Matsushima and Ichinomaki

 Before we went to bed last night, Sumi made a lot of plans for today, including going to the Shiogama fish auction in the morning. This would have us get up at 5:30 to make it up to the market before 8:00 when the auction would start. Anyone that knows Sumi would be saying something akin to "Ain't no way you're getting up at 5:30". They would be correct.

So we got up around 8:00 and were on the road by 9:00.

We did make a stop in Matsushima, a city famous for it's numerous small islands and the bridges they build to connect them to the mainland. 

Like, there are tour buses of people that come and see this. It is pretty cool, actually. The reason we came here was to visit one of these islands, Oshima. 

Now, Japan loves it's legends, and they really don't care if they are believable or not, as long as they are fun to tell. The legend of this island is that a monk, Kenbutsu Shonin, came to the island, recited sutras for ten years, and was thus able to fly. The emperor at the time thought this was so neat he sent 1,000 pine trees to him as a gift, thus starting the whole Matsushima (Pine Island) thing. Sure, cool.

Anyway, the historical telling is that Kenbutsu, who was part of an ascetic hermitage sect of Buddhism, lived on the island for 22 years, carving buddhas and scripture into the rocks. His dedication was so inspiring to the sect they erected a 3 meter tall obelisk as a memorial to him. This is far more believable and still kinda out there. Take religion out of the story and you basically have a crazy old guy living alone on a tiny island and carving up all the rocks. But add Buddhism and now it's a holy place.

Regardless, it was very pretty and a nice stop.

We continued up the coast and into Ishinomaki, the last reasonable-sized town we'll be staying at for a while. We're here because this is the port that you leave from to get to Tashirojima, the cat island. We're also staying at The Tama Hotel, a cat-run hotel. More on that later.

We got into town a bit early and needed to find some food. A family restaurant called Tomatoes & Onions piqued our interest because who doesn't like tomatoes and onions? It was also on the way to the hotel. They had a grilled chicken meal, which sounded good after a week of convenience store food and very salty meals (curry, gyoza, ramen).

The sweet corn was very good.

Salad, dinner roll, french onion soup.

Well, the chicken was the darkest white meat I've ever seen and I guess came from somewhere close to the breast. The rest of the meal was really good. Japan doesn't do spices well, so I don't know who taught them to make french onion soup. It was great, like really well made. The roll wasn't white bread fluff either. The chicken was the worst part of the meal and it was ok, just not chicken breast. 

Check in at the Tama Hotel was listed as 3:30 and at exactly 3:30 a man with large glasses, an even larger wristwatch, red pants and short, spiky, bleached hair came in to check us in. Sacho Mino (real name Satou Minoru) is really something. He is a graduate of the Tokyo MAX Beauty School, teaches high school here in Miyagi prefecture, races motorcycles, and has run the Sendai Half-Marathon. How do I know all this? It's in the hotel information guide.

There are birthday collage posters of him on the walls in the hallways. 

And the room decor is absolutely what one would expect from someone who graduated from Tokyo MAX Beauty School. Color and design everywhere, the exact opposite of the very standard business hotels we've been at for much of the trip. And the hotel is just...different. He has a whole selection of bath salts (free) down in the lobby. He has free wine in the lobby. Yes, wine. He cooks every night and has a small bar in one of the three buildings that make up the hotel. And then there's the cats.

There is an entire room for the cats

There are 11 of them (we saw 7)

This is Tama. As in the Tama Hotel. He is the manager.

Sumi in heaven.

They were all very well socialized and friendly, asking for pets, playing, hanging out with us. We spent quite a while with them. Finally we grabbed some snacks at the nearby Family Mart and called it a night, We have to be up and out by 8 tomorrow to catch the ferry to Tashirojima. There are only 3 ferries all day, so we can't miss it. Unlike the fish auction, Sumi will definitely be up for this one.

One last thing. I've seen several of these in the area and I just cannot imagine it is any good. This is a dinner vending machine. Like beef stew, glazed ham, ginger pork. And I got to wondering, how is it prepared? Like, are these frozen meals that are microwaved right then and there and served hot? Is it just all cooked and kind of under a heat lamp all day? There is no combination of storage and prep that makes this sound like a good idea.