Day Trip to Shiogama and Matsushima Bay - Thursday 17 October

Slightly cloudy this morning as we prepared for our day trip but the sky looked promising to the north. Mt Fuji was still hiding however! Over to Shinagawa Station and through the main concourse with the army of worker ants surrounding us - very like something from George Orwell! Down on to the Shinkansen platforms and we took a Kodama to Tokyo Station - much quicker and more pleasant than catching the normal Yamanote line local train. As we were heading north from Tokyo we had to find our way to a different set of Shinkansen lines which means going through ticket gates flashing JR passes which are sometimes not even looked at and at other times taken from you and closely examined. Made it with plenty of time to spare and waited for our Haybusa Shinkansen. Alison has fallen in love with the Shinkansen trains but that love grew even deeper today - the ones that run to the north of Tokyo are all pretty colours, including one which is totally iridescent green! We even saw one with double decker carriages.

The colourful Haybusa.

The Haybusa is a bit like the Nozomi and only stops at a few stations. Fortunately for us JR Pass holders can now use it and it stops at Sendai which was where we needed to change to a local train. Ate our sandwiches from the Matsuya Food Hall for breakfast as we flew along with Alison reading the equivalent of the inflight magazines and JR Shop catalogue.

Interesting things in the JR Shop Catalogue, like things to strap onto shoes so you don't slip on icy pavements!

View on the way to Sendai

Arrived at Sendai station and navigated our way deep underground to the platform for local line which we needed.

Down we go at Sendai

This was a Rapid service so took us only 17 minutes to reach Shiogama.

Interesting collection of sculptures outside Shiogama Station

The way to the tourist boat wharf from the station was well marked and involved an easy walk of under 10 minutes. Purchased out tickets for the 11am sailing and splashed out for Green Class! Economy is the 1st floor of the boat, Green is the 2nd floor and First is the 3rd floor. There were probably only another five passengers and they all were economy so we had the whole second floor cabin to ourselves. Alison thought that the tour guide had done a wonderful job!

This one wasn't our cruise boat!

This one was.

Alison enjoying our personal deck!

The cruise across the bay was very worthwhile with the scenery of the various small eroded islands. There was guide commentary in both Japanese and English. We did note that the Japanese commentary was much more involved than the English version which followed it! The cruise across the bay to Matsushima took 50 minutes and although cloudy the water was calm and the view was great.

They make it tough for the Japan Coast Guard crew members to board their vessels!

Bringing in the catch

On arrival in Matsushima (one of the three most scenic views in Japan) the wave crest

we checked out the tourist information centre at the land end of the wharf and saw the level to which the area had been inundated by the Tsunami. The whole of the township sits right on the water level but fortunately in this area the tsunami had only caused inundation with little impact damage as the wave was diffused by the islands in the bay.

Tsunami inundation level in Matsushima Tourist Office

Tsunami before and after shots

How the Tourist Office fared

Checked out a small temple on an island right near the esplanade which is connected by a series of little wooden bridges

A bit worried as this sign actually points downhill to the esplanade!

and then headed through down to the JR station to catch an early train back to Sendai. We were tempted to try some of the local speciality of deep fried oysters but decided to give that a miss in view of recent stories about radiation levels in water from the Fukushima plant to the south along the coast!

Watch out Patch, Grandma Al has some ideas!

A novel "No Smoking" promotion

As we were moving along at a quicker pace than we had anticipated we changed our return Shinkansen to an earlier Yamabiko which made more stops including one at the city of Fukushina but not the nuclear reactor. We have returned home to Tokyo with a glow to us but we are sure that it is the result of the enjoyable cruise rather than the stop at Fukushima!

This is to prove that I actually got off the train in Fukushima! No that is not me.

Back in Tokyo it was a quick transfer of Shinkansen lines and onto a Hikari for the quick trip from Tokyo Station to Shinagawa. Dropped our gear back in our hotel room and then with the aid of a Shinagawa District guide map that we had picked up yesterday at the Tokyo Municipal Offices, we headed through to the other side of Shinagawa Station and to the south along a sky walk and some roads to view an area where there are old style houseboats moored with people living on them and also a street section with very old timber traditional houses.

House boast in the Shinagawa area

Row of traditional old wooden houses not far from Shinagawa Station

Checked out some restaurants on that side of Shinagawa before deciding that we would splash out on the Chinese buffet at our hotel. Normally Y3,800 but for guests just Y3,300. Even better when we got the bill for our meal it was only Y3,000 each. 

Alison enjoying a deep fried crab claw

Some of our food from the buffet - gotta love the lime Fanta! 

Mmmmm - actually it is a steamed Peach Bun!

The restaurant was less than atmospheric with a view onto the hotel's indoor pool and plastic tablecloths and then the "piece de resistance" - all the additional tables in the area where we had been sat taken up by a school group of 12 year olds. Teachers were very apologetic to us but by this stage we were almost finished and in fact the children were very well behaved.

Back settled in our room with tomorrow our last full day to complete a few extra sighteseeing and to do musts including a visit to Textile Town at Nippori north of Ueno.