Day 6 – Trekking up Yamadera

I think I’ve given up trying to adjust my sleep schedule fully, waking up at 5:30am will have to do. After getting ready and brewing a cup of tea, we went down to the breakfast buffet at the Ryokan. They had a lot of options, none of which you would associate with a typical North American breakfast, with the exception of eggs. Several forms of tofu, including one with a very good chili sauce, fish, rice cake, seaweed salad, and others that I don’t know the name of. It made for a good start to what would be another walking-intensive day. After breakfast, we went back to the station and caught a train over to Sendai. From there, we booked our tickets for the bullet train we would take back to Tokyo when we leave Japan and then boarded another train heading out west to Yamadera and Yamagata. The train ride to Yamadera was just over an hour going over large ravines and through scenic mountains, building up the anticipation for when we would arrive at Yamadera

Yamadera is a small town built beneath A collection of temples and shrines, the oldest of which date back to 860 AD, all built along the side of a small mountain. After briefly walking through the town, we made our way to where the trail up the mountain began. The trail officially begins once you pass through a large stone Tori gate and has you passing by many altars and shrines between the long sets of stairs connecting the different temples. The entire trek reminded me a lot of climbing a mountain in Miyajima my first time in Japan, where every time you made it to a waypoint, you are motivated to climb higher by the beautiful views of the town below.

After making it to the top, taking some more pictures, and picking up a small souvenir, we started hiking back down. We stopped by a small souvenir shop on the way back to the station, where I had a small conversation with the lady running the place. I bought a couple of gifts for when I got back home and grabbed another vending machine drink while waiting for the train to pull in.

A couple more stops west from Yamadera, and we enter the city of Yanagata. We wandered down a couple of streets in search of somewhere to get some lunch. However, we found our way to a strip of bars, all still closed until later that evening. After a quick Google search and a bit more wandering, we found a place that specialized in beef. After ordering some drinks and enjoying beef sushi that was cooked with a culinary torch in front of us, we went back to the station for the pretty, albeit, hour and a half long train ride back to Sendai.

Once our train pulled in, I stopped by one of the stands in the station celebrating the Sakura season with Cherry Blossom themed desserts and bought some Sakura Mochi (a sticky, chewy rice dessert), while my dad got some cherry ice cream. Got on the train back to Matsushima and had a quick rest at the Inn. We went for dinner at a cute and cool restaurant that specialized in seafood and one of the local dishes, Gyutan, or cow tongue. We got some drinks to go with fried Goby fish, grilled eel, and cow tongue. The cow tongue was surprisingly good, and while tougher than most meats, was still more tender than I expected. After the tasty dinner and drinks and the old lady running the restaurant telling me about some of the things to do in the area, we went back to the inn for the night.