Japan Day 15 - Ginzan Hot Spring

10 Nov - Today plan is a full day road trip out to Ginzan Hot Spring, stopping at Mountain Temple along the way for its beautiful scene top of the hill. Unfortunately, the sky didn't cooperate and it was raining when we reached the mountain temple. As it is too troublesome to carry an umbrella to hike up the hill and most likely we will not see anything given the rain (plus the 500yen entrance fee), we gave up climbing and headed back to the vehicle.

Entrance to the Mountain Temple Trail

Saw a beautiful rainbow along the way to Ginzan Hot Spring

The Ginzan hot springs were first discovered around 500 years ago by miners of the Nobesawa Silver Mine (Ginzan means silver mine). It became a popular spot for miners and later a therapeutic hot spring resort. Its popularity soared after being featured in the famous TV drama "Oshin", making it a beloved destination.

Ginzan Hot Spring town entrance

Free onsen foot bath

Ginzan Hot Spring town traditional wooden ryokan

Shirogane Falls

Japan Day 14 - Autumn Foliage & Aoba Castle Ruins

09 Nov - It sure seems like Japan will be having a short Autumn this year, A few days after we reached Sendai, the temperature plunges from 10-15°C to 5-10°C for the next 2 weeks! Anyway, we decided to hit the park today to search for Autumn Foliage. Our first destination will be Nishi park, which I had research to have good view for Autumn leaves. Yup, the trees did not disappoint us.

Antique Tree that is at least 200 years old

Hirose River

As we leisurely walk pass Sendai International Center, we were stopped by a company which was testing their Autonomous vehicles driving technologies. As such, they are offering a free ride to the Aoba Castle ruins, which will otherwise take us another 45mins of walking uphill. I must say the 10mins ride is pretty impressive, with just a few sudden brakes in between. However, when overtaking vehicles, it still requires human intervention.

Aoba Castle is located on a plateau overlooking the city of Sendai, on the opposing bank of the Hirose river. The site is protected by cliffs to the south and east and by a forest to the west. The first daimyō of Sendai domain, Date Masamune, began construction of the castle around 1601 and Date Tadamune completed it in 1637. The castle was eventually completely destroyed by USA in 1945 during the bombing of Sendai.

View from the castle ruins overlooking Sendai City

Date Masamune, the founder of Sendai City

Japan Day 13 - In search of Haikyu!! & Pokémon

08 Nov - 2 weeks pass by quickly and soon it was time to embark on our journey to Hokkaido. Our first stop is at Sendai Station, where we need to collect the Shinkansen tickets we have booked back in Singapore. We quickly checked into Hotel Metropolitan Sendai, our hotel for the next 2 days and off we go to collect our train tickets.

Sendai Station

Hotel Metropolitan Sendai

Having watched "Haikyu!!", we simply cannot leave Sendai without going on a Haikyu tour. Taking inspiration from Mothership, we visited the Haikyu 4 manhole covers near Tomizawa Station and one of the 3 monuments that is located in Tomizawa Park. The other 2 are located at Aoba Gymnasium and Sendai City Museum.

Date Kōgyō Kōkō (Date Technical High School)

Aoba Jōsai Kōkō (Aoba Johsai High School)

Shiratorizawa Gakuen (Shiratorizawa Academy)

Karasuno Kōkō (Karasuno High School)

Autumn in full swing at Tomizawa Park

After we are done with taking pictures, we headed back to Sendai Station to visit the Pokémon Center Tohoku. which is absolutely crowded with people browsing the Pokémon merchandise.

Pass by a Jump Shop in the same building as the Pokémon Center

Night view from our hotel room

After dinner, we retired to our room in preparation for a full day outing tomorrow.

Japan Day 7 - Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium

02 Nov - We had a full breakfast at at our hotel before taking a short 15mins walk to Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium to start the day. As usual, the breakfast spread is fantastic, with unlimited servings of salmon, tuna, squid and not forgetting Sendai's specialty - Beef Tongue Stew.

Dormy Inn EXPRESS Sendai Seaside breakfast

Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium, by itself is not big. If you considered just walking and browsing through all exhibits, at most, I estimate you only need 3-4 hours. One thing that impressed me is that the aquarium is setup in such a way that it allows visitors to have close proximity with the penguins (see pictures below)! They also have a big tank near the entrance where you literally can see the "schools" of fish effect!

Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium entrance

School of fishes as they swim according to the music

Waiting for the dolphins, sea lions and birds performance to start

Sea lion balancing a ball

Dolphin jump in sync

Cute little penguins as they chase the food feeder around the enclosure

Emperor Penguins with their chick

Little penguins retiring for the day as they returned to their "nest"

Dolphins playing basketball

Jellyfish

We ended the day with Dormy's free serving - Yonaki Soba Noodle. Holiday sure ends fast as we packed our bags to check out the next day for *OEE* last week of pre-school experience.

20th Year Blog Anniversary

20 years....of blogging...I am not even sure what to say anymore. Anyway, still have 2 weeks of Japan trip to catchup. Stay tune, new Japan posts coming up soon

Some Statistic: 

Page Count: 92,123 87197 +4926

Year on Year increase: -237 -4.59%

Japan Day 6 - Mitsui Outlet Park Sendai Port

01 Nov - For our first weekend in Sendai, we decided to visit the Sendai Umino-Mori Aquarium and the Mitsui Outlet Park Sendai Port which is nearby. For our hotel, we chose the Dormy Inn EXPRESS Sendai Seaside which has a 4.4 out of 5.0 ratings over 1500+ reviews on Google Maps. We checked out of our existing hotel promptly at 10am and took a train to Nakanosakae Station, before walking about 30mins to Dormy Inn.

One interesting fact we found during this Japan trip is that all the hotels do not allow early check-in when you arrived early. When they say check-in starts at 3pm, they will only give you the room key at 3pm! If you want early check-in, you need to pay for it!

Anyway, we deposited our bags with the receptionists and off we go to Mitsui Outlet Park Sendai Port.

Dormy Inn EXPRESS Sendai Seaside

Mitsui Outlet Park Sendai Port

Usually for outlet malls, we will find some good deals but this time, it is not the same. After doing the currency conversion, the price is actually more expensive than Singapore, especially foreign branded goods. In addition, most shops are selling winter wears, which are not suitable for Singapore tropical weather. In the end, we camped inside the food court as *OEE* catches his nap and left the site empty handed. Well before we left, we rode the ferry wheel to take a look at the night scene, which is kind of ......... boring. Haha

Lighted ferry wheel inside the outlet mall

Night scene at top of the wheel

One last look before we left Mitsui Outlet Park Sendai Port

We made it back in time for the traditional complimentary supper served by Dormy inn from 9.30pm to 11pm. For this Dormy, they are serving the Yonaki Soba Noodle. It sure tasted good! After which, we took a bath at the onsen and retired for the night, to recover energy for tomorrow aquarium visit!