At the beginning of our trip we all gathered near Kyoto Station (in the evening of the 25th of November)and everybody was ready to get on a night bus and be in Sendai at about 6 o'clock the next day. But the person responsible for booking our bus tickets made one little mistake. He booked the tickets not for November 25th, but December 25th. In the end, we had to take the earliest Shinkansen train in the morning, and arrived at Sendai at noon. Everything would be OK except for the fact that the train is two times more expensive than the bus. I shall be dieting for the rest of the month now.
Of course, it was my first time riding the Shinkansen, and I must admit, the train is amazing. The trip to Sendai took us only 4 hours, while our trip back to Kyoto with a bus took 12 hours.
In between trying to surpress anger and tears at my lost money (of the Dark Side those emotions are) I noticed two salarymen (typical Japanese white-collar gyus) sitting next to me take out 6 cans of beer, which were emptied quite fast (please note that it was about 10 A.M.) Indeed, the Japanese-Alcohol relationship is quite strange. Picture below: Shinkansen arriving at Kyoto Station.
After we arrived at Sendai we were picked up by the AIESEC gyus from Tohoku University and led to a conference room, in which people from the City Hall talked about their experiences during the earthquake and tsunami.
After the meetings we went for "nomikai" (again, lots of alcohol involved). Not only "nomikai" ("drinking meeting"), but "nomihodai" ("all-you-can-drink"). It cost 3000 yen and the drinks were about 500 yen each, so, wanting to get just a little bit of my money back, I drank 6. As it was a nomihodai, there really wasn't too much alcohol in those drinks, but still everybody was shocked that I could still stand after that amount (some guys who drank less had trouble going back home. To my great surprise, me knees just got a little wobbly.) We also had mountains of food (nabe, sashimi, rice with eggs, lots of seafood that I can't name...) and my mood brightened.
The next day we went to a small town near the coastline called Watari and did some volounteer work. We managed to clean two houses (pictures below). I was really happy that I could accually do something. I'd like to stay longer and help more, but I couldn't leave work for such a long period. Pictures below: me at work and during lunch break.
After work we went around the area for a bit and saw the effects of the tsunami with our own eyes. They guy who showed us around told us that this area was famous for it's strawberries, but now there is too much salt in the soil, so everything looks like that:
In the evening we went to Matsushima, one of the three greatest views in Japan, which, thankfully, was not so damaged. Matsushima area is surrounded by small islands that were a natural barrier for the tsunami. We stayed in a ryokan and I think I had the most delicious dinner of my life. Sashimi, crab, konnyaku, macrell, eel, miso soup, rice, tuna and, of course, stuff that I can't name and I barely managed to eat it all. There was so much food that it was falling off the table. After the meal we went to the onsen and changed into yukata (everybody asked me to tie their obi for them - quite strange, a gaijin dressing a bunch of Japanese in their own traditional clothes). Picture below: our group in Matsushima. The weather wasn't that nice, so I have no good photos. At least it wasn't cold...
In the morning of the 3rd day I had natto for the first time. It smells bad and tastes bad, so I guess I'm not going to be a big fan of it. After leaving the ryokan we walked around Matsushima, and visited two shrines there. Local speciality is a cow's tongue ("gyutan"), so everybody except me wanted to try it, and I ended up trying my best to look satisfied with my lunch. Oh, well. I managed to get rid of the taste with some green beans ice-cream (also, local speciality)
In the evening we walked around Sendai for a little bit and got on the bus at 8 P.M., starting our journey back to Kyoto. I don't know if the Japanese buses are so comfortable (they are five times more comfortble than Polish ones, I think) or I was very tired, because I slept for the whole journey, and I usually can't fall asleep in any mode of transportation.
Overall, it was a very fruitful trip and I'm happy that I went. On the other hand, it was also the most expensive 3-day trip of my life, but you can't really help it in Japan...
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