November 3, 2008Sarah

Matsushima and Sendai City – So Dashing

Day 2 of 13 Days (Monday)

Woke up late. Head straight to Sendai JR Train Station. We are very hungry (since we did not have proper dinner last night) and “search” for breakfast in the huge train station. Ah-ha, we discover a nice place and the breakfast set is only 400 yen, so much cheaper than McDonald or Starbucks. The set comprises a glass of orange juice, yogurt with honey, pancake with mango sauce. So yummy and healthy!

Our plan for that day is to start with Sakunami (作並，an onsen town with scenery). We take our own sweet time to finish our breakfast and walk to the Tourist Information counter with the aim of collecting my bookmark as well as collecting some travel information. The Tourist Officer woman tells us the train for Sakunami has just left and the next train will be an hour later. She tells us that upon reaching Sakunami station, we need to take a 10-min bus to visit a onsen. Knowing that it’s already 10 plus, we change our plan and go directly to Matsushima (松岛) instead.

The Tourist Office woman still takes her own sweet time to explain to me about getting there when the train is about to leave in 1 minute’s time!!! So we make a dash for the train platform heading for Hon-Shiogama (本塩釜) since we already have our 2-day Marugoto Pass bought last night.

According to the Tourist Office, there is nothing besides sushi shops in Shiogama to take a cruise at Marine Gate Shiogama (海洋之門鹽釜) to Mastsushima. By the time, we reached Hon-Shiogama Station, we are about to make a dash for the cruise centre when I see a promotion for the Matsushima cruise ticket. Yes, it’s cheaper because 3 Nov is a holiday!!!

After the person gives me the change for the tickets, he slowly instructs us how to reach the cruise centre. According to the map, we have to walk 10 minutes to the Cruise Centre :((( We’ve lost some minutes buying the tickets, so we practically have to run for our ferry.

But there’s no signs of direction! Imagine we only have a sketch map, showing us a ‘fish shop’ in Japanese as the only landmark or turning point then we realise it’s a shop selling fishing equipment. So to confirm and re-confirm. We ask a man who leaves the shop :(( After confirming, we run to the Cruise Centre.

We practically stop the ferry from leaving without us. We couldn’t understand/fathom the time interval between the train arrival time and the ferry departure is a mere 10 minutes. If you were to miss this ferry, you have to wait for another hour. However, this place is really “deserted” that we figure we will be wasting an hour here.

Finally, we settle down and catch our breath in the ferry. Hmmm, we see a lot of seagulls because a lot of people are feeding them at the deck. So now we are cruising in Mastushima Bay, one of the three most beautiful sights in Japan. There were about 260 islets covered by pine (in Japanese, Matsu = ‘pine’ while shima = island….so it literally means pine islands).

Initially, we are sitting in the air-con cabin. Later, I decide to take a closer view from the deck, which is noisy as the seagulls are circulating behind. Actually, I don’t think it’s very beautiful compared to some other places (including the other beautiful sight Miyajima) that I’d visited in 2002. Sis says Matsushima looks like Phuket. I figure hundreds of years ago, Japanese didn’t have a chance to travel to Phuket :p

When we reach the shore, we visited Godai-do (五大堂, a small temple on an island which is dedicated to 5 gods that opens every 33 years) and Zuigan-ji (瑞巌寺, a zen temple). Zuigan-ji has a spectacular entrance of tall cedar trees and comes with an entrance fee (no discount hor, i.e what the ticketing woman says.) The 10 rooms are beautiful.

Not forgetting to taste the delicacies, we have BBQ oyster (slurp..it’s succulant), zunda (打豆, green soybean) ice-cream and sasa-kamaboko (細竹魚糕, tastes like fishcake leh) where the eating area provides free hot tea (so cosy). On our way to the train station, we go to Kanrantei (観瀾亭) but never enter it. This is a place for the tai-tais (ladies of leisure) in the old days to drink tea while watching the waves. At a shop near the small train station, I see a shop selling BBQ oyster. So bang, because it’s cheaper and I could get 2 more oysters for the same price :((

When we are back to Sendai JR Station, we dash out and looking high and low for the Loople Bus stop, when we see a Loople Bus, we ask the driver and are told to wait. By the time, the bus comes on schedule, it’s the same driver wat! Anyway, he informs us this is the last bus. Arghhh. The Loople Bus passes by Jozenji-dori （定禅寺通り), a Japanese Zelkova tree-lined avenue and stops at various tourist attractions, such as Zuihoden Mausoleum (瑞鳳殿), site of Sendai Castle (Sendai-jō 仙台城), we are so dead tired that we decide that we shall just complete the ride and not visit the places of interest since we are not confident of getting back to the train station from these places (eh, in the hills or at the mountain top, even one can find a cab, I don’t know how much it’d cost us).

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So we are happy to be back to the city and start to feed ourselves. We have afternoon tea at 5plus. Wow, the cafe has seasonal gelo, I order a grape jelly while sis orders an egg jelly. We also order Hokkaido Milk Cheesecake. Oh so yummy lor.

Then we go to the Tourist Information Office. Yes, I must claim my bookmark wahahaha. I speak to an older Tourist Office woman who is folding origami. Wow so free 😛 She tells me there’s no more bookmark. Arghhhhh. But she aims to please, she suggests giving me a fan, some postcards. I turn her down politely, telling her we are heading for Naruko Onsen and I shall claim it there. Then I ask her a lot of questions for tomorrow’s trip. We sort of plan tomorrow’s trip with her wahahhaaha. Before we leave, we ask her where’s Uniqlo and a good place to eat Beef Tongue. Then she gives us a booklet of discount coupons hahhahahah…..

We buy some warm clothing from our favourite Uniqlo, yes, it’s the day of sales wahahhahaha. On our way back to the station, we see a display of legs @@. Window display of mannequin legs with colourful stockings. Then we have Gyutan (beef tongue) at Date-gyu at the Sendai Station. We order a salt and a soya flavour set. But we find beef tongue too rubbery for our liking though the taste is good. The barley rice is yummy but the vegetable soup is too bland.

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