Matsushima, Seagulls, The Magnificent View, and Taiyaki. Part One.

Today I went to Matsushima. Matsushima is one of the traditional Three Famous Sights You Have to See in Japan. Miyajima is one of the others, and the third is the Heavenly Bridge, which I had to skip due to time constraints.

Matsushima is Japanese for Pine Island or Islands, since nouns in Japanese can refer to either the singular and plural.

In this case it’s really plural.

There are more than 250 islands, covered with scraggly pine trees. And because it’s on the Top Three list, it means there’s never any shortage of tourists coming to see it. Raises hand.

I slept in again today until 9:30 to make sure I was really well-rested, because I knew I’d need all of my energy to get through this day. Sure enough, I went through all of my reserves.

To get to Matsushima, I took the Senseki line to Matsushima Kaigan. Don’t take the other line to Matsushima, because it’ll add a bunch of time to your trip. It took me about 40 minutes to get there. Try to aim for a limited express train, and not a local. Local trains are really slow.

The Bird Boat

The Lonely Planet guidebook says that Matsushima is overrun with touristy stuff. Yep! They also say that the cruises through the bay are really cheesy. Yep again!

Approaching the docks:

The boat I didn’t take:

It looks impressive on the water, but a little cheesy:

Cheesiness aside, the cruises do offer a few interesting points:

1. It’s a boat ride. Fun! At one point, we left the bay and were in the Pacific Ocean.
2. It’s an opportunity to dump 1400-2000 yen into the local economy. I bought a ticket for 1400 yen, then was offered the chance to upgrade to first class for 600 more yen. It’s a no-brainer, if a bit of a bait-and-switch. But I went first class anyway, because that way I could go outside and take pictures from the upper deck. Otherwise, I would have been stuck in a stifling hot cabin packed in with the other tourists. If I was going to the trouble to come all the way here, then I might as well go first class! (They already got me for 1400 yen anyway. 600 more? Sure, why not.)
3. There are English explanations, albeit a bit odd. I think the woman giving them was doing it in a Russian accent.
4. You get to see Japanese people enjoy themselves feeding seagulls.

Wait. Huh?

Yes. The big deal with the cruise for me was to see the islands. For everyone else outside on the deck, they were more interested in feeding snacks to aquatic sky rats. My brain totally jumped the tracks on that one.

Seagulls.

I’ll admit it.  I’ve never thought much of seagulls. They’re just pigeons of the sea, and pigeons are sky rats. So I was totally and utterly confused as to why anyone would think feeding garbage-picking birds would be fun.

Maybe it’s because I was born on a beach, and spent a small chunk of my life near there (in spite of my pale skin). Maybe that has colored my perceptions.

The other annoying thing about the seagulls– they got in the way of half of the pictures I took. There was a huge swarm of them all over the boat, flying around the back end. Ugh. Just… ugh. I wanted to shake the other passengers. “Do you know what you’re doing?!?”

Even if you happen to like seagulls, it’s bad to feed them people food, let alone junk food.

Anyway.

I got some decent shots, I think. And I met a nice retired couple. We had a nice exchange consisting of English and Japanese.

The islands were very nice, when I could see them. See for yourself!

Futagojima (twin islands):

Close-up (the angle of this island changed as we were moving, if I remember correctly):

Kaneshima:

Close-up:

Komonejima–Choumei Ana (Update: the thin bridge of rock was destroyed on 3/11 in one of the massive earthquakes):

Komonejima rocks (rocks around Komonejima, to be more accurate!):

Nioujima:

One of many pretty islands I don’t know the name of:

People work here, too:

The town of Uratoishihama:

Matsushima, the town, as we start to finish our loop:

Coming into port, hoping we don’t all collide:

Safely approaching the docks! The next groups are already waiting for us to get off the boat already!

If you want to take the cruise and feed the seagulls, the boats leave at the top of the hour. Just find an old guy with a blue baseball cap. There were dozens of them all over the island, and they all work for the cruise boats to get people there. (That was another Weird Thing. I saw them all over the place.)

Yet another thing about Matsushima you need to know– there’s barely anything in English here. I don’t know if it’s just not popular with the foreign tourists or if it’s something else. You can get a very basic map, and that’s about it.

Oshima

After my adventure among the gulls, it was time to explore some more. There are two islands nearby that you can explore. The little one is Oshima, and the big one is Fukuurajima. There are also famous temples here, but I skipped them. I’m totally burned out.

I was cold, so I went inside the ferry office and got a can of hot cocoa. Canned hot drinks are awesome. You can usually get them from most vending machines, depending on the season. Coffee is the most popular, but you can also get cocoa and then there’s weird Japanese stuff, too, like hot sweet red bean soup. The cocoa is actually pretty hot. You can use the can as a warmer in a pinch. Man, I wish we had those in the U.S.

Heated up, I went to Oshima first. It was very small, very quiet, very nice. Lots of old Buddhist statues, an old shrine, a nice red bridge. Nice stuff. Have a look:

Heading to Oshima:

The path feels like I’m heading to a secret base of some sort. It’s pretty cool.

The bridge is very picturesque:

Crossing the bridge!

The views from Oshima are great. Futagojima:

Fall colors–a Japanese Maple:

There are a bunch of stone carvings and statues around Oshima:

And a tunnel of sorts:

Heading back to Matsushima, I saw this scene:

Fukuurajima

Then I hiked 1 km to Fukuurajima. It has a big red bridge you can’t miss.

Fukuura Bridge, from the boat earlier in the day:

As I approach it from land:

And a 200 yen toll to cross that bridge.

Aww, man.

I paid the toll, anyway.

Mid-bridge view:

Scenery of Fukuurajima from the bridge:

Map:

I walked across the 280-meter bridge, looked around for 5 minutes, saw there wasn’t much to see besides more shrines and tour groups, and headed out. I decided it was time to move on.

There are other things to see in Matsushima, but it’s touristy in the same way a lot of big Japanese tourist spots are.

Last shot of Matsushima from the bridge before I left for Oku-Matsushima:

I headed back to the station to go to Oku-Matsushima, the hidden gem that the big tours skip. Well, that’s what my guidebook said, and so far it had done a good job.

As I was heading back to the station, I bought some french fries in a cone.  It’s pretty clever if you ask me. The fries stand up perfectly straight, so you can eat them hands-free as you walk. Multitasking!

Continued in Part Two!