Sunny Sendai

Still waking up early! Kim went for a bath at 6:10am. We were both up by 8:00 and out the door to see what was up in Sendai. We headed towards the old castle grounds and  stopped at the City Museum for breakfast. They had a special exhibition for the 150 year anniversary of Date Masamune’s death – major player in the formation of Sendai – so we bought tickets to see the museum as well. After a nice breakfast of pancakes and a sandwich for Kim we headed into the exhibit areas. Date Masamune was a prolific writer! They had letters and poems that he wrote in the 1500s! Very cool! The museum also had the history of Sendai from around the Jomon period. We whiled away a couple of hours and took in the history of the region.

After we had become a wee bit more cultured we began the trek to Aoba castle area. It was uphill! And hot out. Urgh. We made it to the top and got a great view of the city. The castle…not so much. All that remains are a few walls of the compound and a few statues due to bombing during the Second World War. We had an ice cream to fortify ourselves and then began the next long trek, downhill, over two bridges and uphill to Zuihouden, the mausoleum of Data Masamune.

At the bottom of the hill a nice cafe was magically situated. It was lunch time! We both had omerice and recovered from the hot walk in the sun. The nice lady gave us postcards when we left 🙂 Now it was time for the walk up to Zuihouden. Luckily there were bamboo walking sticks at the bottom of the hill. We took it as a sign that we would probably need them so we each grabbed one and headed up. Halfway up the path split. We went on the right path and found the Children’s cemetery for high-ranking children. Then there was an intriguing set of woody stairs, covered in leaf matter. Sketchy and uphill…just our style 😉 We proceeded to ascend and finally got closer to Zuihouden. We also saw signs to watch out for bears on our little travelled path, as well as wasps and snakes. Goody. However, all of the buildings in the area were gorgeous and worth the walk. There was also a small museum that showed the things unearthed when they were fixing the WW2 damage.

After the mausoleum, we hopped on the Loople. It’s a one way sightseeing bus that has 14 stops. It was crazy tiny, packed and cornered on two wheels! We finally managed to get a cramped seat for about 1/2 of the ride so that was nice. My ankle has been bugging me so the rest was good. After arriving at Sendai station, we headed back in the general direction of the hotel. We somehow found ourselves in a Choco Cro 😀 We then meandered back, stopping to pick up some fruit and dinner from a conbini. Kim did laundry, we practiced band songs for a bit, had a bath downstairs and packed. Kyoto tomorrow!

The interesting path

Zuihouden

Who doesn’t like an angry chicken?