Today is the day of the cherry blossoms. We caught the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Sendai, taking lass than 2.5 hours to reach Sendai.
On the way we passed Fukishima township. There was no visual evidence of theower station disaster of course, but there is apparently an elevated level of radioactivity there but not dangerous in the short term. I wish I had my Geiger counter with me, but I left it in Matilda. I will have when we pass there again though.
The scenery was a little better today than yesterday with some nice mountain views. There is snow still on mountains and some ski runs are still open. It should be nice driving through this northern section of the country.
We had another reminder of how far north we have come when we got off the train in Sendai. There was a wind tunnel effect and the wind was cold! We found our hotel easily (Richmond -$100 for a 4 star, very nice hotel right next to the station.).
We dropped off our bags and immediately got the train to a park which we were told was the best place to see the cherry blossoms. (Tsutsujigaoka Park). And we were not the only ones to have that thought! There were thousands of people there! The Hanami (cherry blossom) festival was in full swing. Today is the first Saturday after the opening of the season. Every inch of ground under the trees had tarps and partying people. I think they had been there all day (we got there after lunch) and apparently drinking all day too! Some of the young people were very unsteady on their feet. There was a lot of cheering and revelry -a bit like a country music festival at home....
There were lots of interesting food stalls too.
We caused quite a bit of laughing and puzzlement by wating to know what some of the more vegetable-looking foods were. Although there was a lot of seafood, tongue, eggs etc, there was also a good few unusual vegetables on offer. These were potatoes.
But the cherry blossoms were the main attraction.
However the blossoms did not appear to be fully open yet! And somehow the crowds of revellers, whislt a phenomenon of their own, did not add to the beauty of the blossoms. I think the best is yet to come.
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