06/07/09 - North to Sendai and Morioka
Lucy was up for 6am getting ready for work and being hungover. Which meant we were too. (Getting up - not hungover...maybe?) but today felt like a real start. We were heading north, where few people venture. So to the station and see what we had. Knowing more now, we could have cut accross and gone on the bullet train, as it was we took the train north, to Sendai. This meant a change at Iwaki.
This change came at the perfect time for some lunch/breakfast, so we headed out with half an hour to find and devour something. Whilst Karen is adventurous, skydiving and poison fish, it seems she doesn't like what she doesn't know. Meaning food can be difficult to find. With little other choice (as I wouldn't go anywhere western) we headed to a small cafe where we managed, through great difficulty, to order... RICEBALLS! I pointed to one someone else was eating - Onigiri is the name, a riceball shaped as a pyramid and sandwiched in seaweed wrapping. That was what was made for us, then the girl obviously thought we were western fools, and so had the man take off the seaweed and serve the riceball, as rice, with a fork.
Chopstix skillz prooved them otherwise. They were a very fun and friendly couple and even the camera shy girl managed to pose for the photo, though trying to explain it was for a school was a whole new matter! I don't think she got it, and he seemed to be makinga model? Still with an interesting little break and filling a gap, we left Iwaki to head onwards once more. I did buy a few sweets, one being known as 'Mutsuya Cider', which like the drink, is very nice and I think something interesting to bring back for work! Soon Sendai was reached and so bags to the lockers and we explore our first city, (not Tokyo)
So reading the info we looked into the tourist bus that goes around all the sites, about ten in all. Asked and they gave directions on where to go to find the bus ticket sellers, next to the bus stop. Nice and handy. So we put bags in lockers and headed along and down the multitute of stairways from the station, criss crossing over the first roads. Found the place easily enough and bought the unlimited bus ticket. Then when getting a drink and checking we knew where we were... the guy comes over and tells us a few places are closed at the moment... "This one and this one, oh that one, that's open, that's closed..." All in all 7 of the 10 attractions were apparently closed (though how a shopping centre is closed, when people are happily going in and out and shopping is anyones guess?)
Still luckily there were two things we were interested in. The mausoleum and the castle, of which both were open, so that was fine. Hopping on as it arrived, it looked distinctively different and we were away, like a normal bus, you get in and get a ticket and then pay as you leave (unless you have the pass of course). However, having the pass means you get money off the attraction entry prices, so it turned out we got the bus for a fraction of it's cost after the discounts! Which was nice.
First the mausoleum, the main attraction. We get off and seem to be on a street side with no directions, so following the other two people who hopped off the bus... led us to their homes, but with a little intuition we found the place. Just before it was a graveyard. We'd seen these around the temples before, but you have to go through the temple grounds to get to them and so we'd not been up close. THis however was just off the road and so we stopped to take a look. Apparently Karen found her prefered gravestone? Whilst I can plan ahead, this is too much planning ahead for me! Still it was very interesting and very different to our own.
Walking up a steep hill, we found the first temple shrine. Snapping photos all the way we walked around, it seemed to be free, but then this was just one of the outlying shrines... further up was a massive set of stairs (apparently each step represents the families wealth, so the richer they are, the more steps you need to climb. They had a lot of steps. 620 steps. Each step = 1000 koku, the old currency. 1 koku = enough rice to feed a man for a year.
So with this sort of wealth, you can imagine the mausoleum! Well paying to get in we headed off to wash our hands (again likely wrong as there are never people around to see how it's done, we do seem to be missing a lot of crowds) from the dragon spitting fountain, then headed off to take photos and more photos, so many photos! It was good and very impressive. We ended it off with a walk around the childrens cemetery. This looked a lot less travelled. Then headed back for the bus.
The bus arrived as did a crowd somewhat, and we headed off to the castle. Whether it was us not finding the castle, or there not being s castle, or the map seeemingly placing us in an imaginary castle I don't know? But the Itallian guy had said there was only a video and that's all we saw (along with the site of the "White Tigers" and the giant eagle Mussolini bought and erected in their memory) The story of young 20 year old samurai seeing smoke all over the city and committing seppukku (ritual suicide) over their failure. The problem was it was the outlying area burning and the smoke blowing over the city... the city hadn't been taken. Apparently the japanese enjoy the tale of sadness, humour and hopelessness.
Still the castle video, as we'd been told, was like a playstation game, with any gamers expecting ninja to pop outat any moment (sadly not) and of the six people in our showing, only myself and one other managed not to fall asleep. Karen dozed off, as did a few other head wobblers and one guy was left snoring when everyone else had left! Only a 10 minute video as well! Then back to the map to try and work out if there IS a caslte (none of the books are clear) before deciding we are running out of time and didn't want to miss the last bus! So we headed back to the station and onto Morioka.
I bought a drink can, a grape fanta. Or so I thought. Jelly fanta. Fizzy liquid with jelly bits. You're supposed to shake it up first, we found out afterwards. It was odd but nice. Still in Moriako, soon enough we settled down with a nice room and looked to head out for some food.
