Sendai, Matsushima, a traditional Inn and more...

Well, Winter Break is over... And, man, was it ever fun. Christmas was a bit odd as we spent it together as a dorm -- kind of. We ended up seeing a Shamisen Concert (that three-stringed instrument). Afterward, we ate India Curry (on Christmas, I know) and went to go have a few drinks at a party. Unfortunately, the party was crap. So, a few of us left the party, caught the second to last train, and went to McDonalds. You see, McDonalds had been running this special where you could buy a Big Mac for only 200 yen -- roughly $2.40. This may not seem like a great deal, but let me assure you that it was! Normally these burgers cost around 400 yen -- roughly $5. That's ridiculous. So, we took full advantage of this special they were running. We ate so much ビグ・マク that I haven't had a McDee's burger since.

Christmas was over, but my Winter Break was just beginning! The day after Christmas -- "I can't wait for New Years Eve Day" -- a few of us were off to Sendai; a city in Japan north of Tokyo. The crew was Evan, JC (Jean-Claude), Zach, and myself.

Zach, JC, myself, and Evan

Photo courtesy of Evan

We traveled there by Night-Bus -- a bus that travels over night, one of the cheaper ways to travel. After a dilemma of figuring out which bus was ours, we managed to arrive just in time. The bus ride was... horrible. Well, not like a bad flight; but, we were unable to actually sleep on it. We got a collective 3 hours, maybe. Zach saw his first snow (kind of like one's "First Aomori") and was quite entertained by it. The gang arrived in Sendai around 5-6am. Long before anything actually opened up. We spent an hour or so in Moss Burger trying to wake up. At 7am, our adventure began. One of our first stops was Masamune's shrine that was on top of quite a large hill...

Us descending the hill

Ta-da!

The tricky part was getting down the hill. It's not a mountain, although I might call it that. It was tricky because it was covered in ice. After our decent of the hill, we wondered Sendai. Visiting various shrines and eating at noodle place that only locals seemed to go to. The shop-mother seemed quite proud of our Japanese -- well, Zach's Japanese. Haha. At one shrine/temple, we managed to climb another hill. At the summit, we were greeted with many shrines built for the descendants of Masamune.



We taxed ourselves a great deal. It was quite cold, but very rewarding. Our first day in Sendai came to an end and we headed to our hotel. On our way there via train, it began to snow. We arrived at our stop and to our delight, we were deep in the mountains. The hotel we stayed at was a traditional Japanese style in called a 旅館 -- ryokan -- we wore yukata's (which are traditional Japanese robes) and ate a traditional dinner.

A toast! To not flashing each other!

After dinner, we watched a bit of random Japanese television and tried desperately to stay awake to wait for a time to go into the Hot Springs or onsen (温泉). We made it, barely. Three of us decided to brave the outdoor bath. It was still snowing, quite hard actually, and we climbed down the 88 steps to the bath. The bath was hot -- around 42 degree Celsius. Neigh unbearable. We enjoyed an hour of the hot springs in the canyon with a river rushing by, all the while snow fell from the sky as a constant reminder of the temperature outside. A picture-esque moment. One that will remain with me forever. The only thing missing, besides JC, was sake. That would've been perfect.

In the morning, we were greeted with virgin snow all around. The trees and mountains were covered with fresh snow with blue skies around. It was cool, but not so cold where one can't enjoy the scenery. Needless to say, the Inn will never be forgotten.. The Inn gave us complimentary sake and maps of Sendai as parting gifts. Our transport back was a delight. The Inn-Keepers bowed and waved us off from the Inn, a woman rode with us on the van to the station and bowed as we got off the van. Lastly, as our train was pulling away for Sendai, we saw her and the van driver waving goodbye to us. Truly a magical experience.

Our next adventure would take place at Matsushima, a bay area to the northeast of Sendai. We had way too much fun here with many exploits of non-impressive things. One island in particular we took several posed pictures of, my favorite being the one on the left. This island was rather important. Why? I can't remember. Haha, I believe it had a lot to do with death and remembering the dead. However the signs were written only in Japanese (imagine that?) and so it was no of our business -- like the ending of Inception.

The lunch in Matsushima was expensive and had man heckler-women begging us to come into their respective establishments. But, that doesn't do much for us as we don't like to be heckled and conned into paying 1000 yen for cold noodles. We go to Famima or Family Mart and purchase delicious, cheap, food. We ventured to another island via red bridge and wandered till dusk. Matsushima is quite the wonderful place. Time was withering, so we got on the train back to Sendai for the night bus. But, this was to be the end of my Journey. Evan, Zach, and JC were to head on to Nagoya to visit our friend Takuya; I was to head back to Tokyo. Their bus was leaving at 21:30 with mine leaving 23:45; to kill time we went to Book Off. After seeing off my friends, I was now running solo. I walked to the arcade and killed the next two hours playing King of Fighters XIII. The night bus back I was exhausted, so I slept better (not great, mind you) and arrived in Tokyo at Shinjuku station around 5:45am. Trains had just started running and I hoped on, got a seat and passed out waking up, just in time, as Musashi Koganei (my stop).

Looking off into the middle-distance... Matsushima was truly amazing.

My trip with Zach, Evan, and Jean-Claude may have been over, but my winter break still had a week to go.

Next blog entry: The remainder of my Winter Break adventures; including a Buddha, a Mountain, and New Years Eve! Read on, lads, and discover...

See what the night-bus does to ya? Makes you sleepy!