Ofunato before the rain

Hamanasu Kaiyoukan also provides breakfast for their guests, which had me a bit worried, but we read about the buffet breakfast being delicious, so we figured it would be a normal buffet-style breakfast with undercooked eggs, hot dogs, fish, rice, and more fish with some bread and juice.

They really go all out for their guests, and I was already feeling bad about last night. Luckily they have a buffet in addition to this. They also brought EVEN MORE raw fish after this photo was taken. I sampled everything but the large hunks of fish and the raw egg. The salad, noodles, and pickled vegetables were good, as was the tofu in the lower left corner. The bread in the center was soaked in miso and fish broth, much to my disappointment. Thankfully they had a big vat of rice at the buffet, so I was set.

It was cloudy and windy when we left the hotel and made our way through the city of Kessennuma. Maps kept trying to get us on the bus road, because it really did look good on paper. We ended up choosing our own route through most of the day because of this. At the north end of the city was the harbor

Sumi likes boats

There were a lot of boats to like

There was also a rather rare sight in Japan.

See the church above the harbor?

This is another church just 100 yards behind where the last picture was taken

Christianity does not have a lot of followers in Japan. The Shogunate outlawing it and killing many of the Japanese converts is probably one of the reasons why. Also, Japan's Shinto and Buddhist background doesn't really jive with a monotheistic religion. That said, up here in Tohoku, Masamune Date was one of the few daimyo that didn't discourage missionaries from teaching until the Shogun demanded that he outlaw the religion. Even after that, he mostly just made them keep quiet. That is really the only explanation I can think of as to why a small northern Japanese town of less than 60,000 can have two Christian churches in it.

Anyway, leaving Kessennuma brought us back to mountains and rivers and steep climbs. On one of these climbs, we stopped to get some water and saw a little building.

Kessennnuma City Shishiori Gold Mine Museum

So, there be some old gold mines up in these here mountains. The museum is free and small, showing the history of the mining in the region and a replica of a "monster nugget" found there. Yep, that's what passes for excitement in these here parts.

Lots of old pictures of the Shishiori mine from the late 1800's through the early 1900's. The mines were worked in year round, so miners brought their families to live with them in company-provided housing.

Every child's dream home...

It was a nice stop on our climb up. As we left the building, I saw a poster for gold from the region, which is sometimes referred to as Michinoku. In the early Nara period (710-794), the area that is now Miyagi and Iwate prefectures was the northern edge of the empire. The borderlands up here were referred to as "The End of the Road" (道奥) by the rest of the empire. It is also a taiko song composed shortly after the tsunami. So seeing this poster, all I could think of is a bad compilation CD of Michinoku disco...

Am I the only one? Probably.

So, back on the road...

we had one more stop before our hotel.

It's...um....it's...it's a...a tree?

Out of context this sounds like one of the sillier things to memorialize. There is a single pine tree that wasn't washed away during the tsunami. So they built an enormous memorial compound around it.

This building is massive

Now for the context. This entire open area that the memorial is built on used to be a very famous pine forest of roughly 70,000 trees (Matsubashi) dating back hundreds of years. Imagine a famous national park just being wiped away in a matter of minutes. That's what the memorial is for, and the last tree standing is a symbol of the forest. 

A few remaining stumps

Three quick notes: First, the tree is actually dead now. All the sea water killed the roots. It's now held up by a carbon fiber rod inside the trunk. Second they have replanted thousands of trees to eventually regrow the forest. Third, they have four Honda robot lawn movers mowing the large open field. It makes the whole compound look very futuristic.

Finally we cycled around the coast to get to our not-nearly-as-scenic business hotel Route In. We'll be sheltering in place tomorrow as rain moves in for a day, then we'll be on the road for two more days. There is a big typhoon blowing up from the south expecting to hit Tokyo on Friday, so we'll be stopping in Hanamaki, just 25 miles from completing the entire length of Japan. Anyone thinking we should just suck it up and finish in the rain has never been in a typhoon before. It'll give us an excuse to come back to the region.