It was time to get out of Tokyo to Sendai which is a short trip on the shinkansen north of Tokyo! This was my second time time in Sendai but my first time was just an overnight stary for a concert so this time I wanted to really explore Sendai.
We were deciding between Sendai or Kansai and decided on Sendai for two reasons. First is that there are hardly any inconsiderate tourist and secondly the JR East Tohoku Pass is cheaper than the regular JR pass and you can use for 5 days out of 14.
The problem with the JR pass is that they come in 7 and 14 days and you feel compelled to maximise the PASS and use shinkansen everyday whereas choosing to use the JR East Tohoku pass for any 5 days allows one to take it easy and not visit to many places.
Put our bags down at our hotel and had sushi at Sendai station.
I know Sendai is not really known for sushi but we have plenty of time for gyutan later.
The main plan for the day was to go the Sendai daiKannon, the biggest statue of Kannonsama in Japan which was a 20 plus minute bus ride from Sendai station. I have no idea what that trail of smoke dropping from the sky is.
We had to walk about 5 minutes from the bus stop to the statue.
This thing is huge and apparently you can see it from some spots in the city.
The entrance to the statue.
The statue is basically a tower housing hundreds of buddhist statues.
We took the elevators all the way up and slowly walked down while looking at the 108 buddha statues displayed in the cabinets.
View of neighbouring golf course at top of statue.
Afterwards we took a walk back past the bus stop to a Geo. (Pronounced ge-o, not jio)
Shenmue 3 which I supported through kickstarter a few years ago is nearly here but I'm not really excited. Probably because I've got 101 games to play, especially after the shopping I did during this trip.
I bloody regret not buying stuff at this Geo because I was thinking of saving my shopping for when I got back to Tokyo.
Never save your shopping for last because it hurts less when you buy things bit by bit and it hard to find everything you want.
Went back to Sendai and then Village Vanguard which had Kojima Productions and Death Stranding merchandise.
Aku no Hana movie merch.
Nagi no Oitama.
Outside Sendai station.
Went to this place called Kikyu for dinner because it was close to our hotel.
Of course we had tasty gyu tan. The metal mug on the right was supposed to be -3 degrees beer but I didn't find it that cold. I've had much colder beer.
sendai looks nice, might try going there with my wife next time.
ReplyDeletedid you buy the shenmue 1 and 2 pack in preparation for shenmue 3?
i kickstarted it as well thanks to your post on it, but with the baby, backlog of dramas and games to play, i dont think i will be able to touch it for a long time. also it might not be as good as yakuza....
on another note, i get the distinct feeling you might be referring to tourists from a certain country thats really big in the region. a country known for rude tourists, and last year when i was in japan ive had bad experiences as well.
@dgundam: Yes I did buy the Shenmue pack but I haven't really touched it with too many games to play and Shenmue 3 won't be as good as Yakuza.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone who's been to Japan has experienced these rude tourists. I would like to run into a group of them that was actually conscious of people people around them and did not block off walkways.