Road Trip First day - Matsushima, Sendai

When I meant road trip, it means one hour of train ride, 5 hours of bumpy bus ride, scenery from bus window turned from buildings to stretches of never ending paddy field, till it was total darkness outside the window, finally arrived at a place call Fukushima 福島.　Although the long hours of bus ride made me feel weary, the never ending road trip made me feel I am gonna stuck in the bus, forever, like I am not gonna see the sunlight and ever be cheerful again, However, the plain awesome scenery never failed to excites me.

Woke up next morning found myself surrounded by mountains. No wonder they say weather in Fukushima is warmer than Tokyo. Could not feel a breeze of wind, or touch of rain. Hot.


Started the day quite early to get to Sendai (仙台). Again, 1 hour + of bus ride just to get there. But Sendai was just a dropped by, we wanted to go to Matsushima (松島). What welcomed us, except for the exceptionally humble looking train station nailed up only with wood and planks, it's the ocean! And the refreshing ocean breeze.


Zhan Wei is definitely an awesome travel partner when he can act as both a walking dictionary, and walking encyclopedia. He is such a perfectionist to plan out every details of the trip making sure we would not miss any famous tourist spot and able to lavish on authentic local delight. I am sure he is pretty pissed off with me went to Fukushima empty handed, blank mind and acting recklessly all the time.


On 福浦橋 also known as 出会い橋 to 福浦島 behind us.

Legend says that on this very bridge, you will find your loved one. Too bad, the love feeling did not really struck me. I am sure Zhan Wei feel the same, if not he would not have complaint so much there's no pretty girls around.



Depart after one walk around the island, to this port for a boatride.



So many tiny islands on the boat course. But, awesome scenery is not the best part of this boat ride.



It's the frantic snack 'scavenger' seagull!



So many of them trailing the boat to catch the snacks thrown. I even saw one seagull did a backflip, and perfect catch on the snack.

The feeding frenzy went W.i.L.D. We were foolish enough to held the snack on our hand. See pictures below taken by Zhan Wei with his SLR continuous shot function.

Now you see!


Now it's gone!


There it went!

The seagull eyes were so sharp, they bite precisely on the snack, so many trials we feed them in close distant, none our fingers were bitten accidently.


In this picture, you can see 瑞巌寺 on the left and 五大堂 on the right.

いぶき（びゃくしん）Juniperus Chinensis. Found this tree outside of the temple. According to the explanation, these species live up to hundred of years. There's even one is 700 years old.

In the northern area of Japan, they have a special delicacies. The shops of this kind could be seen everywhere. I gave it a try before Zhan Wei made me realised what it was. He did ask for my opinion on eating it as lunch. Me, as blur as ever, went along and found it deliciously grilled. Until I found out what I was eating...... I dont think I wanna disclose here, I am bringing Kenny and Ahmet to try it out.

Weeee......

Got back to Sendai, able to catch a glimpse of it's night life. Sendai is the biggest city for Northern Japan. Werent that interested in Sendai since Tokyo had it all.

To be continued for day two.......