Going Places : Sanriku Area Part 2

(This is the second part of Going Places : Sanriku Area series. For Part 1, you can read it here.)

26th May 2009: Sendai - Kesennuma - Ofunato

Finally, I can move on to part 2...I hope you readers haven't forgot about what I wrote in part 1. As I had previously stated in the past post, I do not intend to educate y'all about the content of my study trip, but just to share with you the things that I couldn't "share" in my trip report, haha... so here's another day of the journey, where we moved on from Sendai City to places closer to the coasts, and farther than the high 'jive'ness of the city.

Early in the morning, we departed from Sendai to Kesennuma City by the rapid train. Kesennuma City is a fishery city and located at the most northeastern point of Miyagi prefecture. It has about 105.2 km coastline which is part of the Sanriku coasts. Here we visited the city's Emergency Management Division and the officers there were happy enough to show us some of their systems and brought us walking around the fishery ports and places with tsunami memorials.

'Hailing' a train..??

They also brought us to this beauuuuutiful site in Karakuwa Peninsula where there's a visitor's centre and near the centre, there's a walkway down until we reached this spot like in the photos below. The view was so breathtaking...with the fresh air, the seagulls, the sound of the waves, the pristine water...Subhanallah! 

 

We were in Kesennuma until late afternoon, then off we went to the next city, Ofunato, by another train. It seemed that we were going to a more rustic environment. Ofunato was peaceful and quite when we arrived there later in the evening. Not much thing going on. We went to check-in at the hotel and literally dropped our bags in our rooms, then off to the supermarket across the street to buy dinner. Then we walked around with our plastic bags, looking for a nice place to enjoy our dinner.

Our official visit in Ofunato hadn't started yet, but nevertheless, we started our own visit, since the signs of tsunami were almost in every nook and corner of this small port city.

one of the signs telling people where to run in the event of tsunami

me foolin' around...

After walking a little bit, we ended up at the port, no one was around, so we hopped on the seawall about 2-3 m high (if I am not mistaken)....the process of climbing was rather dangerous...but fun! The big brother anyway, was happy enough to stay down and enjoy his dinner by the parked boats, huh...And us girls? Never before in our life, enjoying dinner on top of a seawall...with view, the peacefulness, seagulls again...while the sun slowly sets behind us.

Us...on the seawall, enjoying our rice and tempura..

Oh, by the way, the photo above was taken by a curious and intrigued Japanese guy who happened to see us..in that condition. Until now, I am still wondering, what could be in his mind seeing us there.."Are those aliens?" "Are they crazy?" ... However, we didn't notice him until he suddenly popped in front of us and gesturing for permission to take our photo. Then he went. We thought that was it...but later, just as we were leaving the place, the guy came again, with copies of our photos, for each of us! My.....what a guy...

intrigued with the guy who was intrigued with us..

More photos...

'you jump, i jump'...on the tarmac

On our way back to the hotel, it was already dark, most shops were already closed....but this one was still open...and the result...thousands of yens spent on kimonos..well, them, not me..I just bought the little ones for my little nephew and niece..

the very friendly shop owner's family, regardless of the language barrier 

Oh well, another day spent on a faraway place...I put a lot of pictures of my friends here, some of them are theirs, I didn't take as many photos as them as I was more concentrated on taking videos. A little bit lonely because our other friends were in another place for their study trip, but with this little group, we had a very nice time with each other, at ease, more interaction with our resource persons and ...what else...peace!

See ya in part 3!

Note: The gif animation was done using the photos courtesy if Ms. Titi...thanks dear..