Blogs from Sendai, Miyagi, Japan, Asia
October 21st 2011
On the official 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and the 6 month anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, I flew into Sendai airport, the airport that shown around the world being almost submerged by the Pacific Ocean. I flew into an area that is still recovering, still surrounded by empty and broken businesses. The first very prominent showing was the fact that the Airport Line still isn't running, a full 6 months after the disaster. After having to take a rather expensive taxi ride into the city, I could still see the destruction even in the dark. Ghost businesses span the distance from the airport to the highway and just over the edge lies the ocean that made them. As I was making my way into downtown every changes came up. E-Beans is still unusable, ... read more
July 29th 2011
(Blogger note: This is a memory blog. I left Japan about a year ago) It was the beginning of the end. After Beijing, all I had much time for was getting everything settled and start on the moving process. Including mailing boxes home, cleaning my apartment, hosting 3 friends and what was suppose to be a trip to Korea. During a typhoon! I had gone down to Narita to meet them and as we were waiting in line to check-in, we discovered that our flight had been cancelled. After more problems and uncertainty, I looked at my friends and said, "Why don't we just go to Sendai and hang out there for the week?" That became our plan of action and we headed into Tokyo for a quick shopping trip before getting the shinkansen, or bullet ... read more
June 2nd 2011
Today is our last day traveling through disaster zones. We took a train, then a taxi into Sendai, Japan from our hotel. The taxi driver drove us into a business complex, located near the ocean in Sendai. Buildings were demolished to the ground, only a handful of structures survived. Driving through the streets we saw bicycles mangled together, a trumpet laying on top of debris, jeans displaced and a statue that survived the tsunami. The statue formed into a shrine created by locals. People came to the shrine and left a small porcelain Japanese cup with tea inside it, green tea I believe. Also, two fresh and vibrant bouquets of flowers were placed on the floor of the shrine, a stuffed animals and other items people placed. A bouquet of wilted flowers laid amidst the debris, ... read more
March 11th 2011
There is a famous painting by the Japanese artist Hokusai depicting a giant tsunami. What was an image on a woodblock print has become a reality. We received word yesterday afternoon of the catastrophe in Japan. It looks like the worst of the damage occurred in the Sendai area. We were there in October of 2009 and recall the drive in from the port to the city. The topography there is very flat land open to the sea making the area very vulnerable to tidal waves. We are currently docked in Manila, Philippines. These islands were put on tsunami alert and our Captain made an announcement about it. Fortunately for Manila and for us, the tidal wave struck the east coast of these islands and we are on the more protected west coast. We are fine ... read more
May 30th 2010
This morning we were eccstatic to check out of our shit box hotel and spend the rest of the day exploring Sendai. Breakfast was at Starbucks but it turned out to be the worst kind of breakfast ever. Our coffees were about 1/3 empty when we got them and my egg on english muffin turned out to be an egg on english muffin with ketchup. Seriously? Ugh... Nasty. Thankfully Jim didn't mind eating it so we switched sandwiches. Then our seat was taken by another nice couple while we were waiting for our drinks. Epic fail Starbucks but what can you do? Decided to do a little bit of shopping before hitting up the arcade for one last round of games and purikura. There was no DDR today but guitar hero and a shooting game, as ... read more
May 29th 2010
We had the grande plan to wake up early this morning and take a bus to the Akiu Onsen and Akiu Otaki waterfall. The waterfall is supposed to be one of the most scenic in Japan and it was only a 90 minute bus ride so we figured why not? The bus, as it turned out, only went to the waterfall twice a day... And there didn't seem to be any indication as to WHEN the bus would be returning in the direction of Sendai station. So rather than risk taking a 90 minute bus ride to the middle of nowhere, with a chance that we might not be able to get back, we decided to hop off at Akiu Onsen resort area and find ourselves a nice onsen to chill in instead. It was a ... read more
May 28th 2010
Once we got over the shittiness of our box room Sendai was a pretty fun/happening place to hang out - especially if you love shopping! We had tickets to the Cirque du Soleil Corteo show playing in town for Friday and went to the matinee show. It was really fantastic! They really try to bring in the audience and make them part of the performance. The live music and singers were incredible as well. It's so well done you forget that it's live! I think my favourite artists were the chandelier girls who were basically trapeeze artists using chandeliers instead of swings. They were so graceful it was unreal! They made it look like they weighed 2 lbs. Just breath taking. We both really enjoyed the show - money well spent! We ended up making a ... read more
May 27th 2010
I think I will affectionately title this entry: "Things Our Hotel Room Was Missing" - carpet - sound proofing - a screen on the window - hand soap - a clock - a decent sized TV (with no static) - internet - an extra pillow or blankets when requested (we were told no, it wasn't possible to have an extra pillow) - a normal sized bathroom - a shower head that worked - a comfortable bed (with springs that didn't dig into your body and leave obvious red welts) And all that for a mere $60 a night! Hotel Park Sendai I... never again. ... read more
October 11th 2009
The weather was amazing on Sunday, making it the perfect day to have a festival. Both Saturday and Sunday was the Michinoku Yosakoi Festival (referred to as just Yosakoi, which is a type of dance) in Sendai. I was being attending a school festival on the Saturday but I made sure to check out the festival on Sunday. Lies and I arrived around 11am in Sendai and the festivities were already underway. At the school festival, the day before, I saw my students perform their Yosakoi dance, and was informed that they would be performing it again on Sunday, so we made our way to the stage they would be performing on. Luckily for us, their stage was in a part of Sendai that I was familiar with so finding it took little to no time ... read more
