City of Trees

Sendai is known as the City of Trees and that makes sense because the whole place is covered in greenery. The population is a little over 1 million so it is one of Japan's largest cities. Other than that, Sendai is sort of like any other Japanese city- pretty, clean, safe. There is not too too much that makes it special, except for Matsushima, a clustering of islands about 30 minutes from the city. On our first day in Sendai we decided to just wander around and see what we could find. We slept in, ate a huge breakfast at Royal Host, walked along the river and spent the better part of the evening exploring the largest 100 yen store that I have ever seen.

Trees

Zuihoden Mausoleum

A walk along the river. Apparently our boisterousness was amusing to the older Japanese man who was sitting by the river because he took out his video camera and started filming us. Let me know if I end up on youtube.


The mall where with the fabulous 100 yen store. May 5 is "Children's Day" in Japan and families fly these fish shaped kites to celebrate. Each fish signifies a different family member.

Fish faces and fish kites.

On our second day in Sendai we got up bright and early, at the crack of 10:30, and headed to Matsushima, a clustering of pine tree covered islands that are supposed to be one of the 3 most beautiful views of Japan. Although the day was a little hazing, the area really was pretty.
Matsushima Bay

Still cherry blossoms in Sendai too!

Trees, lots of trees!

We stopped for ramen and fried rice before take a boat cruise around the harbor.

In line for the boat
We called this boat ride The Best $15 Nap Ever. We were all so tired (well, except for Vicki) that the rocking of the boat put us each right to sleep. It might also have something to do with the fact that we had to sit inside so we could barely see anything anyway, the announcer was only telling us such mundane information as "This is called Pine Island" and really, once you have seen one island covered in pine trees you have seen them all.

The Sendai Four

You could cross a little bridge to one of the islands and walk all over the island, including on the beach.

Golden Week Crew

Beach

John, David and Me

Lovely flowers

Matsushima Harbor

Bridge leading to the island

*** Some of these photos were taken by David and Vicki. Candid shots were generally taken by Vicki and artistic nice shots were generally taken by David.