Leaving Sendai and heading to Morioka, Japan ๐ฏ๐ต
Just checked out. Going to head to the train station now. Not getting a train. I’m getting a bus. But the um bus station is outside the train station. So have them. You can’t buy a ticket online as I said. So just have to hope that they have some there. I think there’s a bus every hour and a half. So should be all right. If I miss one of the buses, I’ll just wait around and get the other. So on we go to Morioa. So, got my bus ticket, then walked around at Sendai station for a little bit. Got me a little stamped. But, uh, man, Sai Station is like like an airport. It’s just food everywhere. here. It’s like a food market in the main center. It’s crazy. And then when you come outside, it’s vending machines like this where you can get little macarons or else a t-shirt if you want a t-shirt or else a dinner. I don’t know what it is. This guoza. Anyway, I’m on the hunt for more retro video games while I’m waiting for the bus. So, I’ll see how it goes. And if you’re ever walking down the street and you say to yourself, you know what? I’d love some insects just to snack on and then you’ve come to the right place. Hornets, crickets, worms, cicadas, bamboo. Well, it’s not bamboo. That’s maggots. Crickets. All for the great price of a,000 yen. And then you can wash it down with a regular drink. I won’t have that today. When I was in China last year, I had um I had grasshoppers. That was nice. Not going to lie. Spicy. They put chili powder on them and they’ve deep fried them. But yeah. Well, arrived in Morioa. Fairly easy journey. 2 and 1/2 hours, one stop for a toilet break, but I didn’t need it, so I stayed on the bus and slept. Um, going to make me way across the bridge towards me guest house. Can’t check in until 5. So, we’ll have a little walk around, see what’s going on. Did you know that this river up until the 70s, no fish could swim in it because it was too polluted from the mines that are nearby? But they’ve cleaned them up now and apparently the salmon that come up are very, very good [Applause] quality. I’m just walking up to the site of Morioa Castle. Don’t know what’s left of it. Don’t know if it’s still a full castle. Haven’t a clue, which is why I’m walking up here. Don’t even know if you have to pay an entry fee. I don’t think you do. If I do, I don’t have change. I don’t want more coins swinging around in me pocket. We’ll see. Yep, that’s all that’s left. Would you believe it? Now, of course, now of course that’s not the castle. The castle did take up this space around here. So, these walls were part of the castle. So, the castle would have been here, the entry into the castle. And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, “Oh, Dan, bet you’re going to tell us, “Oh, it was lovely castle.” And then the Maji period came along and he told them to tear it down. The usual story that you’ve told that every castle site. Well, what if I was to tell you you were wrong? No, I’m only messing. You were right. Of course, that’s a story for nearly every castle here. It’s actually kind of warm here today, but very cloudy and you can’t when you’re down at the bridge near the train station. When you look up the river in this direction, you can see the lovely mountain, but it’s mostly clouded over today. I think it’s too late in the day. Oh, wait. It’s over here. You might be able to see it through. It’s very dark, though. Hold on. Try and get a bit of a clearer view. Don’t know if you can see it. It’s just here between this tree and this building. It’s gigantic. But I’d say on a clear day, maybe tomorrow will be clear. I don’t know. Maybe the afternoon. I think it might be clearing up a bit, but say if you could see that whole thing, it’d look amazing. Since I arrived in Mario, the time has actually went fairly quick. suppose by the time I get off the bus and kind of got me navigation ready to know what way to go. Um so I can check in in just under an hour which is good. Going to check in um just after 5 and then I’m going to head down to there’s a book off not too far from where I’m staying and that’s got maybe retro video games. The ones earlier were terrible. They were they had about four games in them in bad condition. And so I just left it in butter. Not that hungry yet. I’ve eaten a bit today. I’ve eaten um got an egg sandwich at 7-Eleven when I was waiting for the bus. And I got um oh wari mochi. So the mochi that you it’s it’s covered in a different flavor powder. I got a matcha one. And you can drizzle over like a sweet sauce over them. It’s quite nice. But um they’re quite filling like the they are rice flour. So rice is always filling. No sign of the market being open today. Maybe it was open earlier or maybe it opens later. I don’t know. So the park run tomorrow is just not too far from the station. It’s on the other side of the river, but um starts at 8, which is an hour earlier than the ones in Ireland start. Not sure about any other countries, but so I’ll be there for just to be safe, I’ll be there a quarter to eight. I’ll uh check on Google Maps later and just to get an idea of how long it takes to get down there from where I’m staying. Um might do a little jog on the way there just to kind of warm up. Oh, there’s a morning market that opens from 5 until 8 or 9 in the morning. So, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to go down there early. Obviously early cuz it’s only open. And um maybe get a bit to eat there, something just to get me going for the park run. I’ll see if I wake up um on time for that. But that means I’ll have to get up about 6 just to be safe. I’ll have everything ready to go for a run. But I think 6 is a fairly good time. Just means I have to get to bed and rest bit earlier. And here they’ve got a little natural spring only around the corner from where I’m staying. Buried right over here is Teesihara. Now, before I got here, I didn’t know who Teeshi was. I still don’t know an awful lot about him, but from what I’ve read up on him by walking through this cemetery. He was the first commoner elected as uh prime minister of Japan. Now, it’s commoner as in outside of the Miji ruling classes. and he’s from here and he moved to Tokyo when he was a teenager and he had a few different kinds of jobs, you know, old jobs and then he became a diplomat and worked his way up to prime minister. But in 1921 outside of Tokyo station, he was stabbed. He was 65 years old. He stabbed and he died and his final wishes were to be buried here at Digg. Um, so it’s nice that you can kind of learn this stuff without having to look online. I just learned it by walking around and reading up and translating a couple of the things that were around. Um, so as always, there could be a couple of bits of information that are a bit skewed because translate is not always perfect, but it’s still quite interesting what you can learn by just going around walking and reading and not having to Google everything. It’s nice to be able to just naturally take in the information. So, when I get to me guest house of a couple of missions, mission one, plan where I’m going next cuz I still haven’t clue. I have a couple of ideas the same like I usually do, but not 100% sure. I don’t know whether to go to a smaller town or go to a bigger city. I like to mix it up a bit. Um, but I’m only here for two nights. Anyway, second mission is to figure out the park run tomorrow morning. Well, I’m all checked in now. Nice little place. Um, uh, very clean. The minute I went in, I had to wash my hands and stuff like that, but then again, maybe that’s smart. Um, cuz I’ve been on a bus and in the train station and all. So, can’t blame the guy. But, uh, yeah, checked in. It’s fine. I have one room me. It’s, uh, the futon beds. So, the room is like a long rectangle, so you have one bed at each end. H, which is fine. But I’m on my way now to the Morioa Hachiman uh shrine. Now it’s getting dark. I don’t know if it’s going to be lit up. Um I’m I was actually just going to the um secondhand shop to look for the video games, but when I looked on the map, I saw uh the shrine or it’s a Shinto shrine from oh god, I think it’s the 1600s, but it was rebuilt. So check that out. Now I just met my roommate when I was putting on my shoes. He was checking in. Um the host said, “This is your roommate.” And I said, “Oh, hey.” He said, “Hi.” He’s a westerner. And I his accent, you know, I said, “American?” He said, “Uh, no, Canadian.” I was like, “Damn, don’t want to make that mistake. I made that mistake before.” But, uh, someone from New Zealand, I said, “You’re from Australia.” And they didn’t look too happy. They they laughed it off, but they didn’t really look um like they were too impressed. But like, come on. The accent for me is the same. It’s cuz I’m not used to it. I just hear it and I think American. On my way here, I stopped off at the 16 Buddha statues. I’ve heard about it before I got here, but you can see them all all lined up all around. I’ll take a couple of proper pictures on me phone of them, but you can see them. And I think this memorial was set up at the time because there was in Awatate uh there was a lot of um famine at the time. So, this is kind of like the memorial ground for there was there’s actually a playground here now, but there was a shrine or a temple here, but that burned down years ago. Um, which you often see in Japan. You often see like the the death and life kind of intertwined. Like even at temples or graveyards, there’s often like a school or a little primary school or um kindergarten right beside with a playground. So it’s kind of, you know, they kind of go hand in hand here, which I like. I mean, life and death, it’s all one, isn’t it? As I get near here, the wind gets strong and starts raining, of course. Typical, isn’t it? Pretty dark clouds as well around. So, it’s no surprise. I think this is the way that was for cars. There won’t be many people here if it’s open, I think. Um, just see how it goes. I hope it’s lit up at least because it’s getting dark. It’s not much use if it’s dark. Okay, it is lit up. Let’s check it out. There’s a nice warming feeling when you come up to these places and they have the lanterns uh lighting. It’s hard to get it on camera because the glass is very reflective. Each of these little small shrines has a different animal in them. I’m not sure what exactly they represent. There’s all sorts of snake, rabbit. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the year of the certain animal or not, but it’s quite nice. So, I’m not 100% sure. I don’t know as much about Shintoism as I know about the main branch of Buddhism. Um, so I’m not really certain what all these things kind of represent. I’ll have to do a bit more research on it. Frog made it to book off out of rain. Now I’m just going to take a little gander around. Well, I would say that was mission successful. A nice boxed copy Super Mario Kart for the Super Famicom or Super Nintendo as we call it back home. Oh, what a steal. 900 yen. Oh, heaven. Jesus. Might go back there tomorrow and have another proper look. Well, I got me food and 7-Eleven on me way back from the uh retro game shop. So, that’s it now for today. Going in, going to eat, going to plan the next few days and go to bed and get ready for an early morning. So, I’ll catch you bright and early or dark and early.
Unfortunately it was my last night in Sendai and thankfully the journey to Morioka went smoothly. With a nice bonus at the end of the night ๐
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