Star Wars Celebration Tokyo and Japan 2025 Tour Day 7
[Music] Good morning. We woke up early this morning, ran over to the Orex car rental, got the car, drove about half an hour to the Saigio Nomodosi Matsu Park, I believe it is. And the reason we’re here is really it’s because of that pavilion and the view that it gives you when you go over there of Matsushima the islands. It is fantastic. We just finished up with the the overview or the overlook and now we’re going to a secondary overlook that’s in the same area. It’s just right across the way which is kind of cool. The area is just so serene and gorgeous. And as I walk through this cherry blossom tunnel that’s like fantastic. There’s just cherry blossoms everywhere. And I am very much looking forward to a cherry blossom viewing that we’re going to in uh future days. Spoiler alert. It is super windy, so I don’t know if you could actually hear me or not, but hopefully yeah, this is uh we grabbed our car and came over here. It’s been really awesome. But we’ll check back in in a moment. I want to go see what’s over here. So, back in a second. And welcome back. We are now on Oshima finishing up at Saigo Modoshino Matsu Park. We walked up to the very tip top where there was a cannon goddess available for us to see tree there. Yeah, we uh took in the beautiful sights, grabbed a few more photos. It is really pretty over there. Actually, everywhere here is really pretty. And then we came over to a parking lot and walked over to Oshima Island, which we are currently exploring right now. The island’s actually really pretty. This is probably the smaller version of like the Matsushima. I don’t know if Matsushima is the chain or if it’s the single island with the red bridge that we’re going to be crossing. It’s actually right behind me or to my right now, I guess. And so, we’re just chilling on the island. I think I’m going to take my drone up here in a second. Try to get some better shots. Yeah, we’ll uh check back in a moment. Oh, wow. So, wait before we before I leave you, this uh this island has all sorts of cool little areas like that where it’s just these carved out areas for for like Buddha stones maybe or Buddha statues. Really neat. They’re all over the island. Um, the island’s not that big and even though it’s like Oshima, like sounds like it’s large island, it’s actually the character for O is not big. I think it’s Oshima, not Oshima. So, it’s not the extended O for large like Osaka. Anyhow, we’re going to continue walking around this place and then uh yeah, we’ll uh make our way to the next area. Check back in a moment. And welcome back from Oshima. We have walked over to the port where we just got off the boat. We took a quick cruise for 1,000 yen. Went around the entire Matsushima Bay. Saw all the various islands. Very awesome. It’s funny cuz it’s warm in the sun, but it’s chilly in the wind and in the shade. So that’s the type of weather that we’re having right now. The boat was packed. It’s funny because it was 1,000 yen to get onto the boat, but if you wanted the the quote unquote green seats or like the better seats, uh the second floor, it was an extra 600 yen. But what was cool is we could actually just stand outside and you could actually get probably the best shots of the place. I ended up doing that for the most part while uh on the boat. And then now that we’re here, Ben’s getting a quick snack over here at a little uh oyster place. And then we’re gonna go get lunch right now, which is right down a little ways. Anyhow, we’ll uh check back in in a moment. Oh, the whole reason for being on the boat is to be able to see all the islands up close from like instead of being out on land or on shore. Pretty cool. There is a ton of tourists here for a Monday, though. that that is to to take note. But anyhow, check back in a moment here. And welcome back. We are now walking the famous bridge here. I forget what it’s called. Futarasan, I think it is. Futa something. I could actually find out in just a moment here. Anyways, we went to go get lunch and the place that I planned out for lunch was closed. The reason it was closed is because there was five tour buses that were eating there. So, they’re by reservation only. Fukarat Bashi is where we’re at. Quickly kind of just walking around. There are more food places. So, we ended up just walking to a fish market and getting a sushi fish bowl, a or like a chishi bowl. Two of them. Ling got another guan or beef tongue bowl. We got some more um fried oysters as well as grilled oysters. It was delicious. After eating, we walked over to the Zuigi Temple to go see it. But because there was some time loss, we ended up going to the entrance, seeing that it was 700 yen to get in. And because we couldn’t actually spend any time there, we decided not to go. This is where we’re going to spend the majority of our time walking around this island. I mean, this is the reason why we came to Matsushima to begin with. So, Zuanji Temple is very important apparently and is actually really pretty from what we saw on the outside. We walked around the park in front of the temple. That was really neat. So, we just did a loop and then made our way over here to kind of finish up our time here in Matsushima. And so, yeah, once uh once I’m walking the opposite way on this bridge, I’ll check back in check back in in a moment. Welcome back. Still on the island. Did a complete loop. And uh I’m headed I’m out of breath. Headed back towards the entrance where the bridge is. We were able to go all the way out to the viewing platform, make our way around, come all the way back while checking out various um viewing platforms. Super interesting this area. I understand why it’s one of the top three like beautiful places in Japan. It just is so pretty here. So, that being said, I am hoofing it because I wanted to be out of here by about 3 3:00. It’s 3:00 right now. Probably take about half an hour to get back to the car. So, there’s a little time that we lost trying to make up for it in the drive. This whole area, it’s crazy. I was just in a park that had all these origami figures that were stringing around in a garden and it was called an origami garden. So very crazy. There was also just so many great looking platforms to really just admire the ocean. I mean, like that right there behind me. I don’t know how much of that’s coming through, but I have plenty of B-roll I just throw on here. Was going to throw on the throw up the drone, but unfortunately I don’t have enough time. And this is definitely an area that I’m okay with coming back to. Sendai as a whole. That is the area is amazing. Really good stuff. And the walk is is is great. This is totally worth the little amount of money that it costs to cross the bridge. So unlike the bridge in Nico, this one’s actually worth paying for. All the views are magnificent here. It’s really fun to walk around and and check everything out and just relax. Although I do feel a little bit rushed this time around. Wasn’t all that bad. I don’t know where Lynn and Ben are, where I’m supposed to meet them, but we’re definitely have to start getting Heading on out here. Anyhow, like I said, there’s the bridge. Checking back in. There is definitely one more check-in because we’re going to an amazing place right now. And I hope to get there while there’s still some sunlight. So, we’ll check back in in a moment here. And hello. I am 2 hours away from the Fukarashi as well as Matsushima. I’m in Genzan. This is an amazing, if not magical place. It is freezing. There’s snow all over the place. There are p pockets of warmth though in the onsen areas. So I’m standing in front of my onsen. And then in the background right there on that bridge, that’s actually a foot onsen ashi. And so you can go use it if as you please. The ride here was really uneventful. 2 hours of driving up the mountain into the snow and then we finally got here where I then parked quite a distance from here. I mean, so about a 10-minute walk that way, but still it’s downhill to get here. So, it’s going to be uphill when we’re leaving tomorrow, and that’s going to kind of stink. We got here, checked in, super easy. Just wrote a few things down, got our room. They actually took all their luggage up for us. And we got here at about 6:00 and dinner was at 6:30. So they said we will call you when when dinner is ready and you could just come into this special room which they did. We had a seven course meal which had various courses starting from like a main appetizer type platter moving on to shaboo shaboo with uh some wagio and we also had um gosh what was it like a stew uh uh tofu stew or not tofu uh mushroom stew a mushroom miso soup with a bowl of rice. We had soba. There was this interesting fish dish that both Lynn and Ben weren’t too fond of. I thought it was all right. Uh and then there was kind of this meatball thing that we ate. The food was amazing. Seven courses is a lot of courses and we’re all really full by the end of it. Oh, at the very beginning they did uh splurge a little and give us some watermelon sake which is famous in the area apparently. That was amazing. That was delicious. And so we finished up dinner. Dinner was a 90minute ordeal. Starting at 6:30. We ended at 8. At 8:00 we went back up to our room, grabbed some stuff like the camera. And then I just started walking around to kind of take photos and a little bit of video. Very little video. And it’s just to see the kind of magicalness of this place like the mystic. It it’s just such a crazy cool place and I learned of it from anime called Love Hina or Anihina depending on if you’re watching the Japanese or the American version and I could see where they get a lot of the inspirations from. The actual onen that’s in the anime does exist. I just don’t know where. So, and signal, you know, not surprisingly is pretty bad out here. But yeah, I just wanted to make sure I did that one last check in. And this time it’s not from the hotel room. Uh although speaking of hotel room, why don’t we go ahead and take a quick uh room tour and check it out. All right, here we are at our Onsand Resort. We came up those stairs, came around to this room. We are actually in room number five. The onen here is actually private, so you get to use the um the bath by yourself when you’re in there. And it’s actually genderless. So, in this first kind of entryway, they have the towel hanger. And then we have water, which is kind of nice. We have a sink. And then this should be a toilet, which it is right there. Let’s see. There we go. Pretty uh fancy toilet for a onen place. This place is called a Yanada onen. So, got a good shot of the exterior already. We made it here in record time. This is the living space which has um currently set up for like a living room setup and then later on they will make this into the bedroom. There is a sliding door right here. The AC controls right here. It’s 24° in here currently. This is where the bedding is, which looks good. We have the AC up there. Then just come over here. We have more seats, uh, actual chairs for older folks typically to sit in. We have all of our amenities and everything right in here. The obies for our yucatas should we choose to wear it. Oh, they also provide hoppies. So, you have a little coat. We actually grabbed our yucatas on the way up. This is the tea set typically in every room. There you go. They did provide some snacks which is pretty awesome. And then as we go over here to the artisan area where you’re supposed to admire the painting and the way they set up everything. I do believe that they’ve set this up more for tourists now. Uh, I believe he said the phone number, yeah, it was 11 for the front desk. We have a TV and a safe. This is actually the back wall. And if we open up this, it shows a window of just behind the place, which is pretty crazy looking. Oh, we have some people coming down from whatever is up there. Went for a hike, apparently. We’ll explore more of the town in the morning. Um, then on this side, another window. Looks like it goes straight into what the bathing area of the place next to us is right there apparently. Um, and there’s just a little alleyway there. But yeah, goes up. Looks like that’s a room. You can’t see it from this angle, but there is a light up there as well. And yeah, that’s uh pretty much our room. And yeah, back to a better angle and we’ll finish up the video for tonight. All right. And so, as you can see, the room is pretty basic. It’s nothing. It’s not bad. It’s just nothing like fancy. And it was probably one of the least expensive places on this trip. Lyn and I were talking earlier, you don’t know if you’re going out of business and you’re here, you’re doing something wrong. There’s no offseason. You could come to the onen every part of the years, whether it’s spring, summer, fall, or winter. Um, even as cold as it is right now, it’s going to be awesome to go into the hot springs. The food here is amazing. Service here is amazing. Oh, one thing I did not mention is uh when I parked my car, I actually parked it in the wrong parking lot. And so they just asked if they could move my car for me and I was like, “Yeah, sure. Here’s the keys.” And they ran and and moved it out of the uh the the other onen spot. So each one of these buildings behind me is actually a different onen. And so I just I don’t understand if you can’t do business well here. Each one of these places is amazing. They’re very well decorated out front. Each one’s very different. Some are very modern, others are very classic. And so overall, very happy that we’re here. Uh we do have breakfast included in the morning, so we will be doing that. Uh I hope that that’s not a 90minute event as well. I hope it’s just kind of like one or two courses. Keeping it simple. We did walk up to see the famous waterfall that’s over here. There is a lot of snow in that area. So, it the the path is blocked off currently. Lynn said that it was just cuz it was night. I don’t know. We’ll find out in the morning. Breakfast is at 8:00 a.m. So, hopefully we could walk around a little bit after we have breakfast. Checkout time is 10:00. So, it was kind of the time I wanted to leave anyways. So, that works out well. We’ll go ahead and check out and then make our way over to back to Sai to continue our sightseeing in the area. Anyhow, that’s really all there is for the night and uh I think that’ll be the last check-in for the night. So I will see you then in the morning or in the next
It’s only been a few months, but we’re back. This time we’re here to attend the Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo! Since we’re here though, we might as well explore a little more of Japan.
First day back from the Star Wars Celebration! Yesterday, we made the crazy trek to Sendai [仙台] from Chiba [千葉]. Today, we’re going to be going to Matsushima [松島], Miyagi[宮城県], then over to Obanazawa [尾花沢], Yamagata [山形県]!
We begin the day getting our next Orix car rental, and then making our way to Matsushima. The first stop is going to be at Saigyo Modoshi no Matsu Park [西行戻しの松公園], a hill overlook of the bay area.
Next, we made our way off the hill to a parking lot in the main part of town. We parked there and would be leaving the car there until we have to go to Yamagata. Exploring the small island of Ojima [雄島] was amazing. This little forgotten place didn’t really have any tourist, and gave us hope that it wasn’t going to be too crazy [we were wrong :D].
We then walked over to the pier area and took a bay cruise. This is the best way to see the Matsushima area. The chain of islands with the pine trees is pretty majestic, and the area is fantastic.
Finishing our cruise, it was time for lunch. This is where we learned that the tourism is still REALLY crazy in these parts. The store we were going to get lunch at turned to by reservations only, because they had 5 bus loads of tourist eating there! We ended up eating at the fish market next door, but there were still a TON of people in the area.
After lunch, we made a quick loop in front of Zuiganji Temple [瑞巌寺]. We’ll definitely have to come back to the area and get a proper tour of the place. But we had to hurry because we were running a little behind schedule.
So, we went to the next main thing in Matsushima, Fukuurajima [福浦島]. This is the island that is always photoed in the post cards and adverts for Matsushima. Of course to get there we needed to cross Fukuurabashi Bridge [福浦橋]. We actually spent more time here than we anticipated, but it was because the island was just so great!
Now, the reason we needed to actually keep to a schedule was because our next hotel had a schedule that wasn’t flexible. We needed to be there before 18:00, and the drive was going to be crazy long. It was uneventful and boring, but long!
We arrived in the Ginzan Onsen [銀山温泉] area, just in time! We were able to check in and have a little time to actually walk around the area before dinner.
Dinner was a 7 course traditional Japanese meal! It was fantastic, and we were completely full before the courses ended. There was just so much food! We decided to take a stroll after because of this.
Coming back in from the freezing weather outside, there was still snow everywhere, the last thing we were going to do before turning in, was the hot springs!
We were at a hot spring resort! Of course we were going to partake in it!
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