Jodogahama Park Hotel and sightseeing in Miyako

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JR Yamada Line

After lunch, we went back to the JR’s concourse near the ticketing barrier, and walked down to Yamada Line’s platform. Upon arrival at the platform, my mother was looking for the sign for Yamada Line – it was in the middle of the long platform. At 13:30, a light-green coloured train came into our sight. We found the direction of Miyako at the front of the train, and it stopped at where the sign of JR Yamada Line was hanging. I told Mark that we were going to take this train to go to Miyako. I was a little surprised with the JR Yamada line which carried only one passenger car, and asked my mother if this had been done with the temporary method because of the tsunami disasters.

As a matter of fact, even before 11^th March 2011, JR Yamada line ran with only one or two cars, and it connected Kamaishi via Rikuchu-Yamada. As of 2015, this line operates between Morioka and Miyako, and the service between Miyako and Kamaishi has not yet been restored. The latter line was hugely damaged by the tsunami – 8 out 13 stations were washed away. At present the replacement bus is running between Miyako and Kamaishi.

The train departed at Morioka at 13:51 as scheduled. After leaving Morioka, the train ran along countryside and villages by the mountains. We saw beautiful autumn leaves. The train we rode was named Rapid Rias. Despite its name, it stopped at quite a few stations, and took approximately two hours to Miyako. Miyako station was surrounded by mountains; there wasn’t a view of sea and harbour around the station.



Jodogahama Park Hotel

There were bus terminals at the station’s square and taxis waiting there. We found the Jodogahama Park Hotel’s shuttle bus. The driver helped to carry other guests’ and our luggage to the bus. The shuttle bus departed the station around 16:10.

After leaving the city centre of Miyako, the shuttle bus began running uphill on the slope. We couldn’t see any traces of disasters along the route and the slope on which he was going through, but while he was going through the Jodogahama Bridge, I found an empty-looking area where a series of construction works were carried out. I also saw temporary prefabricated residential houses near the bridge.

In 10 minutes he brought us to Jodogahama Park Hotel. He stopped at the place, which seemed to be the entrance for the hotel’s parking, and pointed at the steps which would lead to Jodogahama beach, and then took us to the main entrance of the hotel. All the reception staff welcomed us at the foyer, and after the check-in, they carried our luggage to our room. We were offered a room where we could overlook pine trees and sea. Mark was really impressed with glorious views of the Pacific.

After sorting out our luggage in our room, we decided to walk down to the beach via the short-cut steps off the hotel’s parking. As we walked down, the white sandy each, blue water and pine trees came into our sight: Jodogahama, known as the paradise beach. As a sunset time was approaching, the view of the white beach and blue water became darkened and greyish. In addition, with the advancing typhoon, it caused a series of high waves and the choppy sea – water was splashing around the coast line.

We had decided to have dinner at 6:30. As expected, a wide variety of buffet-style meals – raw fish selection: tune, swordfish, mackerel, sea bream and Japanese amberjack; salads: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers; stew dishes; rice dishes: boiled rice and steamed rice containing meats of sea urchin; soup dishes: clear clam soup, chicken & tomato soup, beef & curry soup, miso soup; pickles, dessert dishes: assorted fruits, ice cream and cakes; and ingredients for shabu-shabu – Japanese dish featuring thinly sliced beef boiled in water – were offered. At each table there was a portable cooking pot. I showed Mark how to cook thinly sliced beef and his selected vegetables and fish with the shabu-shabu pot: after water being boiled, he firstly put vegetables, fish and then thinly sliced beef and ate meats and vegetables with sesame or soy-sauce flavoured sauce.

As we returned to our room, futons, Japanese bedding mattress and blankets, had been laid on the tatami-mat (rush covered straw mat forming a traditional Japanese floor covering) room. In 2008 we visited Shirakawago, central part of Japan, and stayed in the Japanese inn. We remembered sleeping with futon there. Mark seemed to enjoy wearing yukata – Japanese bathing clothes and sleeping with futon and the clothing item is provided by the hotel. He wore it nearly every night instead of pyjamas.

However, he doesn’t seem to be keen on going to the public bath; he used an en-suite bathroom.



Jodogahama Park Hotel provided two types of communal bath for men and women: an indoor and outdoor bath. I hadn’t had an outdoor bath for the last few years. Water in the outdoor bath was very warm, and it made me feel relaxed. However, owing to the typhoon, it was very windy outside – pine trees were howling and rustling and it made me feel as though we were near the haunted house. My mother and I prayed that the gale would be eased off by 9 October and it would allow us to ride on the sightseeing boat in Jodogahama.




Jodogahama Park Hotel 8–9 October

As we came back to the hotel, all the staff greeted us, ‘Okaerinasai – welcome back home’. Having lived outside of Japan for a while, I was a little puzzled with this formal Japanese greeting, and I replied to them, ‘Arigatou gozaimasu – thank you very much’. When we arrived at the reception, we saw a group of people, 30–50 people. So, we were asked to go to the (smaller) restaurant on the 1^st basement floor for dinner.

We found an A4 sized information leaflet on the table – it was about the talk of 11^th March 2011. My father said while having dinner that, the talk was aimed of a group of people. My mother went to that talk. I was interested in the event, however, I thought it would be difficult for me to do translations for Mark where there would be a large number of people. She said, ‘The gentleman was a very talkative man; he didn’t stop once he had started talking. Surprisingly, there weren’t very many people in his lecture.’

My mother and I read the documentary novel, ‘Kibo no Chizu – Map of Hope’ by Kiyoshi Shigematsu; and I noted with an interest in what the staff of Jodogahama Park Hotel did during the troublesome period as follows:



Standing on higher ground, Jodogahama Park Hotel wasn’t affected by the tsunami. However, its neighbourhood, Kuwagasaki district and Tako no Hama, were severely damaged; a great number of houses were washed away. Jodogahama Park Hotel provided the shelter for the people who had lost houses, letting them display messages about people’s lives and offering free accommodation and food for a month, and then offered accommodation to relief workers – police, self-defence forces, fire-fighters and builders and carpenters who were building temporary accommodation for several months. The hotel was instrumental in both restoring people’s lives and recovering Miyako’s economy.



There were a wide variety of goods – biscuits, rice crackers, T-shirts, cosmetic goods, postcards, accessories made of the amber, locally processed food – sold at the souvenir shop called ‘Okini’ in the hotel.

All the staff provided us with excellent hospitality and the reception staff courteously dealt with our enquiries and provided appropriate advice in regard to our travel plan. One of them told us that the sightseeing boat had not run all day because of the typhoon and high waves, and recommended that we use the taxi to do sightseeing the next day.



On 9 October, I once got up at 7 o’clock and looked outside: a blue sky appeared and sea looked milder than previous days. When having breakfast, my mother and I thought that if sea would remain calm as it looked it would allow us to ride the boat. After breakfast, my mother asked the receptionist whether the boat would run on 9 October. The updated information as of 8:30 in the morning was that the operation of the boat was still pending because of high waves. In addition, she told us that the lowland coastal path leading to Jodogahama beach had been closed, and warned us that we would get splashed if we walked along the coastal road.



Sightseeing in Miyako

We decided to take the shuttle bus which would depart from the hotel at 10 o’clock and get off at the visitor centre, and from 10:30, the taxi driver would show us round in Miyako.

After the check-out, my mother and we walked down to the Jodogahama beach. Under the blue sky we could see beautiful landscape with white craggy rocks, sandy beach and pine trees. My mother continued doing the sketch which she did two days ago. There were myriads of black-tailed gulls – the feature of Jodogahama – sitting on the beach. We saw a series of high waves climbing over big rugged rocks and hitting against the concrete wall of the pier – the road was wet by splash of water: we could understand why the sightseeing boat wasn’t able to run and the coastal road was closed. Nevertheless, I stood on the coastal road to take dramatic photos. Looking at the movement of waves cautiously, I kept shooting my digital camera using the telephoto lens.

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and got on the shuttle bus. We had a quick look at the visitor centre, and found exhibitions and information panels of animals, fish, and seashells, plants which live on Sanriku coast and of destruction caused by the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.

A taxi driver, Mr Yoji Mitsuyama, came to the visitor centre at 10:30. Although he heard that the coastal road had been closed, he promised us that he would take us to Jodogahama beach. He took the winding road and brought us to Jodogahama beach. That was the same place to which we accessed from the car park of our hotel. He said Jodogahama was his favourite place and would take his customers there.

Mr Mitsuyama is a taxi driver based in Miyako. He experienced the tsunami on 11 March 2011, and had photos and articles of the tsunami and its destruction in Miyako and neighbouring communities and showed them to us. Despite the destruction, Jodogahama consisting of rugged rocks and pine trees survived almost intact. However, I heard that the coast road was half-broken and the marine house, which stands on the back of the beach, was devastated. One the left bank of the Jodogahama beach showed the monument inscribing the methods of how to save one’s lives from the dreary tsunami – evacuate to the nearest higher ground not going further field. He told us that the monument was once washed away on 11 March 2011, but the self-defence force found it in the sea filled with debris around Jodogahama. They repaired it and returned to the original position. I’ve heard that the sea around Jodogahama was left in a miserable state filled with debris and white earth smashed by the tsunami. In October 2015, we were shown stunning scenery of the paradise beach.

Afterwards, he drove us through Kuwagasaki district and the harbour district along Heiigawa River, both of which were severely damaged by the tsunami. In particular, sitting on the backdrop of Jodogahama, Kuwagasaki district was engulfed by the tsunami, which had attacked from both Tako no hama beach and Miyako Bay, and inundated after 11^th March 2011. As of 2015, a large area of the empty land remained, and a series of building work, e.g. building embankment, carried out here and there. On the harbour district, we saw a number of places where only the bases of the houses had remained and the contents of the ground floors were washed away. There were also several temporary prefabricated buildings which were used as restaurants, post office, and off-license shops. While running those areas, he showed us photos of blackened waves not only overtaking the barrier, but also engulfing the city centre, destroying JR’s railway bridges, crashing a number of houses. He also talked about the people who had to run for their lives, and a great number of ships and fishing boats which were washed up on the shore and residential areas in Miyako, as well as other communities on the northeast coast of Japan. We were shocked to see photos of enormous ships washed up on the shore. He said: ‘As well as the sightseeing boat named “Hamayuri”, which was washed up on top of the Japanese Inn Otsuchi-cho of Kamaishi city – one of the iconic scenes of the disasters, almost all of washed-up ships and fishing boats have been demolished. Although some of those ships were thought to be navigable, it would cost millions to let a ship/fishing boat return to the sea: the authorities would have to arrange for cranes to lift up the ship/fishing boat and specialist engineers to lay the rail from where it was washed up to the sea.’

After driving along the harbour, he headed for the fish & vegetable market. While driving through the city centre and the shopping district, he showed us the places which were photographed a week after 11 March. The blackened water came through the residential areas and Miyako station, which were far away from the sea. Some houses showed broad marks of the tsunami.



Kuromori Kagura

It was still just after 11 o’clock when he was approaching the fish & vegetable market. He recommended to us that we should visit the memorial museum for Kuromori Kagura – a group of people who are performing the folklore. The historic shrine, Kuromori shrine is situated in the middle of Kuromori mountain with height of 310.5m. He took us to the public hall on the foot of Kuromori shrine, and there were a wide variety of items – lion-headed mask, costumes which have been used by performers and past and recent documents and photographs displayed in the exhibition room. We were shown the video of Kuromori Kagura – performers including one who is acting as a god, visiting people’s homes, wearing and dancing with lion-headed mask (shishimai) in response to their wishes – getting rid of bad luck, protecting the house from harm and celebrating new marriages. The performers with an acting god by the name of Kuromori Kagura are based in Kuromiri Shrine in Miyako, and every other year they visit and perform at people’s homes in the north and south district of Miyako city.



Fish & Vegetable Market

Afterwards, Mr Mitsuyama took us to the fish & vegetable market. It was the first time mark had been to the fish & vegetable market in Japan. We saw a wide variety of fish – pacific saury, bonito, tune, octopus, squid, rockfish, olive flounder, scallop, abalone and swordfish, all of which had just been caught by fishermen and fresh vegetables. There were two restaurants. We ate ‘hama (beach) ramen which contained shrimps, scallops and clams and seaweed.



As well as showing us round the city, Mr Mitsuyama kept our big pieces of our luggage in his boot and took us to the station.

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Photos

tsunami monument
inscription of the methods of how to save one's life from the dreary tsunami

hama ramen
contained shrimps, scallops, clams and seaweed