Up In Sendai

I drove up to Sendai from Tokyo today with the Mrs. We will be in a 3 day gem and mineral show here starting tomorrow. If for some crazy reason you happen to be in Sendai check it out - https://www.mineralshow.net/

The drive up was nice. Weather is great, traffic was very light outside of Tokyo and we got off the expressway a bit early to drive along the coast for the last 20miles. It was interesting, yet sad to see all the new housing and barrier roads being built because of the 2011 tsunami. The land is so flat towards the east that there was nothing to stop the wave from just plowing over everything. As we drove we thought there would be no escaping the tsunami if you were close to the coast. The encouraging thing we did see was 4-5 story evacuation buildings made of steel. If you remember, even three story buildings were overcome by water in some locations.

On a lighter note, we found a yaki-niku place near our hotel that server Gyu-tan, cow tongue. It wasn't for me, but my wife who loves it. I stuck with some pork and other beef parts. They were served with an absolutely delicious miso based sauce. The sauces are amazing in Japan and really make everything taste so much better. The food alone is worth visiting Japan.

The yaki-niku place was a small, local joint and rammed on a Thursday night! We had to sit at the counter, which was fine, but we would have preferred a booth. After the first round of meat came out nothing else mattered. We ate as much as we could and drank as much as we could drink, another plus is drinks are cheaper here than Tokyo! It was a great start to a short trip. I'll update you tomorrow evening after the first day of our show and show you what a gem and mineral show in Japan is like.

Thanks for reading!