First day in beautiful Sendai, Japan 🇯🇵

First day in beautiful Sendai, Japan 🇯🇵

Well, good morning from a windy Yamagata. Windy but sunny. No time for 7-Eleven coffee this morning. I’ve checked out on me way to the train station. Get the train to Sendai. The weather is supposed to be nice and sunny. So, got to check that out. There for two nights, then two nights uh in another city just north of there. So, see how that goes. for now to the train station. Then when I get to Sandai, 7-Eleven coffee [Applause] [Music] [Applause] time. Well, welcome to Sandai, the outskirts of Sandai. I uh just got off about two stops before Sai Main Station cuz I saw on the map that not far from the station I got off there was a 17th century shrine complex and it also happens to be a national treasure in Japan. So I’ve got big expectations. No pressure though. No pressure. So it’s the Osaki Hatchiman Shrine Complex. Nice little walkway tour. Nice lanterns. Now, it was only from the station I got off. I can’t even pronounce the name. I know the Japanese is not good, but I mean this name was huge, you know. So, it’s quite unique as well because we’re not far from the city, but this area is surrounded by woodland. So, it’s a good place to have a shrine complex. Although, I guess it was a shrine complex before the city came along. So, you got the barrels of sake wrapped up in straw. Now, I think the weather forecast was playing tricks with me. It has been a bit sunny since I got off the train. But on Apple weather, the weather for today was just sunn. There wasn’t one cloud on the app. Not one from now until I think 7 tonight. There’s clouds everywhere. So apple weather, don’t trust it. Look at the detail up here, though. It’s incredible. All little designs. Not sure what these lads are doing here, but don’t touch them anyway. Now the sun comes out. Telling you, I should just keep me mouth shut. Just play along with the weather. Every couple of steps there’s a shrine. Suppose that’s why it’s a shrine complex. But there’s even a little map that I could have got at the other shrine back there saying like here’s a guide of of the area for all the shrines. It’s nice though. It is nice. have to say I’m glad I stopped off here instead of going straight to um Sai station because when you do that you’re thrown into the hustle and bustle of a big city straight away, you know, and every city is kind of the same when you get off at the at least at the train station area, you know. I didn’t want that. Now, that was quite spectacular actually in there to walk around. I didn’t record all of the shrines because, you know, gets repetitive, but when you’re walking around, it’s very different than when you’re looking at on a video. It’s very relaxing. Um, I could have came here tomorrow cuz I’m I’m coming back to this general area tomorrow. not exactly here, but the general area. And um but I don’t want to squeeze too much in. I’d rather do what I’m doing tomorrow. Take a bit more time for that. But that should be exciting. Actually, looks very interesting. I won’t give it away, but I I’ll give you a clue. It’s big. Don’t get any ideas now. Um yeah. So, nice to walk around. So, I’m going to slowly make my way out of the complex area, stroll around, and um I’m going to head into towards Sai City. No, I can’t check in unfortunately today until I think 5, which is very late, but it’s going to be the same in the next place I go. Five doesn’t matter. At least like it’s different now in Sendai in a city. You can do more. But like I’m going to Morioa after after Sendai and I think that’s a bit smaller. So I’m not sure. I don’t mind like me bag is not it’s not heavy or anything. I’m not carrying around that much. I travel very light but still there’s two reasons I’m going to Mario. First reason is that the the lady that owned the Rioan that I stayed in the last three nights said to me, uh, Moroka is beautiful. So, she’s Japanese and old. So, she has experience, I’m sure, of traveling around and seeing different places over the years. Um, so I’m taking her word for it. Oh, second reason, I found they have a park run on Saturday morning. So, I’m going to go for that anyway. Might as well. I think that’d be interesting just to say that I’ve done one in Japan because all the other ones are down in Tokyo and Kyoto. So, this is the only one in this area like as far as you go down to Tokyo. There’s nothing else at least not official uh like park runs on their website unless probably local runs that are set up. But, um yeah, so kind of excited for that. We just hope everything goes smoothly and I get there. Isn’t that just gorgeous? Lovely cherry blossoms growing over the entrance. So, as I was walking down from Osaki Hatchiman uh shrine complex through the main street, I noticed a sign when I went down a bit further that said um castle ruins. So, of course, I took a touring this way. I came from up there down uh over the bridge walking straight on there. There is a museum here. Site of Sendai Castle. Okay, so I’m going to go up here. This is where the castle is. But a very nice walk down along a lot of uh cherry blossoms along the way. And I think there’s a school uh right beside it because lots of school kids coming out with their class for a walk. So it was nice now beside the river as well. Um so going to head up and check this castle. Well, I was wondering why there was so many students around when I was on my way to the side of the sandai castle. But just when I got up to the top of those steps, there was a sign that said uh Tohoku University campus. So that makes sense as to why they’re everywhere. It’s lovely. Uh lovely blossoms here. I don’t really want to walk up because there kids out having their lunch or something. But I suppose technically it could just for a second. Very nice though. The colors of it. And this might be the best one I’ve seen. There’s three of them. Why cherry I think. Well, that’s all right. Students didn’t give a crap anyway. They’re too busy yapping. So, now I can head to the site of the castle rounds. It’s a good location to build a castle up here because it’s sitting on top of a hill. So I suppose at that time that was the advantage. That’s probably why it was built up here to take advantage of the topography just behind these bushes here where it’s raised up where that tree is. That used to be the site of the financial office of the Sendai clan. Uh back from the what 1600s. But of course who was up to his old tricks and cleared it away? That mage fell. As you’d expect, it’s very windy up here. That statue was Date Masamune and he’s the guy that built the castle, ordered it to be built. He didn’t build it. He was the leader of the Sendai clan at the time. Very nice statue overlooking the city of Sendai. And a nice cherry blossom right beside it where all of the tourists just getting their photos taken. But there is a shrine here that I’m going to take a look at. There’s also a little pond here that it said uh in the middle of the Maji area area era. Um a German teacher was here visiting and he taught the locals how to ice skate. So apparently that pawn is the birth of ice skating in Japan. Go figure, huh? Everyone hanging their fortunes. I think if it’s a bad fortune, you tie it here for it to be cleansed. Okay, here we go. 110 120 130 140 and it is cold. Nice. Mission success. Now we get to the sad part of Sendai. See out here out in the Pacific was 70 kilometers out there on the tour to March 2011. There was an underwater earthquake and it was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan and the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded um since records began. And it caused a 40 m tsunami. Imagine that. 40 m to come along. Came in land. And unfortunately almost 20,000 people lost their lives. And the residents that were down here in this district, they only had an 8 to 9 minute warning to get out from the moment the earthquake hit. Very sad. There’s still, of course, that’s 20,000 people dead. Still a few thousand missing, unofficially dead. Um, but very sad. And of course, if you go all the way down here south down the coast, that was where the nuclear reactors at Fukushima were damaged from that same earthquake, that same tsunami. Very sad though. But they’ve rebuilt. Look at that now. Like, I mean, big city. Looking at it from here, you think nothing happened. Oh, unfortunately that’s 20,000 people losing their lives and then their families affected by it. Very sad. 40 m. That’s hard to hard to grasp, isn’t it? A wave. Well, I just came back to the city and look what I stumbled across. They’ve got all sorts of food. Fish, tacos, burgers, chicken, steak, garlic, shrimp, everything. And I think there’s even more over here. Look at that though. Isn’t that lovely? I had looked to v visiting I had looked to visit a food market. All right. But this wasn’t the one I was looking at. When I was looking at was actually in like a food hall where all the vendors gather. But look, there’s food everywhere. Blossoms everywhere. They’ve got everything. They’ve got chocolate bananas, takiyaki, hot dogs, candied apples, everything. Noodles, bento boxes, chips, beer. This is heaven. Got a bad taste in me mouth from the last food market at that temple to be honest. With that dango, the conjac dango. Oh, dango. Roasted fish. Grilled fish. I mean, chocolate bananas, [Music] oysters, squid, octopus. So, I’m not getting anything yet. I’m going to come back here later, I think, cuz there’s a little sign that says from sunset till 10:00 at night, the illumination is on. I think that’d be pretty nice to come around and get something then. Now, it’ll probably be an awful lot busier, but I think it’ll look a lot nicer. Might not show up as well on the camera, though, but I’d rather see it in person than on the camera, to be honest. So, I’m going to go to the other food market that I saw if I can find it. I hope it’s not too far from the train station and from the uh hostel. I don’t think it is. I think the middle of Sai is fairly compact. Man, it’s sunny and warm. So, while I’m here in Japan and when I see these food markets, there is one thing I want to try. I do want to try that um grilled fish. Problem is, I’m not sure how much of it you’re supposed to eat. Many you’re supposed to eat the head. probably. Yeah. What about the bones? There’s so many whatifs. So, I’ll ask if I’m buying it. I’ll just ask to eat the whole thing. Now, they might tell me, “Yeah, start laughing at me when I do it, but we’ll see.” Anyway, that’s the plan. Don’t know if I’ll do it today, but I’ll do it before I leave Japan. So, the Sendai Food morning Food Market is supposed to be here. And this says I’m close. So, it should be down here and to the left. I should be able to see it when I get there. There’s fresh [Music] oranges. It smells lovely. That’s not it. Don’t worry. There’s more. more. I hope seeds and nuts. More veg, meat, fish. Croat. Everyone wants the croette. Oniri. More meat, fish, eggs. Oh, it smells amazing here. My god. Fish. Fresh fish. Eel. Octopus. I don’t know. There is cooked food, but I just don’t know what it is. More fish. Fish is popular, of course, here because we’re right at right at the seafront. Dried fish inside. It goes forward or back. There food everywhere. Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [Music] Incredible. So crispy. I just got a potato croquet cuz it was too much pressure. There was too many people behind me. I wanted to ask the woman what each one was. But yeah, too many people, too much pressure. I would have had to take up people’s time to translate a few things. So, it was very delicious. So, I’m very hot. Like, I can feel my tongue burning. She told me it was going to be hot. Then when I sat down to eat it, the chef kept kind of looking at me through his little hatch and he said, “Good.” So I had to actually start eating it like not let it cool down. It was good though. It was very good. Japan might be very modern, but it’s also very old. Still have DVD rental. It’s not even Blu-ray. It’s just DVD. That’s a big [Music] section. The only reason I went into Yodabashi camera there was cuz I’m still on the lookout for the gutches from the JR train lines, but they didn’t have them. They had other ones, but didn’t have that one. The one that makes the noise when you press it. It’s a little key ring just as a good souvenir for when I leave Japan. Every time I press it, I can think of being on the train. No luck. Still, the mission continues. I’m still a little bit early to check in. And from what I’ve read online about the hostel, it’s fairly strict 5:00. So, um I’ll wait till just after 5:00. Of course, I realized there’s a little temple uh around the corner from the hostel. I had to come and check it out. And I don’t regret it. Check this place out. Well, apologies for no continuation of the video. Last night I went, there was a German guy staying in the host, so we decided to go down and get food, so I didn’t want to start recording. remember having a bit of a laugh, which is what you should do when you’re away. Just take it all in. Just enjoy other people if they want to and if you want to. So, until the next video, take it easy.

After making my way from Yamagata to Sendai, I discovered some cool shrines and viewed the city from above!