Matsushima

According to a famous ancient Japanese poet, Matsushima is one of three (best) views of Japan. 'Matsu' means pine, and 'shima' means island. Therefore this tourist attraction is basically a group of islands carpeted with pine trees. Although most would disagree, we would like to think of Matsushima as the Japanese version of the 12 Apostles (A similar place of interest in Australia).

Matsushima is not too far away from Sendai city, so on Saturday we decided to go there for a visit. We took a cruise which took us around the islands for about an hour. The ride offers a good view of the beautiful islands up close. However the main highlight for the passengers seemed to the feeding of the seagulls. You could buy a pack of prawn crackers on board. There is no lack of seagulls though: hundreds of them would flock to the cruise ship once we depart.

There was also an autumn festival that day on one of the main islands connecting the mainland. They had stage performances and food stalls as part of the celebrations. Sendai is famous for its gyuutan (cow tongue) and kaki (oysters), and we managed to have both of them at fairly reasonable prices. We got a plate of 4 oysters and a giant sized scallop for 550 Yen (SGD$7)! As typical Singaporeans, that was probably our main highlight of the trip.