Nov. 2010 Japan Trip - Post #11: Matsushima Bay

It seems a bit more difficult to recount stories from my trip to Japan in November of 2010 now that I have returned from my recent visit.  There are so many new stories to tell.  However I am determined to fully chronicle my special 2010 trip with my wife, and thus this effort will continue.  I will mix some new in with the old, as the beauty of this blog is that there is no natural order of things by time, but rather just by what happens to be in my head at the moment.

With that in mind, I would like to share with you a wonderful afternoon we had out on Matsushima Bay in Nov. of 2010 with my good friend Sam.  Sam met Mary and I at our hotel (the Century) for a planned boat cruise through the bay and then lunch over at Shiogama before heading back for the return trip.  Sam knew a decent Italian restaurant over at Shiogama, and with Mary's culinary range being a bit narrow, I was eager to get her some food she would feel more comfortable with.  Matsushima has a number of different boat companies that operate various trips around the beautiful islands that dot the bay.  We chose one and off we went!

It is about a 30 to 45 minute ride from Matsushima town over to Shiogama.  It is a winding traverse, through the famous Matsushima oyster beds as well as the pine tree covered islands.

There seems to be a tradition of feeding the birds (seagulls) from these boats.  They even sell food at the docks to make it easy for you.  For some reason, I do not see the beauty in this tradition, as I think it is unnatural for birds to be fed by humans.

The resulting flock of hungry participants crowd the skies off the back end of all of the boats and to me slightly detracts from the amazing beauty of the scenery all around you.  A minor detail, but hey, I am a purist.

Once at Shiogama, we took in a nice lunch which included salad and very good thin crusted pizzas.

The lunch was perfect.  A nice place with a view of the harbor.  Very good Italian food, and the beer was refreshing.  Sad to note that this place, which was right in front of where the cruise boats dock was wiped out by the tsunami just four months later.  I doubt they are going to be able to rebuild it, but we shall see.

The ride back to Matsushima was not as smooth as the first leg of the journey.  Regrettably the waves splashed water over the windows which rendered some of the pictures we took useless.  Once back in Matsushima, we took a walk along the main road through town.  While we did just take a lunch not too long ago, we decided to stop in at one of the waterfront restaurants because I said that while here I wanted to try Matsushima's famous oysters.  We found this great little place on the second floor of a small building right around the corner from our hotel.  It was a traditional style place where we sat on the floor.  We ordered a small plate of oysters, half of them raw, and the other half baked.  They were the best tasting oysters I have ever had.  I just wished I had taken a picture of these beauties before I swallowed them down.  They were so good, I could not decide which one's I liked better!!  All in all, another great day in Japan.  Thank you Sam!!!!