1057

I told Natsumi about my plans to go to Yamadera to see a temple on a steep mountainside. She had the day off and had never been to Yamadera so we took off together. The trainride took about an hour, so i tought her some new English words and she tought me some Japanese. A five minute walk took us from the station to the start of the climb. Which was primarily a lot of stairs through a forest. It's been said that there are 1057 and there are signs along the stairs that you only have 650 steps to go. Very encouraging. The first couple of hundred steps were allright but after that it became steeper and steeper and we had to take regular breaks to catch our breath. After about an hour we reached te top of the stairs and the view of the temple from the top made the climb well worth it. Natsumi reminded me to get my goschuincho for a new seal but after rummaging through my backpack i discovered i forgot to take it with me. As i told her i forgot it she just bursted out laughing. The day before i told her i always forget or lose stuff. Like my toothbrush in the shower, my jacket in the onsen and my phone nearly three times in the toilet of a konbini. She said and i quote "No surprise!" and just laughed more. :-D
It was time to go down again and the descent was a lot easier. The sun had begun to shine and so the climb up would only have been harder. We got back on the train to Sendai to get some beef tongue for dinner becaus the climb made us both hungry. We talked about stuff and she tought me some new words of which "hetakuso" was the one i remember best. According to the translation app on her phone it means "incompetent shit". I bursted out laughing loud in the train before telling her i would use this word a lot from now on. Back in Sendai we got back to the hostel to drop off our stuff and wait until the Gyutan restaurant opened at five. Gyutan is ox-tongue and it is a local specialty in Sendai. It's hard to exactly describe the tast if you never had it yourself but it's a bit like steak only far more succulent and tender. On Natsumi's advise i took the thin sliced Gyu-tan and it's utterly delicious. You get thin slices of tonge with almost no added flavors and it's unbelievably good. I now the idea might gross you out but do yourself a favor and try it at least once. And maybe the biggest surprise is that all this goodness will set you back 1600 yen, which is roughly 12 euros, an absolute bargain.
Back in the hotel we had another great evening with the staff and some new guests. I gues you are beginning to understand why there was a lack of updates these last few days. ;-)Læs mere