Sendai

 Today was a long but easy day of biking. All downhill or flat, over half of the 40 miles on bike paths, and some beautiful vistas. 

"Park Golf". It's mini golf, but without all the fun gadgets and tricks. This course was huge and spanned the better part of 1/4 mile.

Municipal bike path in Ogawara

Picnic break along the bike path

Wheat crops for Soba and Udon

Rare sighting of the authors. At the Pacific Ocean.

New coastal bike path that runs for about 25km

The 3/11 Memorial Kannon statue in Sendai. The granite on the right has a list of the people from this area who died in the tsunami

Remains of buildings after the tsunami, preserved.

This is the first area we have been in that was directly hit by the tsunami. Up till now we've been inland, and the tsunami "only" reached six miles from the shore. It's been 13 years, and most of the area looks back to normal, but there are a lot of new houses and roads. Up in this region there are far more abandoned buildings than new ones, but whole neighborhoods that we passed through look very new.

We arrived in Sendai too early to check in, so we stopped at the Uminomori (Forest of the Sea) Aquarium. It was good. There was a dolphin show, per usual in Japan, but this one had one of the handlers swimming with and performing tricks with the dolphins. It was neat seeing the dolphins playing with the handlers, pushing them, jumping over them, etc. The large main tank was quite impressive, as well. The cafeteria was surrounded by tanks so you could see the animals and fish as you ate ice cream.

Seals swimming upside down by the cafeteria

Yellow Frilly Scorpion Fish, according to Sumi. Sounds legit.

Commerson's Dolphin. Found in the southern tip of South America. Also known as Panda Dolphins

After checking in, we wanted to stay close to the hotel, which is nice, but located in what I would call the truck stop of Sendai. So, checking the map, we decided on