August 10, 2025
SENDAI, Japan is known as the City of Trees!
We had a Samurai greeting as we docked at the port of Sendai, Japan. It's a shame we didn't have more time to explore the city. The city center was a 40 minute shuttle ride from the Port, into the Central train /bus station. Once there, we had to navigate over multiple levels of transportation hubs and stores and TONS OF PEOPLE, to figure out what we wanted to do. Bosco and I decided to take their version of a Hop On / Hop Off tram to get an overview of the city. Sadly the vehicle was an old fashion Trolley car, that got packed to capacity. It made it hard to see anything out the windows, let alone stand upright, while the tram went up and down the winding hills. Sadly we only had time to do one hop off the tram and finish the loop, because we had to be back at the station at 4 pm, to get shuttle bus back to the Port, for departure.The one stop we got to was the former site of the Sendai Castle.
This was our first shrine experience! We got in line and just watched what they did in front of us. Approach, make a coin donation, step back, grab ropes and pull to ring bells, clap hands twice, bow & pause, then move on. We were a little confused on what the intentions at this shrine was suppose to be, because the 3 people in front of us were all holding dogs?!?
Next we went onto our next lesson in ordering food for lunch and buying a cookie! Again lots to figure out and lots of questions but we finally got there! Couldn't figure out flavor but now know macha is default when green wrapper. They love green tea and Macha!
