Islands

Yesterday evening i talked with Eric from Norway about Matsuhima and we decided to get there together and watch the beautiful island dotted bay in front of Matsushima. We met up early at eight and took a nice stroll to Sendai station since the weather was good and we had plenty of time since Matsushima was only a 30 minute trainride through the mountains. We got off at the wrong station but quickly noticed that it was just a short 20 minute walk to the Matsushima harbor and decided to go on foot and enjoy the surroundings. We got to the harbour and bought a ticket for the boat that would take us around the bay. The boat had just left and the next departure time was in one hour. We saw a long red bridge connected one of the closer islands and since we had enough time we crossed the bridge and took a nice stroll on the island. It was a lot bigger than we expected and so we had to rush back to the boat because we only had a couple of minutes before it left. Unfortunately our 5 minute sprint didn't help because just as we arrived the boat left. So we had to wait another hour for the next boat. We went for another short walk to a smaller shrine on another island and made sure to keep a closer eye on the time. ;-) We met a nice girl from the US who also bought a ticket for the same boattrip and so we decided to go together. The boattrip passed several islands on the way and we got a great explanation about the area in Japanese. Which was really useful. ;-) After the boattrip we said goodbye to Ashley and Eric and I went for a decent lunch at a local lunch. We were the only ones in this huge restaurant and so we were served very fast (even for japanese standards). I wanted something more homeley so i went for pizza. We walked back to the station and all of a sudden were surrounded by schoolkids saying Hello! and Konnichiwa! If we said Konnichiwa, hajimemashite back we would get a lot of laughs and so they kept saying it until we were at the station. We got the train back to the hostel where we sat down with the hostel staff and other guest before getting out for some Karaoke and since i wanted to do this for a long time i was really anxious. Because we had a mixed Japanese/European group the song selection was very diverse. We went from Sukiyaki to Final Countdown, from Finger 5 to Carpenters and whatnot. Especially my singing was horrible but luckily that is not really important in karaoke. It was just awesome and i will definitely do it again. We got home to the hostel and i tought Natsumi some new words while drinking some tasty beverages before going to bed.Read more