Sendai

Volunteering Up North Part Five (End): Living in a Tent

Eleven sachets of Pocari Sweat, all unneeded.

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Conditions in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture were both better and worse than I expected. The city has, in many ways, been the symbolic focus point for volunteer groups and the results are obvious. I had seen the photographs from March, and I couldn’t have predicted how far the area would come since then. Even volunteers who went a month ago expressed surprise at how successful the clean-up around the station had been.

But wake-up calls are common. You could be enjoying yakitori at a festival and suddenly notice that the car park across the road is flooding. Or sleeping after a rewarding day at an oyster farm with your fellow team members, when you’re woken up by a shindo level four earthquake and you worry about the fishermen you worked alongside that day. Or eating ice cream outside a workshop in a tiny fishing village, surrounded by scenic pine trees and tsunami wreckage.

I don’t think I could prepare you for volunteer work in Ishinomaki. but I’m going to try.

I brought eleven sachets of Pocari Sweat to mix with water in my Thermos for rehydration during the day. Eleven totally unnecessary sachets. Not even my massive roll of duct tape was needed. After consultation with people who had been previously, I’d brought waterproof trousers and jacket, insoles for boots and two types of gloves. I wore the jacket and trousers, if only because I could, but the rest went unused.

Circumstances really did change every week and my advisers had been the very same people who’d been told to bring individually-wrapped food for every meal. We were provided with bentos for lunch and dinner.

The lunch bentos were always the same. Two onigiri from a random selection of konbu, katsuobushi and umeboshi and a piece of fried chicken. Dinner was a large bento consisting of meat or fish, a few things seemingly chosen at random (shumai, spaghetti, sweetened lima beans) and a portion of rice.

So that’s the food. How about the portable toilets? My first experience was of using them in the dark, something I would never do again. I didn’t even find the “foot pedal” (located at knee height) on the first attempt. Later expeditions would see me roll up both trouser legs and turn on my head-mounted torch before entering the tiny cabin. On one memorable morning, I almost threw up from the smell. And yet, not bad considering where we were. Previous volunteers have worse tales.

Entrance to the onsen, mountains in the background.

We were busy with the festival on the first few nights, so it took us a while to find the Co-op, located about 25 minutes away from the camp at Senshu University. Inside, it didn’t look any different from a supermarket in Tokyo. There were snacks which I bought to share with everyone during the day and there were toilets too. Once the festival was over and the curfew had returned to eight o’clock, we found ourselves going pretty much every evening.

Most of us were staying for eight days, so we had to wash. For that, we went to an onsen (hot spring), where you have to get naked in front of a room full of people if you want to get clean. My situation was probably a bit unusual as I’m transgender, but I was too far gone to care by that point. Although I felt uneasy, I stripped off like everyone else. That was my approach to living in close quarters in a tent for over a week — I can deal with it and I can do it. And I did.

One of the most endearing aspects of camp life was our morning routine. Before Radio Taisou, we sang the Anpanman theme song [YouTube link]. The first time we sang it (on the second day), it seemed inspiring but benign. By the third day, volunteers could be caught secretly humming it. After that, people would try singing anything to get it out of their heads, all to no avail. It’s stuck there forever, guys.

You probably want to do this right now. Believe me, it’s an experience that will stay with you your entire life and help a community in need. If you’re confident about your Japanese, you can join the short-term volunteer teams. Personally, I wanted English help should there be an emergency (I imagined there would be many — there weren’t) and I joined one of the international teams. These consist of a number of English speakers, five in our case, and one bilingual team leader. The downside was that the short-term option wasn’t available to me and I needed to stay the full eight days.

I hope that Japanese companies, particularly those based in Tokyo, start realising the benefit to their business in allowing workers time to volunteer up north. While we were there, we also worked alongside teams from Toyota and Nomura, as well as school teachers. They’ve made a wise choice and I hope that dispatch companies (hakengaisha) who employ foreigners like me will follow their lead.

Anyway, you want to do all this too, right? Start here, with Peace Boat.

Volunteering Up North Part Four: Oyster Farming

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Kobuchi-Hama is a tiny fishing port on the Oshika Peninsula, which is to the south-east of central Ishinomaki. On the bus down there, we passed whole villages that had been wiped out entirely. Due to the tsunami, every stage of the oyster farming process had been interrupted and fisherman had lost not just their families and homes, but their livelihoods too.

The Oshika Peninsula was the closest point to the earthquake’s epicentre on Honshu (the main island of Japan). The area surrounding the main building in Kobuchi-Hama is covered with a tangle of ropes, nets, buoys, the odd washed-up boat and — often — nothing where there used to be something. The land mass shifted violently; we had to leave before four o’clock every day because the workshop now lies below sea level at high tide. This is worth remembering every time someone complains that a tsunami advisory of “just 50 centimetres” is meaningless.

I didn’t know anything about oyster farming before I came to Ishinomaki. If asked, I would’ve initially guessed that people collect wild oysters from rocks, and then realised that would be too time-consuming. Admit it, you’ve never really thought about it either.

First, the oysters grow on shells threaded together on thick wire, with small plastic tubes separating them out. There’s a photograph of how the shells look before the oysters start growing below, but having not been there for this part of the process, I’m not really clear on this section at all. I don’t know how the oysters get on them, because the next time I saw them we had jumped a stage, to cutting the cords and emptying the shells with the oysters already growing on them into large yellow baskets

The shells arrive packed on a large wooden pallet, brought by a forklift truck. Three or four people pull off the chains of shells (about double the length of your arm), cut them in the centre with wire-cutters and throw each half into a basket. Everyone else grabs one section and removes the wire. This is a little more difficult than it sounds, because there is a metal knot over one end; you have to grab the final shell and shake the rest loose. You then have to get the final shell, but often barnacles have grown over the knot and you have to either work it loose or smash it.

For about an hour, there’s a flurry of activity as people move the shells off the pallet and into the baskets, while everyone else tries to separate them before more are dumped on top.

Next, we attached these shells to ropes. But first we had to retrieve said ropes from the tsunami debris covering the docks. They were twisted around metal poles, knotted around rusted spikes, threaded through nets and covered in seaweed and mud. Some of them weren’t long enough and some didn’t have the necessary loop of rope at the end. Sometimes we would pull three quarters out, only to find that the last quarter went straight into the heart of the knot. Once we got them out, we laid them out straight in the mud to be wound up and tossed into a basket. Our team retrieved more ropes than anyone expected, but this was by far the hardest task of the week.

Attaching the shells to the ropes was the most common task for our team and we would spend whole days doing it. There were about ten baskets in a row, which rested on crates so they were just above our waists. At both ends were machine with two hooks. Two ropes were hung between the hooks and they fell either side of the crates.

First the ropes were unwound, so they were slack; two teams approached the crates of muddy shells and oyster seeds from both sides and started sliding the shells into the gaps in the rope, about a fist-width apart. Three minutes or so later, a fisherman would give our handiwork a quick once over, then we would all step back and the ropes would be tightened. This involves spinning them very tightly in the opposite direction and so mud, oyster parts and less identifiable sea creatures are flung up in the air and over everyone nearby. Accompanying this is a cracking sound, like ice-cubes in a drink, as the ropes bite into the shells.

As we worked, we chatted to the fishermen, which is where foreigners are particularly useful. With us, we have something to talk about that has no connection with earthquakes or tsunami or even Japan. Or family.

So we talked about whether it was still foggy in London, whether onigiri is delicious or not and beer. Probably natto and chopstick ability were mentioned too.

On the last day, I got to go on a fishing boat. From there, the area is so beautiful. Just pine-covered trees either side, a few islands and the open sea. Then you look behind you and see the devastation around the port and you remember.

The bay was covered with a network of linked buoys; the boat pulled up alongside one and a pulley system with a metal hook at the end lifted up the linking rope. We started attaching a number of loops of rope to the newly exposed rope and heaving coils of oyster ropes off the boat. Experienced crew members held one end in their hand and threw the rest straight out so they unwound in a spiral, with the rock-filled plastic bag used as a weight going down first. I threaded mine down over the side more slowly. After that, we attached the oyster ropes to the rope loops, which were attached to the ropes linking the buoys.

The oyster ropes hang straight down underneath the water, and tsunami victims have been found caught up in them in the past. It’s no surprise that volunteers without these memories seemed to outnumber the fishermen on such trips.

While they will never read this, I would like to thank the fishermen who helped us learn the ropes as quickly as possible and were kind to us despite everything they’d seen and experienced. Thank you!

To read a more coherent description of oyster cultivation, check out the entry on Wikipedia, and to read a news article that touches upon Miyagi’s oyster industry go here.

Volunteering Up North Part Three: Kawabiraki Matsuri in Ishinomaki

Ishinomaki Festival: The shrine made of tsunami debris.

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

After the devastatingly beautiful floating lanterns, our team was eager to hear what we would be doing to help out with the happier side of the festival the next day. Some teams would be carrying mikoshi (shrines that can be carried), some would be fund-raising.

It turned out we were to clean the portable toilets and the cars used for street clean-up and food delivery. That took us most of the day, and we arrived at the festival in late afternoon.

Nowhere in Japan has been as welcoming as the people of Miyagi, and even in post-tsunami Ishinomaki, this still holds true. We stopped at a number of street vendors, and bought fried buns with oyster stew inside (Kaki stew pan) and tortilla hotdogs, which came with free yakitori. We got samples of mikan juice, and the promoters were happy to pose with a carton for us.

We even found a place that sold the freshly-ground, freshly-roasted hot coffee we’d been craving. Taku of Kigokoro Cafe runs a travelling coffee shop and he’s now doing a tour of Tohoku. He offered us free coffee, but after we insisted on paying, allowed us to donate instead. Awesome guy, and if you can read Japanese, you should check out his resumé.

On the outskirts of the destroyed section of the city, a hospital was handing out kakigoori (ice shavings with syrup). I thought I was over kakigoori, but I’d never had it with condensed milk before. It was delicious, but they refused payment. Once again, everyone was so nice.

One of the highlights of the afternoon parade was a mikoshi made of tsunami debris. Let me repeat that: A tsunami took thousands of citizen’s lives and destroyed half a city, so the residents made a shrine out of the debris and paraded it through the streets. That is one hell of a ‘f*** you’ to any natural disaster that dares show its face here.

On a sour note, a ton of so-called “Christians” decided to show up and tell us that the tsunami was our punishment and we needed to repent. By the time I’d seen the fifth or sixth blank-eyed little git holding their obnoxious yellow signs with their stupid loudspeakers reciting their views in Japanese, I was begging my team leader to let me break protocol and Have Words with them. They never made eye contact, their lips formed into an immovable pout and there was not a shred of kindness — Christian or otherwise — in their eyes. How dare they.

Once the fireworks started, however, their Bible verse was drowned out with music, camera shutter sounds and commentary from a nearby loudspeaker. Thank God.

There were fireworks donated from all over Japan, which exploded in the shape of of cats, hearts and spirals. They reflected off the water and one side of the Mangattan manga museum. Very beautiful and inspiring. Unlike the previous night, there was no noticeable absence of light where buildings used to be and no visible wreckage, so it was very easy to think of this as being like any other summer firework festival in Japan.

As we left, from the crowd I delivered a swift and decidedly weak kick to one of the sign-holders and lost my moral high ground. He never even noticed.

Below the photographs is a long-ish video of the fireworks, plus very short videos of the tsunami mikoshi (no longer than ten seconds!). I hope you like them.

Volunteering Up North Part Two: Floating Lanterns Festival in Ishinomaki

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Floating lanterns are usually in memory of the dead, but this year in Ishinomaki, the main aim was specifically to console the spirits of those who lost their lives in the tsunami and earthquake. According to the unofficial “fan” website, each lantern has the name of a tsunami victim written upon it.

When I first heard about the floating lantern festivals of Japan almost ten years ago, my aunt had recently passed away. I asked my Japanese teacher if I would be allowed to launch a lantern-boat for a relative at such a festival, even though I wasn’t Japanese, and she said it would be okay. Even though the idea was merely theoretical, her answer touched me at a difficult time. Since then, Bon dances and the floating lanterns have felt special to me.

The lanterns themselves (in the case of Ishinomaki) consisted of a round waterproof paper tray with a candle and coloured paper forming a rectangle around it. Of course, you can’t just buy 10,000 waterproof paper trays, which was where our team came in. On the morning of the festival, we systematically sprayed the lantern bases with waterproofing liquid, piled them in pyramids so they could dry and then stacked them again.

Before the lanterns were launched, there was a carnival-like atmosphere in the city centre. Food vendors, free mikan juice from POM and charity suika-wari. TV camera operators lined up on the bridge in front of the Mangattan Manga Museum (The white, egg-like building in the photographs). A group of us were even asked to help light the candles around the ceremonial site. The vendors and matsuri are for another post though, and the mood quickly shifted once the event got underway.

As the first lanterns were released, Buddhist chants played over the loudspeaker. Most people around me got out their cellphones and took pictures until the prayers started. I wouldn’t have dared to take pictures myself otherwise.

The sky got darker until we could really see the lanterns and the prayers and chants continued. The section on the other side of the river is comprised of gutted buildings and rubble beyond; in most cases the lighting comes from floodlights presumably set up to discourage criminal activity. In near darkness, the lanterns floated by in complete silence. It was lonely and heart-breaking.

The priests started chanting the names of everyone who had been killed in the recent disaster. I couldn’t pick out individual names, just the rhythmic murmur of voices. It would take them hours to go through them all. It’s the same number of paper lanterns we waterproofed.

The first part of this series was an introduction to Ishinomaki, which can be found here. You can also visit the Official Kawabiraki Website or read another volunteer’s account of the festival.

Volunteering Up North Part One: An Introduction to Ishinomaki

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

At first glance, Ishinomaki looks like a run-down tourist town that has seen better days. Strangely though, there’s an abundance of new, cheap buildings, so presumably it’s on the verge of a revival. Even more strangely, a middle-aged woman on a bicycle sees our bus as we approach and bows. Not many people notice as it’s about seven in the morning, and we left Tokyo around 10pm, and we’ve been travelling all night. I wish I’d been awake enough to respond.

That first impression changes as you get closer to the city centre. The ground is a little dustier and there are cracks in the pavement and open gutters. The statues, from Kamen Rider creator Ishinomori Shoutarou, and found around Manga Road, look fairly polished and warn of watching security cameras. Then there are the buildings. Softbank has a shiny new shop near the station and the convenience store inside said station looks no different from the ones in Tokyo. Gutted shops lie sporadically in between and the covering of the shopping arcade is badly damaged. Some areas flood at high tide.

Go further, and you’ll find the start of the section of the city that was completely flattened. Around 40% of Ishinomaki lies in rubble, with just a few houses barely standing. Unlike the UK, Japanese homes usually have the surname of the occupants listed on the outside. Where the walls are still standing, you can easily read the name of the person who used to live there.

I remember one house, the front was torn off and the clock inside had stopped at the time the tsunami hit. Outside, an empty photo album lay open in the mud, the photos scattered across the road. Beautiful handwriting that gave the precise date, occasion and location. One member of our team bent down to retrieve one of them and placed it on a nearby wall, like you would with a glove, so the owner could find it again some day.

Ishinomaki is no longer in the news in most countries outside Japan, but Tohoku clearly still needs our support. Right now, it’s difficult to tell which charities are reputable — there are charity CDs, wristbands and concerts flying all over the place. So right now, I recommend Second Harvest, which is devoting its energies towards getting food and supplies up north. However, choosing the right smaller-but-reputable charity could help even more.

Spam From Japan: Account Of The Earthquake From Saitama and Tokyo (Photographs)

If you are looking for information in an emergency, please skip to the links at the end. Thank you.

It was an ordinary afternoon at my workplace in Saitama. I was just about to start marking my fifth graders’ classwork when the windows started rattling. Neither of the other two teachers in the staffroom had reacted, but I had stopped hunching over my desk and was bolt upright, looking around the room. As a foreigner from England, where we don’t have earthquakes, I often find myself more interested and worried about even the smallest tremors than the average Japanese person.

It continued, but I’ve been here long enough to see that too. Just the other day we had a smaller quake (7.2 magnitude, but much further away from civilisation) while I was teaching a class. The kids got under their desks for a few minutes, then we learned ‘earthquake’ in English.

This earthquake intensified. The vice principal realised something was wrong then and sprang to the PA system near her desk. The curriculum advisor threw open the staffroom doors and rushed out into the corridor. The whole building shook violently and things fell off the shelves. I braced myself against the white painted cupboards by the window and my desk.

There was a row of potted plants on the cupboards by the window. One by one, they rolled off and smashed. Mugs tumbled out of the cupboard in the hot drinks area and the photocopiers came away from the wall and smashed into the metal cases filled with English teaching material.

My life didn’t flash before my eyes. My first thought when there’s an earthquake is ‘is the epicentre close to us, or is the earthquake very far away and even worse?’ I thought about my partner, working in a tall building in Tokyo and then what a stupid, boring day I’d had. When I came in to the school that morning, the secretary exclaimed how much weight I’d lost recently. I thanked her and mentioned it was thanks to her responding to my request to give me less rice (etc) for school lunch than the other teachers (and about the same amount as the kids). But when I got to lunch, I had even fewer noodles than my usual half-portion to go with my miso ramen! So what would be a funny anecdote otherwise was going to be part of my last day alive…

After what seemed like several minutes, it stopped. A class all wearing their bousai zukin filed out into the playground. A bousai zukin is a padded and reflective silver hood worn during fire drills that — for 99% of the school year — is hidden away inside a blue or red cushion cover and used as seat padding in class. I looked around the staffroom, decided that there was nothing I could do and dashed out into the corridor and ankle-depth water.

It wasn’t a burst pipe, but the row of goldfish tanks outside had been shaken so much that they’d thrown about half their contents (sans goldfish — I checked) over the side. I ran through it and towards the shoe lockers and school entrance. The classes kept coming and I took charge of the kids in tears.

The principal brought out an envelope with registers for all the classes — but no one had any pens. By chance, I had a pink gel pen in my trouser pocket. An hour or so ago, I’d been drawing pictures of animals and signing notebooks for Class 3-X, who’d just had their final English lesson of the year with me (The school year ends in March in Japan). I handed over my pen to the nearest homeroom teacher and apologised for its pinkness. She didn’t seem to mind.

Registers completed, the teachers all gathered in a circle and were given the briefest details based on what could be figured out by cellphone – there had been a Shindo Level 3 earthquake in Iwate prefecture (Completely incorrect). By that time, a large group of mothers had arrived at the school gates and, once the signal was given, charged inside the playground to take their kids home.

In many ways, that made things worse.

Because all the kids whose parents weren’t able to make it there yet didn’t understand why and assumed the worst. Momo (8) kept sobbing and repeating her older brother’s name again and again. He was a middle school student right next door to the school, so why wasn’t he there yet? She rose up on her knees and threw her arms around me. Next to her, Ume (also 8) was crying for her mother. Sakura (12) sat with her arms around her legs, her face blotchy from crying. I sat with her for a bit and she told me she was perfectly fine and eventually started smiling when I switched to English, because she thinks it sounds funny.

Some kids were enjoying it. Sugi (10) wanted to play rock, paper, scissors with me and Kashiwa (7) didn’t understand what was going on and wanted to chat with me about cats. Another kid exclaimed that it wasn’t scary, it was FUN. Some of the kids pointed to the outside of the gymnasium with excitement, where a huge chunk of metal casing had fallen from the wall.

I approached a teacher and asked if there was any news from Tokyo, because that was where my partner worked. No news, although they speculated that while it was further from the epicentre, the ground was softer, and so it could go either way. An aftershock hit and, even though the ground was shaking, I ran back to hug Momo and Ume.

We’ve been hit with unpredictable weather lately from days as warm as in early summer to snow. Yesterday was cold and the children were freezing. My legs were still shaking, but I claimed to be cold too. A few children asked me if we had earthquakes in England, and when I said we didn’t, replied wistfully, “Wow, that would be nice…” The principal and vice-principal made the decision to move the few remaining children into the gymnasium. We were surrounded by graduation posters, including one with 1000 paper cranes. It was just like a scene out of a zombie movie, with all the survivors holed up together, and thinking about it like that made it feel a bit less real. One by one, more parents turned up and their kids ran to them, grabbing their waists. Eventually, they were all reunited with their parents and big brothers, including Momo and Ume.

At last, I was given permission to enter the main building and I went straight for my phone. Partner was safe and had texted me already. A teacher asked me if I was okay and, away from the kids, I completely lost it.

Now I had to get home. Although my workplace is in Saitama, I live in Tokyo. A teacher told me that the new teacher, Momiji-sensei, also lived in Tokyo and, although the trains were probably stopped, we could attempt the journey together. Momiji stopped off at a convenience store first, which was packed with people. You couldn’t move in there. All the ready-to-eat items (bread and onigiri, mainly) were gone. At the train station, there were barriers up and guards in place. They told us the elevated track had fallen down, but we could get a discount on the buses, if they came. Momiji and I took a step back to discuss our options and, as we did so, the guards brought down the shutters. I guess I’d thought the trains would stop for a few hours and then start right back up again.

We had no choice but to walk into Tokyo. There was a steady stream of salarymen coming at us, who were walking out of the city. We passed a large number of shops on the way that were open and doing great business — mainly restaurants and bicycle shops. One of them was a second-hand shop which prominently displayed a wide-screen TV showing footage from Shinjuku station. We all stood around it and watched. It was chaos and I knew then that I would have to walk all the way home, without trains or buses. I parted ways with Momiji-sensei and plotted a direct route to my apartment on my phone with Google Maps across the middle of nowhere. In total, I would have to walk 32km. Luckily, I’m physically fit and walk around Tokyo quite regularly, although my record up until that point was 22km in one day.

A very strange thing happened next. I was walking through said middle of nowhere, when suddenly one of my foreign coworkers (an English teacher in the same district, many kilometres away) appeared in front of me. I explained what I was doing and he took me home where I got a mug of coffee, his wife cooked a delicious Japanese meal and he charged up my phone. There was also a TV and every single terrestrial channel had earthquake and tsunami news. It was currently on an NHK affiliate which had dedicated itself to broadcasting messages from viewers to their loved ones who were missing. It was heartbreaking — and I was also starting to get a sense of the scale of the quake.

He said I could stay the night in his mother-in-law’s house. I thanked him and said I wanted to continue walking. More than anything, I wanted to get back to my partner and check on my cat, but if I hadn’t met him there, I would never have made it. The local Metro station was now open, and I took the train straight to a connecting station on the Chuo Line (the central line connecting Tokyo and its western suburbs). Unfortunately, that line was down, like all other JR lines. In total, it cut around 2km off my journey. And so I replotted my route and resumed walking. I was now walking away from Tokyo, along the main commuter route. Thousands of salarymen and university students were walking side-by-side. Along the way, I realised that while my phone wasn’t sending messages to my partner, I could reach him if I used e-mail because the data network was still working. And so we met up about 5km later.

We got back just before 2:00am, having walked just over 29km. The cat was safe (not even particularly flustered!) and a pile of papers had fallen down — suggesting nothing like what had happened in Saitama. I charged my phone and read the internet, looking up everyone I know in Japan. Everyone is safe, even one doujinshi artist who lives in Sendai.

Note: This is a completely true account of what happened… excluding the names of the people involved. Sorry if you feel it’s self-indulgent (it feels that way to me), but I had to type it all out. I will be remembering this day for a long time.

However, while Tokyo has barely been affected, Sendai and the surrounding areas are devastated. For more information on emergency procedures and how to help, try the following links:

Time Out: Emergency contact numbers and shelters Also states that Bic Camera are offering a free phone charging service at all their stores. Never underestimate the importance of a charged phone in an emergency.
Facebook: Tell your Facebook friends you’re okay, quickly
Google: Person Finder
Yahoo: Where To Donate

Here’s another personal account from a friend in Tokyo.

Those of you who read this blog for my movie and theatre reviews are probably wondering about the safety of your favourite celebrities in Japan. It’s okay, it’s only natural. Here are some lists of those who have checked in: voice actor listing, Musical Prince of Tennis listing, Jrock listing.

People waiting for buses at Nakano Station after the earthquake. The line stretches around the station and up a side street.

SpamFromJapan: Meat Meat Meat (Yakiniku in Sendai)

Yakiniku at Kuniwake, Sendai.

Kuniwake is a yakiniku restaurant squeezed into the Kokubuncho entertainment district of Sendai. The manager — a gruff old man — waits for you inside, where the decor is black and the lighting low. I’m usually wary of these kinds of places.

However, a group of us had been wandering around for about an hour looking for a restaurant from my friend’s guidebook. It turned out to close at six pm every day. We eventually agreed on Kuniwake instead.

I thought we were going to have problems when the manager refused to serve us gyuutan (cow tongue), a regional speciality of Sendai. The sign outside advertising it had been one of the things to draw us in. We were hungry and decided to go for the all-you-can-eat yakiniku option, where plates of meat are brought to you within a specific timeframe and you cook them yourself on a mini-barbecue embedded in the table.

Gyuutan (cow tongue).

The rules were simple. They would bring us three types of meat, one after the other. Afterwards, we were free to choose more meat from a restricted menu. The second of these plates was the dreaded horumon (offal), but the first and third plates were the best yakiniku I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it was the meat quality or the preparation, but it was amazing.

Afterward, we finally got our gyuutan. We didn’t realise we had to specify we weren’t trying to get it for free under the all-you-can-eat option. Once it was understood that yes, we’d pay extra, the gyuutan was served. It tasted like steak with the texture of over-cooked squid and an odd aftertaste. I didn’t particularly like it, although it took me several pieces to decide whether it was the taste, texture or concept that bothered me.

I highly recommend this restaurant and you can find a map here (in Japanese). Sendai in general is a great place to visit in Japan — check out Matsushima and Gundam Shot Bar Zion while you’re there too.

Spam From Japan: Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture

Godaidou

This was written before the March 11th earthquake. I’ve wondered for some time how to deal with editing it, but I’m leaving this as is for now.

I think about the family mentioned in this entry a lot — they were on a tourist boat and the kids seemed fascinated by seagulls, suggesting they lived inland. At least, that’s what I tell myself. The woman who worked on the boat and sold me the Kit Kats, the other woman who stood just a hundred metres from the docks and persuaded us to eat at a local restaurant… I just don’t know. It is said that Matsushima escaped comparatively lightly.

Miyagi as I saw it was a beautiful, friendly prefecture. Please remember them that way.

A samurai sat in a plastic chair and held up a sign outside Marine Gate Shiogama. The helmet shape and eyepatch identified him as Date Masamune (伊達政宗), a local hero.

We were there to catch a boat to Matsushima, an area of Miyagi prefecture known for being one of the three views of Japan (Nihon Sankei). Inside the marina, there were Tanabata decorations hanging down from the ceiling. Tanabata falls on July 7th and the festival in Sendai is particularly well-known. This was Winter Tanabata.

Also inside was a tuna auction and a stage for a talk show about tuna that would take place later that day.

Once on the boat, I saw a box of limited edition zunda Kit Kats, only sold in the Touhoku area (Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures). I bought some and, after I handed over my money and received my Kit Kats, I asked what ‘zunda’ was. Apparently it’s chopped edamame (baby soybeans), usually served sweetened and with mochi.

As we were setting off, the woman who was behind the till walked around selling ebi senbei (prawn crackers) for the seagulls, which was actually a popular brand from the convenience store. No wonder the birds had been gathering round the boat. We didn’t buy any, but went outside to watch.

Two kids and their parents also came out soon after and offered us some of their seagull food. It started snowing, but the seagulls kept coming. Every so often, the kids would shove more ebi senbei into our hands. As you can see, I got some amazing shots of the birds in flight.

It got colder and the snow grew more intense. The sky became dark and the rocks around us got whiter as the snow fell. The seagulls shrieked and snatched crackers from the air. All the while, we were surrounded by pine-covered islands officially declared to be one of the three most beautiful sights in Japan.

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Just before we docked in Matsushima Marina, I remembered I had the zunda Kit Kats. I thanked the parents of the two boys and checked if it was okay for them to have chocolate. Great family and I hope their kids like edamame.

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We were drawn to a traditional house near the marina, named Kanrantei (観瀾亭). Kanrantei was originally built in Kyoto and then moved by Date Masamune’s son in the Momoyama era because they liked Matsushima better. Since Date Masamune was feudal lord of Sendai, the prefectural capital of Miyagi, he got one of the best spots on the island for watching moonlight sparkle on the water.

After taking a look around the museum, you can have green tea and a traditional snack while looking out at the bay. I had green tea and zunda. The lady at the counter asked if I’d had it before and tried to talk me out of it. I had to be a little more insistent than anyone should have to be when trying to give someone money. Eventually she relented and I got my zunda. It was sweeter than I expected, but definitely worthwhile. I drank my tea from a lacquer bowl watching the sunlight and snow hit the waves, just as Date Masamune might have done over 360 years ago.

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Godaidou (see main picture) stands nearby and had far more visitors. A small red bridge connects it to the mainland.

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Outside, a woman holding a menu all-but insisted we visit her restaurant. There, we had amazing kaki soba (oysters and noodles). We made the mistake of ordering two ‘jizake’ (local sake). Fooled by Tokyo prices, we could never have expected two medium-sized bottles would arrive at our table.

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Afterwards we crossed the Fukuura Bridge to the island of the same name. Just off from the main paths you’ll find thick ropes tied to posts that will allow you to climb down to the deserted beaches safely. I presume they’re deserted according to the season; Matsushima isn’t crowded, but the weather varied rapidly between snow and sunshine so that might have been why. Nevertheless, no one else made the trip down onto the sand.

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If you’re going on a trip to Japan, you must include Matsushima (and Sendai) on your itinerary. Catch a boat from Hon Shiogama Station and don’t forget to check out Gundam Shot Bar Zion in Sendai while you’re there too.

Spam From Japan: Gundam Shot Bar Zion (Sendai)

Gundam Shot Bar Zion in Sendai is relatively far from both the station and the main shopping and eating district. We found it by accident after a friend of ours was searching for a restaurant from her travel guide that serves duck noodles and is closed for all major dining periods (Sundays, evenings, etc…).

Zion is what you might find on an off-world colony if the bar owner was into figure-collecting. The second floor bar is dimly-lit and the walls are lined with Gundam of varying sizes and a video of the original series plays on one of the walls.

The bartender welcomed us warmly and, when we admitted that we needed to leave to catch our train back to Tokyo in twenty minutes, told us what he could prepare from the menu in that time. Apparently food is compulsory, probably due to licensing laws. We had “Dopp GZ no Cockpit de Edamame”, which were edamame beans served decorated with figures, including one of Garma Zabi. We didn’t get to keep them; you have to order a special dessert for that.

Our point cards (to be upgraded the next time we visit the bar) identified us as ‘civilians’ in the Gundam universe and I’m keeping it even if I’m not sure if I’ll return to Miyagi Prefecture.

The menu has a number of cocktails unique to the Sendai bar. I chose “Jet Stream Attack” which was a fairly ordinary cola mix (I think… the recipes are secret). My partner got “Akahana,” a grapefruit-based drink served in a cocktail glass and named after an insignificant-but-iconic Zeon guy from the original Gundam who had a red nose. The bartender thought this was a pretty cool choice. And when our drinks arrived, he insisted that, instead of ‘kampai!’ we shout ‘Sieg Zion!’

When we left, said bartender saluted us. It was a wonderful, friendly experience that I would recommend to anyone visiting Sendai, even if you don’t know much about Gundam. I have no idea if the Tokyo bar is as good.

《ガンダムショットバー　ＺＩＯＮ》
仙台市青葉区大町２-４-１　グランドソレイユ２Ｆ
Gundam Shot Bar ZION
Sendai-shi Aoba-ku Oomachi 2-4-1 Grand Soleil 2F

Map

Spam From Japan

Live from Tokyo

Volunteering Up North Part Five (End): Living in a Tent

Volunteering Up North Part Four: Oyster Farming

Volunteering Up North Part Three: Kawabiraki Matsuri in Ishinomaki

Volunteering Up North Part Two: Floating Lanterns Festival in Ishinomaki

Volunteering Up North Part One: An Introduction to Ishinomaki

Spam From Japan: Account Of The Earthquake From Saitama and Tokyo (Photographs)

SpamFromJapan: Meat Meat Meat (Yakiniku in Sendai)

Spam From Japan: Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture

Spam From Japan: Gundam Shot Bar Zion (Sendai)

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