Zuihoden & Sendai City Museum

Thursday Triss didn't have any afternoon classes as the kids had gone on a field trip, so he took some hours off and we explored a few places neither of us had seen.

First stop however was his bank. Japan is a cash society. Credit cards are not widely accepted. Their first paper money is 1000 Y or about $10. They have 100 Y and 500 Y coins. Most males I know hate carrying change around in their pockets so Triss had a bag full of coins. Banks here also don't stay open late so his bank is always closed before he gets home from work. So we took the opportunity to take his sack o' coins in. He was guessing it was around $300...turned out to be a little over twice that.

Then we headed off to Sendai station where I showed my special JR pass at the tourist office and got a limited edition laquerware bookmark.

Outside to the bus area, we bought tickets on the LOOPLE.
We had enough time to go to Zuihouden---the Mausoleum for Date Masamune and then to Sendai City Museum where the featured exhibition is Date Masamune The Last Sengoku Warlord. They also had artifacts showing the history of the Sendai area. Tristan remembers studying many of the items in his Japanese Art History class at UW.

The highlight of our time at the museum was when we got to the "kid's" room and there were no kids. They had a helmet to wear and an actual Koto to play. I'll have pictures up. It was totally hands on and the gal working in there couldn't have been nicer.

We walked across the street to the International Center. There they have lots of meeting rooms but also a room with publications from all over so you can read a newspaper or magazine like Reader's Digest. Triss has been there many times when volunteering for city events. While there we ran into one of the Kiwis--Krystal from New Zealand. She is a CIR (coordinator for international relations). That position requires fluency in Japanese as you end up translating for city publications. She and Kaleb (also from NZ whom we met in the spring) trade off...one week at the International Center and one week at City Hall.

We had missed the last of the Loople buses so caught a regular bus back into town and got off at one of the covered arcades where they have the tanabata hanging. Because they are having the Sendai Destination Campaign they have items from different festivals out to show them off. Tanabata festival is in August and Sendai has one of the most popular/best known of these. Triss says you can't walk thru' the area easily because of the crowds of people and also all the tanabata hanging down so you can't see. They are all very different and beautiful and quite fun to see hung from giant bamboo poles.

We ate dinner out and headed home.

Today we are headed out on a day trip to Matsushima. The weather has been wonderful.