Day 8 - Sendai and Yamadera

We had a good breakfast included in our room rate, then headed off for Yamadera. As we were too early for the tourist centre to open we missed out on taking advantage of the cheaper tourist pass for the Sendai area. So ¥3800 had us return tickets to Yamadera on the 8:18 train (¥840 one way). This rapid train took about 50mins.

The train wound through the outskirts of Sendai and then further north west, where the ground turned to snow, making us wonder what hike would be like.

We arrived in the quaint little town of Yamadera with just a small bit of snow left in a few places, not all over the ground thankfully. The temple is up 1000 stairs, and was built in 860ad.

After a short stroll through town we arrived at the start of the hike, after a climb of around 100 steps, we arrived at the base shrine, where you then pay a ¥300 fee per adult, ¥100 for kids. Then you head up.

The 1000 stairs lead through some cedars and mossy covered rocks, to exposed outcrops of cliff face, and small shrines all over the place. Near the summit at 860steps, is a lookout over the valley, then the climb goes up some more to some other temples. Only up here did we encounter some slippage due to snow, a few careful steps and we got by that. The views were spectacular and the descent was all good too.

At the bottom we stopped for ice creams, not realising that doing so caused us to miss the hourly interval train. So we then took a walk through town, then waited in the station for the 12:17pm train.

Arriving back in Sendai after 1pm, we went to the shopping street for food. Some italian for lunch pastas and pizzas. We then continued to walk the 6 blocks of the shopping street, stopping at Don Quixote for some sweet treats. On return up the street the kids were watching a games parlour, where a guy won a huge bear, then proceeded to gift it to Dale, much to her delight. So then Jason tried a few times to win something for Oscar, we gave up and headed to the Pokemon centre for a toy instead.

We made a brief stop back at the hotel to drop things off before heading back out to Tonkatsu Matsunoya for another great dinner.Read more