baby's first trip

Today the four of us went to Matsushima, a small town about three hours north of Tokyo on the Pacific coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. Matsushima is in the Sendai area, on a rugged bit of coastline dotted with islands.

Our hotel being parked on the bay, the town centre was only a short ways off so we headed in to find one of the restaurants that Mari had looked up before we left. We had one of the local specialties, a combination of beef tongue and (beef tongue) sausages. Then we took in the 1300-year-old temple complex, which was of more interest architecturally than anything else.

Attached to the temple's property, however, was something I hadn't seen before. The local rock—according to the Internet a mix of loosely consolidated sandstones and some volcanic tuff—is very easy to carve. So naturally people have carved into it with caves, cemeteries and sites of worship. It was really quite something in the low light of the dying day. A really, really impressive sight!

At the end of the street lay the pier, which we followed out into the harbour for a view of the islands and the bridges that connect those islands closest to the water.

After that it was back to the hotel where we stuffed ourselves on typically delicious Japanese fare. At the end of the evening we availed ourselves of the onsen at the hotel.

Throughout the whole adventure, Ken was on his best behaviour. He's such a sweet boy.