Matsushima

Hilary and I got back from Hong Kong yesterday! The flights went well, everything was smooth, the only problem was that we were up for a long time. Tons of photos to post, I need to finish up the ones from Japan before moving on to Hong Kong. After trial and error, I think the best option is to try linking from a photoservice like Flickr, so that's what I'm going to try to do from now on. Flickr gives you only a small amount of storage though, so I won't be keeping large images on that website. [Looks like the photos are overlapping with the links on the right side... if people think this is really distracting I will try to resize them in future posts]

Ok... so Matsushima!



If you ever followed any of my posts from my time in Japan several years ago, you probably saw a photoset of Matsushima (I posted probably 3 or 4 sets). There's a reason I've posted so many photos of it - it's an absolutely gorgeous place!





To quote Basho:

"Indeed, the beauty of the entire scene can only be compared to the most divinely endowed of feminine countenances [Hilary], for who else could have created such beauty but the great God of nature himself? My pen strove in vain to equal this superb creation of divine artifice"



Basho (1644-1694), the master and popularizer of Haiku, considered Matsushima one of the pinacles of Japanese landscapes. I suppose the rampant tourist industry in the city itself has taken away a chunk of the charm Basho was describing, but we took a boatride through the islands because the views of the islands are more pristine. We really enjoyed it.



Unlike Kinkazan, Matsushima is actually located a convenient distance from Sendai, and our JR passes made it a piece of cake. We headed straight for the boatrides, and bought a ticket for an hour long loop around a large portion of the islands. The islands were pretty cool, but I since I had seen it before I had more fun taking photos of Hilary...











Another fun thing we did was feed the seagulls! The last time I took a boatride - with Myron - we saw people throwing these little french fry things at the birds. I saw people doing it this time as well, so I ducked into the boat and asked the lady standing at the little concession stand inside if she was selling any "umicarasu no tabemono" (seagull food stuffs). She chuckled and took out a bag of prawn chips that were actually human snack food but seemed to be the popular item to throw to the seagulls. It was only 100 yen for the bag! Happily I bought a sack, and brough them outside. We had a blast feeding the droves of seagulls trailing the boat.





The seagulls are pretty tame, and are a lot of fun to take photos of because they come so close









A cool surprise was the two eagles or hawks (very large raptors, whichever they were) that suddenly appeared behind our boat. They followed us, diving into the boat's wake to catch the prawn chips that fell in the water





Hilary insists that I post some photos of me, so here's one she took. I'm still confused about the expression I am displaying here





After the boatride was over, we walked over to some tourist stands to get some icecream and buy omiyage. We got a really cool hat that's big and pointy. I'll post photos of it later. Anyway, that was our trip to Matsushima, I have a blast every time I go there... sayonara Matsushima, who knows when we'll be back