Blogs from Miyagi, Japan, Asia

Que fait-on ce matin qu'on s'est dit en se levant de bon pied.Eh bien on va au Mont Misen,lequel se trouve sur l'ïle de Myiajima où nous sommes débarqués hier en début d'après midi. N'écoutant que notre courage nous chaussons nos meilleurs souliers de randonnée:en ce qui me concerne mes vieilles sandales toutes "slaques"qui foutent le camp à chaque pas et Soso ses beaux souliers noirs achetés trop petits mais devenant chaque jour un peu plus grand puisque le gros orteil s'y sentant à l'étroit se pointe désormais le bout du nez dehors,à la recherche d'air frais et surtout d'espace. En route nous amorçons une pente douce en direction du "ropeway"qui s'avère être une télécabine débrayable tout ce qu'il y a de plus moderne avec bar incorporé,toilette Toto et siège chauffant,assorti(ben quoi !!!l'hiver Arthur tu veux ... read more

Double rainbow The bus brought us back to Kesennuma just after 4pm. As we had been travelling with the bus and the taxi, we decided to walk down to the harbour from the station. The weather in Rikuzentakata and Kesennuma on 13 October seemed to be a little unsettled; the weather kept changing from sun shining to showering all the time. While waiting for the return bus at Rikuzentakata, a grey sky had turned into a blue sky, and we could see a full-colour rainbow arch above the roof of the prefabricated buildings. At Kesennuma we too saw the rainbow while walking from the station to the harbour. It was a very clear seven-coloured rainbow, and as the time went by, it turned into a double rainbow appearing in the sky. We have seen ... read more

Go to Kesennuma Ōshima Island Mr Shigeatsu Hatakeyama kindly gave us a lift to Aceport, Kesennuma harbour, where we would catch the ferry to Kesennuma Ōshima Island. Around the harbour we saw quite a few places where only the bases of houses remained. Building works had been carried out on the embankment around Kesennuma Bay, and it restricted the flow of the traffic. He managed to find the ways to go through the winding routes, and took us to the nearest place to the ferry’s terminal. However, owing to the building work, the ticketing office had been relocated. While it was showering, my mother managed to find the temporary ticketing office and bought tickets for us to travel to Ōshima Island. We managed to catch the ferry which was due to depart at 16:20. At the ... read more

11/04/ 2014 SENDAI TO ISHINOMAKI The notion to be pragmatically angry at a botched night’s sleep, especially a paid for botched night’s sleep would I genuinely feel have been warranted. But as soon as I was packed and on the road muscling my way through the inner city traffic and out towards the coast I was feeling decisively calm. The fat bastard back the dorm in Sendai was no longer a fat bastard, he was just fat, and that’s just the way it was. My morning would see me take in one of Japan’s three most scenic sights, Matsushima. During the Edo period of the 17th century a Confucian scholar by the name of Shunsai Hayashi traversed Japan by foot and enlisted three sights of which he felt were the epiphany of the nations scenic beauty, ... read more

Slow to change, the male dominated culture in Japan is slowly changing. The male-female stereotyped roles of train conductor and train host are changing. I was pleasantly surprised to see a female train conductor on a local JR line From Sendai to Matsushima. I was stunned to see a male train host on the Tokuho Shinkansen from Fukushima to Tokyo. Riding the local lines is always an adventure. Some of the inaka (rural) stations are unsheltered platforms where you need to navigate stairs with extreme incline. Add luggage and you are standing with the commuter rush swerving around you like water flows around rock. Standing on a open platform when a Shinkansen at full speed passes, is an amazing rush! You feel the speed and the power of these amazing trains And they speed through inches ... read more