Tuesday: It rained on us, cold strong wind and rain. We had nowhere to go so we went to Sendai Astronomical Observatory. It was fun for Math Teacher, since he was a space nerd. This was my first time to see a real working giant telescope that looked into space. That was pretty cool.
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| Sendai Astronomical Observatory |
Wednesday: Matsushima was as beautiful as they said and as beautiful as any tourist guidebooks. By the way, Matsu means pine trees. Shima means island. So Matsushima means Pine Island. When I was doing research, I thought I was looking for an island. But nooooo, Matsushima is a town by the ocean with a bunch islets in the bay.
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| 五大堂 |
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福浦島1
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| 福浦島２ |
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| 福浦島３ |
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| 福浦島４ |
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| 福浦島５ |
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| Lunch |
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| Marubun Matsushima Cruising |
観覧亭: I agreed with lots of travel reviews online. The museum was a small room with barely anything inside. The tea set was at least ¥500. They shouldn't have charged ¥200 museum admission fee. If we paid for the tea sets, then the museum admission should've been included.
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| 観覧亭 ¥200/person |
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| 観覧亭 ¥700 tea set |
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| 観覧亭 ¥500 tea set |
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| Entsuin Temple 8 |
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| Entsuin Temple 9 |
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| Entsuin Temple 10 |
Thursday: it sprinkled a bit when we went to
Yamadera. It was still beautiful; the photos just didn't show up as nicely. 磅礴山雨欲來，又想躲雨又想觀景。The temple was famed for 1,000 steps up the mountain. I was really worried so we went early. It turned out it took me about one hour to climb to the top, and I was a fairly unfit person. By the way, because of tourists, there was an express train from Sendai to Yamadera. Normally it took 1 hour 20 minutes, the express took one hour. So we saved 20 minutes, but our express train departed 8 minutes late. So we saved 12 minutes.
Since we went to Yamadera early we finished by lunch and didn't know where else to go. So we went to
3M Sendai City Science Museum. It was a very interactive, hands-on museum. Unfortunately, during a weekday, that meant busloads of school students on field trip.
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| 3M Sendai City Science Museum |
Lastly, souvenir shopping in Sendai. The city is famous for beef tongue and kamaboko fish cakes. Both were super delicious!
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| Sendai Parco Dept Store |
Hotel Chocolat: Sendai has my favorite chocolate brand! This brand was so delicious every time I saw it I had to buy some. Flavorful, fruitful, chocolatey, all around high quality. And this shop had coffee! The black coffee was smooth and not bitter. Math Teacher's latte was not sweet at all. We were surprised to find a not-sweet latte yet still delicious. Both the black coffee and the latte paired well with the chocolates. The chocolates just melted in the mouth yet not sickly sweet either.
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| Sendai Hotel Chocolat |
