Day 5 – The Sakura Matsuri in Full Bloom

While the other mornings had us trying to sleep in, we had to catch a somewhat early train over to Sendai today, so waking up early had its perk this time. Grabbed a hotel coffee, checked out of the hotel, and walked down to Tokyo Station. It was a bit more confusing to find the Shinkansen bullet train lines than the subways, but we managed to navigate to it. On the way, we stopped at a cute book café for another coffee, then grabbed a bento box for the train. Shinkansens are some of the fastest trains in the world, looking and feeling closer to a wingless airplane than a train. The aerodynamic exterior, airplane style seats with the tray on the back, and staff bringing carts of food/ drinks up and down the aisle all reflect this.

The train pulls into Sendai, and we get off to navigate through the station, tossing our bags in a locker before catching a train down to the beautiful cherry blossom covered town of Ougawara. Hitome Senbonzakura (lit. “View of a thousand cherry blossoms”) is as the name suggests: A gorgeous path along a river covered for a long while in cherry blossoms and one of the things Ougawara is best known for. A couple of vantage points are along the trail that you can go up for a better view / photo taking opportunity. I took some photos, walked through the blossoms, and then we went back to the station so we could make our way to the hotel.

We pulled into Sendai station, grabbed the luggage from the lockers, stopped at a restaurant in the station for some Gyoza, and then finally hopped on the train bound for the relatively small coastal town of Matsushima. Pulling into the Matsushima station helped show the contrast between the massive complex transport systems in the cities we’ve been to and the 2-track, empty train station of Matsushima. The train stopped, and we hopped off to walk up to our hotel. I say “up”, as the entire town is on an incline all the way down to the water, which is a just as much of a blessing as it is a curse, seeing as the walk uphill to the hotel is more than justified by the view overlooking the town.

After arriving at the hotel, we were greeted by the concierge standing outside before being shown in. I break out the old Japan-English hybrid speech, and we get checked into the hotel. The interior of the place is amazing and looks like a slightly modernized version of something you would see in a samurai movie, with traditional Japanese music playing and the smell of incense burning. After getting our room key, a brief description of the amenities and some directions to our room, we finally entered and dropped off our luggage.

The room itself is about as typical as a Ryokan gets. Tatami mat floors, paper sliding door, a traditional style washroom, a tea set with some sencha, yukata robes in the closet, and futons for sleeping. It checks off any and all boxes for people who would want a more traditional feel whilst in Japan. Despite the fact that we were in a small town not terribly used to English speaking foreigners, the most difficult thing about communicating at the hotel was remembering the full name of it (Hanagokoronyu Shintomitei for those wondering).

We ended the day by making a quick stop to Family Mart for some evening snacks and drinks, picking up an assortment of dried seafood, some butter buns, a beer for my dad and some Soju for myself. After having an admittedly odd excuse for dinner and discussing the timings for future transit adventures to come, we pack it in for the night.