Sendai: A Breath of Fresh Air

Sendai was a breath of fresh air for me, both figuratively and literally. I adored Sendai. Just when I got fed up with Japan, Sendai came to the rescue. And unfortunately for Japan, Sendai was probably the only place I liked in all of mainland Japan, save for Matsushiro, which is a place I won’t talk about today since today is all about Sendai.

The funny thing is that I almost didn’t get to go to Sendai despite having it on my to visit list. (Confession: My personal goal was to get hold of a Sendai mascot plush. Who could resist a samurai onigiri looking plush, right? Right, except I never got a plushie.) For those of you that aren’t familiar with Japan’s geography, Sendai is up north and despite it not being all the way up in Hokkaido or next to Aomori, even, I really thought I wouldn’t be able to make it to Sendai per time and distance. So, on the day I decided to give Nikko a second chance, I learn that the shinkansen I was on was actually bound for Sendai. Yes, I kid you not! This is kind of similar to what happened to me when I had a last minute change in plans from visiting Hiroshima to visiting Kagoshima except this wasn’t a ridiculously long shinkansen ride and it was a wonderful trip.

Sendai was cold. I love cold weather but whatever I was wearing was not enough to keep me completely warm. And if the cold wasn’t enough, it was raining. But I loved it. I loved how fresh Sendai smelled. The smell was probably all thanks to the rain and many majestic trees Sendai has.

The thing with Sendai is that you actually won’t catch sight of these trees until you walk quite a distance away from JR Sendai Station. Once you encounter the trees, you might just fall in love because that’s basically what happened to me. And it’s not just the trees that Sendai has to offer when it comes to nature. Beautiful trees? Check. Beautiful weather? Check. Beautiful bodies of water? Check. I truly was in love with Sendai’s natural beauty.

Walking in Sendai is pretty easy, save for the “hike” to the top of Sendai Castle’s ruins. While I don’t intend on talking about the castle’s ruins today, my advice for anyone wanting to visit the ruins is to not take the hilly route up. I did this and it was very exhausting. I must admit that I enjoyed walking quite closely to gigantic trees and whatnot, but I advise you to save your energy and take the sidewalk route. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The hilly portion may be short but it can exhaust you completely if you haven’t been keeping up with an exercise regimen.)

I wanted to stay in Sendai until night time. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to ruin my boots completely (UGGs aren’t meant for the rain) and I wanted to ensure that I at least caught the second to last shinkansen out. Interestingly enough, I harbored a slightly crazy idea of heading over to Aomori but seeing how cold it actually was in Sendai when it wasn’t even night time yet, I realized it was best that I didn’t do such a thing as I was certain Aomori would be a lot colder. (I believe Aomori was snowing at the time.) I think it helped that my cell phone’s battery was running low as I couldn’t bother to search for a route(s) to Aomori. Thus, I settled for what I could actually manage to do realistically.

I mentioned about my boots earlier and just wanted to share that Sendai was the only place I saw other women wearing similar boots as mine. And that made me feel comfortable because in other areas of Japan, people seemed to be quite judgemental with my outift (boots, included), despite my boots not being all that cheap. Honestly, all I can say is that the bulk of people in Japan need to learn to tone it down when it comes to superficiality. That whole thing about judging others from a materialistic standpoint is not good. As if xenophobia wasn’t already enough of a problem to begin with…

Talking about xenophobia, I initially was worried that people in Sendai would give me certain looks that I didn’t want to deal with but fortunately, I didn’t really experience that from the people of Sendai. Thus, Sendai was a very welcoming change of experience for me. It was almost like getting an invisible, warm hug in the cold.

Best of all, unlike my Kagoshima experience, I actually didn’t get lost in Sendai.

Sure, my cell phone may have gotten slightly damaged from being operated in the rain, but other than my phone’s GPS capabilities going somewhat haywire, I’m happy to have used my non-waterproof/non-water resistant device in the rain in order to capture memories and navigate myself from one place to another.

I am obviously glad my visit to Sendai ended up happening. While I may not have been able to do everything I wanted to do, I did get to visit historical sites, enjoy tall trees and breathe in a lot of fresh air. Call me crazy but that fresh air alone is already worth traveling to Sendai for.

If you find Sendai appealing from this blog post of mine, you’re going to be in for a treat as I will be blogging additional Sendai experiences in the near future.