Bad wire management

You may or may not know about my fastidiousness for good wire management. I hate wires. Of all kinds. They must, wherever possible, be neat and tidy. It's one of my charming quirks.

These examples of bad wire management do not suit Japan at all. Come on Japan, sort it out. You should be able to get some plastic tags wrapped round some of those wires.

Watergate (Sendai night out)

Hungry for dinner, we got this feast and 3 minutes later, we were left with the empty dishes. A dinner to rival my Kyoto Korean soup.

Then I spotted this Red Panda Boy. I was planning to blog separately about the Red Pandas but I haven't got any photos of them, bar this one. The easiest way to explain it is

1. Young people like to be different from old people.

2. Everyone in Japan has black hair.

3. To establish difference, certain of the youths (the ones who would like Paris Hilton) dye their hair a strange shade of rusty brown, the exact colour of this wee chap http://www.sch.im/wlp/large%20images/red%20panda.jpg

4. To accompany the colour, the hair is styled to within an inch of its life, like a real life L'oreal advert. Some serious Zoolander type styling.

5. Who knows why. It's obviously a youth thing. The haircuts can cost up to and more than 150 hundred quid.

This guy, you will note, works at the Romeo and Juliet Entertainment Space Club.

Below, is the entrance to an establishment called Louis's. The video explains it all.

Edemame kit-kats

I love edemame.

I love kit-kats.
Could I love them both together?

I think we know the answer.

Matsushima Bay

The third and last of the 'must see' sites of Japan, it was a picturesque fishing village with high speed mini-ferries waiting to whisk tourists around the islands that surround the bay. The islands are lovely, only a few metres in diameter with bonsai style trees on them. We forewent the ferry in favour of a walk up to Saigyou Modoshino Matsui Park as we had heard that this was the premium viewing spot to catch the whole bay. It was nice but I felt that they didn't fully take advantage of the height. The park was not really available to people after a certain point, so we could only get half way up the hill. It afforded a good view, but not a spectacular one. I think secretly, we both wanted another one of those wee single person chairlifts at Amanohashidate to whisk us to the top of the hill and let us see the whole bay.

It was lovely though.

Afterwards, we wandered along the seafront and turned off into Hiyoshi Shrine. A beautiful temple shrine, it had painted room partitions that dated back to the 17th century. Unfortunately, no photos allowed. Peacocks, gold leaf, cherry blossoms, hawks and all sorts of scenery were round the walls of the shrine. Manasume spent time here. As did the bodies of the 20 men who killed themselves in his honour when he died. Yes, seriously. 16 of them killed themselves when his son died.

There was also a small museum at the side of the shrine , Zuiganji Art Museum, which had some wonderful old Japanese artifacts, not to mention a wooden statue of the main man, Masamune Date. Him, his wife and his daughter (the girls were both bald for some reason - I will investigate and report back on this).

On the way back to the seafront, we saw these caves, formerly burial caves. It was all a bit Indiana Jones.

Manasume Date was given a teahouse, Kanrantei, and it has such a great view of the bay that we decided to indulge in a little tea ceremony ourselves.

It was back to Sendai for some lunch and a trip out Mr Date's castle ruins.

Masamune Date

This afternoon we took a trip up to the remains of Sendai castle. Built by this dude,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_Masamune

only the side walls are left. There is a statue of the man himself. His presence is felt everywhere in Sendai. That's a stained glass window of him in Sendai train station.

The castle was at the top of a hill which affords a fantastic panaromic view over Sendai but my camera ran out of battery so you'll have to just imagine it...

Atop the hill, I spied this in the distance https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLOIT2S4Mb-X4nB0d_82MsWQYMLoFBvAHVpJEdN9RlXlpmHsAFir9TULiZYzqtXV9k0vTK_60zrgoRjUuv3r9Hum3L88sy8bCMIj-QXqDC6vloPMYqQ1p9Yx6VfqQdEqVSjRll8-5jYI/s320/Sendai_Kannon.jpg

It's massive! We were about 10km away and it still looked massive in the distance. We couldn't believe there was no mention of this in the guidebook, it would have been great to see this up close but we had been on the hoof all day (Matsushima Bay this morning, see next post) and the onsen was calling my name. Another day in Sendai and we would definitely go out to see what we have since learned is the 6th largest statue in the world. But alas, you can't always get what you want. It's not all bad, this is tomorrow's adventure

http://www.shigakogen.gr.jp/english/data/Jigokudani.jpg

Bring on the monkeys.

Haikus thought up while chillaxing in the onsen

Steaming salt water
At woman only onsen
No boys allowed. Good.

Submerging in pool
Takes your breath away a bit
Distant traffic sound

Got muscle spasms?
Red torturous massage chair
Will sort of sort them

Fire hazards (or the club scene in Japan)

I think I have previously mentioned that a lot of the bars, restaurants, live music venues and even nightclubs are on the upper floors of what look like ordinary office blocks. Here is the list of bars, etc that are in one such building in Susikino, Sapporo. Knowing Susikino, some of these will be girly bars. A lot of people trying to get out of one measly exit. By the way, each one of those yellow words going across is another establishment.

When did I start sounding like my dad?