world go by was a pleasant way to spend an hour in spite of of the loud crackly tannoy talking us through the formation of each of the weatherworn rocky islands. Each of these is apparently world famous.
This one is ‘world famous’ for looking vaguely like a head with a hat on.
And this rather elegant one is ‘world famous’ for the noise that the wind makes when passing through the chambers. It wasn’t windy so we couldn’t hear anything.
We gave ourselves a little pat on the back when we got to the mainland in Matsushima bay when we saw the long queue of people waiting to get the boat back to the train station at Hon-Shiogama. Our boat out had been blissfully quiet.
We couldn’t see that the sea facing promenade was lined on the landward side with busy souvenir shops and cafes so we opted to turn right along the coast and walk out to the intriguing outcrop of land that we had spied from the boat on the way in.
Entrance to the bridge that lead to the small island was ticketed. The process of getting was a perfect summary of how Japan works;
First you have to use a machine to obtain a bit of paper. This is so that you don’t pass money hand to hand with another human which seems to be a social faux pas. In situations where a machine isn’t available then a small plastic tray is used to put your money on and reused for any change that you might be due. In this case the machine wasn’t behaving properly so one of the two humans present stepped forward to help select the right button.
Second, once you have the ticket, you take one pace forward to interact with the human that helped you use the machine. That person, dressed in a special uniform of course, checks the ticket that they helped you get out of the machine. There is another human there in the same uniform whose role is unclear but presumably their job is to check that the ticket checker is doing their job properly.
Third you walk through the entrance past a desk which is behind a glass screen. The desk has two more humans dressed in slightly different and evidently senior uniforms. I have no idea what their job is.
The cost for entry was 200¥ that’s £1. How this arrangement is sustainable for the business is totally beyond me but, as I say, it does seem absolutely typical of this country. It stems, I think, from an inbuilt sense of purpose in every citizen’s psyche. Like ants in a colony every member has their role set and without question it seems that role is completed with pride, satisfaction and joy. It seems to be working though as Japan has half of the unemployment rate of the UK with around double the population.
Walking around the beautiful little island of tranquility was the best value 200¥ we had experienced in five weeks and we were starting to understand the acclaim that Matsushima enjoyed.
Back on the high street we steered away from the busier tourist hotspots and took a gamble on following a sign that said ‘Bakary’ hoping that it was just a misspelling and not someone’s shrine.
We found ourselves in the untroubled sleepy backstreets of this small town with a bakery and a great little cafe at the end of one.
Our Google route back towards the train station took us past the main event of the town, the shrine and cemetery of the Date clan. As it was getting on in the day now, the larger groups of visitors had dissipated so we had the whole area pretty much to ourselves.
With caverns hollowed out of the rocks these memorials were like nothing else that we had seen in Japan.
We nearly missed these gardens altogether as the entrance from the was discreet and not particularly inviting. They turned out to be the best that we had visited.
Entsuin gardens were first laid out in 1646 at the instruction of the second feudal warlord of the Sendai clan, Date Tandamune. He was grieving the tragic death of his nineteen year old son Date Mitsumune who had been rumoured to have been poisoned whilst serving the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo. The support of Sendai was critical to Edo in maintained the peace so funding from the capital was provided to help complete the gardens.
Beautiful in their simplicity, the different areas are laid out to always draw your eye around the next corner of path or water enticing you in to explore.
Moss is king and carefully manicured.
The mausoleum for Date Mitsumune was built after his death in 1646.
It contains a statue of him dressed in formal nobility costume astride his white stallion.
The mausoleum at the very end of the gardens holds the memorial stones of the clan that continued through the Edo period.
By the time that we had explored all of the garden it was practically empty and as we left it was being closed for the night.
We made our way to the station and returned to the city for dinner exhausted but very happy with our great day out to Matsushima.
After our third night in Sendai it was time to move on. We were a little sad as, having wondered for so long whether the journey North would be worthwhile, we had now discovered the lure of this city and felt content here.
The hotel had been exceptional, our best yet.