A month or two ago some guy on my Flickr contact list posted pictures of Matsushima, a famous bay in Japan made up of hundreds of tiny islands, on his Flickr account. I wanted to go eventually, it being one of the Three Views of Japan and all, but until one night during winter vacation when Beth and I were brainstorming good daytrips to take people on, it popped back into my head. The particular night we researched it up, called up and reserved a boat tour, then went to bed knowing that we found something cool to do the next day. I think it delivered.

Matsushima: One of the Three Views of Japan

The next morning, bright and early, we bussed up to Sendai then trained over Matsushima. After a little bit of trouble finding the dock from the station, we found our way to the dock and embarked upon our 50-minute-long boat tour around the bay, just barely kissing the Pacific Ocean.

One of the many islands in Matsushima’s bay

One excellent mark of a good trip is that even Beth approved of my choice! Well, she helped in the preparation, but she approved nonetheless!

Beth approves of Matsushima!

Matsushima is apparently (and with good reason) quite a popular tourist destination, and even though it was nearing the middle of winter there were plenty of people around. With this many people and this many boats, it was no wonder that seagulls followed closely alongside pretty much every tour boat, and there were plenty of people buying food specifically to feed them.

Seagulls following the boat, by Beth

While the boat tour was all nice and such, the real adventure began when it was time to buy lunch. When this time came it really hit us how much of a tourist town this actually was, as there were people standing outside many of the shops just egging us to come in and eat. They were shoving menus in our faces and yelling at us and ushering us into the shops. I refuse to be goaded, and all this sales pressure made me just say screw it and eat some of their precious islands instead. Yeah, that’s right, screw you guys.

Me eating their frickin’ islands

After being yelled at to come in and eat at a particularly annoying conglomeration of these places, we finally chose, triumphantly and very visibly, to eat at the one restaurant that didn’t have a annoying schmuck outside shoving menus in our faces.

It ended up being a decent little place. Beth and I happened upon having a side of… I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s like sushi but with slices of raw beef instead of raw fish. It was good, but I like sushi better. I also tried eel for the first time (we were eating at a fishing town; it’s not going to be fresher than here). It was alright. It wasn’t all that great and wasn’t all that bad.

Following lunch we took the short walk over to Godaido, a small temple on an only slightly bigger island. It apparently has five statues that are apparently shown only once every 33 years. And damn, we apparently have to wait 31 more years until we can see them.

Godaido: Symbol of Matsushima and home to hermit statues

Group photo on Godaido of everyone taking pictures of the tiny temple

On the other side of the dock there’s a slightly larger island–Oshima. It was actually quite a nice little island with walking trails, statues of Buddha, and a little shrine. You had to cross a nice little red bridge to get to it.

Everyone (except me, of course) crossing the bridge to Oshima

Beth on her way to Oshima

It was somewhere around this time that we got the surprise of running across Tamla, another Fukushima JET, visiting with her family who had come here from Canada for the weekend. It was cool yet unexpected.

To close out the night, and after getting slightly lost due to yours truly, we went over to Fukuurajima, which is, as I’m sure you guessed yet another small island. Fukuurajima is actually a pretty decently sized little island, but it’s still just a little island.

Then it was the train back to Sendai, a dinner at KFC due to Jason’s request, then after a brief “Where’s the bus pick up?” moment, we found and hopped on the bus and ride back to Fukushima.

Now there’s only two more Three Views of Japan I’ll need to cross off my list.

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