Day 3 and 4: Matsushima, Ishinomaki, Morioka

From Sendai we took a train to Ishinomaki with a quick stop in Matsushima to look at the small islands in the sea. The oysters at Matsushima were small, overpriced and under-flavored but the view was worth the detour. 

The main goal for the day was to see Ishinomaki, where my friend J lived and worked on the JET Programme and, of course, where the tsunami was at its most devastating. 

The town has bounced back resiliently in five years but you can still see the massive toll the wall of water took on the town. A concrete foundation naked to the sky where a house one stood; a single home that somehow remains standing despite the ruins of a neighborhood around but abandoned, the owners either long gone or long dead. 

While walking towards the Manga Museum -- still intact -- I saw a high school girl walking over the bridge towards her home. I couldn't help but wonder how many of her friends and family might have perished. How many people she once knew washed away by the angry sea. At one elementary school near the water's edge, something north of 70 students out of 100 total were pulled into the freezing waters that day.  

There are signs of new life in the town. On the island where the museum stands, a pop-up oyster stand sprang up and, unlike in Matsushima, the oysters were fresh and briny and plump and delicious. 

A five minute walk from there was a lot of food trucks called The Commons, started by a bunch of 20-somethings who came to Ishinomaki as volunteers after the earthquake and stayed to help sustain the local economy with good, low-frills food and a place for tourists and locals to mingle. The girl who runs the taco rice stand is named Nao. She was friendly and radiant with a great smile. I would have married her on the spot over my plate of rice had she been willing. 

The food truck community will only be open another year or so due to a muddled agreement with the landowner, so make sure to stop by soon if you get the chance. 

After the sobering reality of Ishinomaki, we jettisoned our way up to Morioka, but not before a stop in Ichinoseki where we saw another festival, making it four in three days. 

Morioka is a nice provincial town in Iwate Prefecture, a place that's known for its cold weather, tiny bowls of wanko udon and not much else. It's a vibrant enough town though with a fun-looking downtown. I imagine had the Jet Programme placed me there I would've been perfectly happy to live in the capital of the prefecture, cold and non-descript as it may be. 

The next day Brian and I boarded a train for Tazawako in neighboring Akita Prefecture. We rented bikes and rode the 20 kilometers around the clear blue lake, the deepest in Japan. 

We met a friendly girl from Malaysia who was traveling and camping alone in the woods of Tohoku, and other than the not-friendly bus driver and staff at the information center, I have only good things to say about the lake. 

While walking around Morioka after an exceedingly delicious meal of jia jia men, we ran into one more Tanabata Festival, my third of the year and the fifth matsuri overall in four days. 

Tomorrow we head to Aomori. A place I chose as my third preference for placement on JET.