One Day in Sendai

After the random night, I had set my alarm super early to get up to see the ‘golden rings’ or solar eclipse that was occurring at 7:30am. Unfortunately, my spirit was more willing than my body was to get up and get amongst it.

After brunch at Freshness Burger (a seriously awesome organic burger chain that for whatever reason hasn’t opened in Australia yet! Maybe I should open one…) I made my way to Sendai.

Sendai holds a special place in my heart. It’s where I got to try ox tongue prepared in several different styles, ultimately increasing my awareness or knowledge of the versatility of ox tongue. A day visit to Matsushima took place during my stay there last time, where there are some 150 tiny picturesque islands for people to investigate and explore. And finally, it’s the town where I met the Crazy Canadian, whom I now share several fond memories with, including an amazing month on a road trip up the east coast of Australia.

After the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami hit the coastline that Sendai resides on, I decided that this time around I would make an effort to visit Sendai and see how things are progressing over a year on.

Sendai itself is rebuilding quite well. However, the further north you go past Matsushima, there’s still a lot of work to be done. When I arrived at Umebashi Guest House – an eco-friendly building made entirely out of recycled materials – I asked Keiko, the manager, to help point me in a direction of where I could see just how badly some areas had been affected.

Considering I only had one day to explore, she helped point me in the direction of Nobiru. Nobiru is about an hour north of Sendai. I had to switch from train to bus at Matsushima, as the subway line for a particular portion of that area is still in need of repair before they can start running trains on it.

The bus ride to Nobiru showed remnants of the tsunami.. Power lines covering rail tracks. Many areas are still flooded. Some houses are partially submerged in flood water, others have had entire sections torn away and the buildings now sit lopsided, dormant and unoccupied.

When I arrived at Nobiru, the first thing I saw when I got off the bus was this.

That store lays roughly 500-750m away from the shoreline. The closer I got to the shore, the less there was to see.

How can one describe Nobiru?

Destruction is an understatement.

Obliteration is a far more appropriate term.

You should Google ‘Nobiru Sendai’ to see some pictures of what it was like right after the tsunami.

There’s next to nothing left of this town. The cleanup effort will be ongoing for some time and the rebuilding beyond that will go on even longer.

The time I spent in Nobiru left me choked up on several occasions. To try and even appreciate what these people must be going through was hard for me to fathom, because this was just one particular area. I explored a very minor amount, perhaps two square kilometres.

Here’s a map of what the entire coastline is like.

See the highlighted orange areas? All of those areas have been affected by the tsunami.

I only managed to explore around about the blue dot where the giant red ‘X’ area is.

I learned later on back at the guesthouse that there’s one town further north that was wiped entirely off the map also and there’s currently a large contingent of international and national volunteers assisting with the cleanup cause.

I’m hoping that they eventually make their way down the coast.

The piles of debris in Nobiru sit as high as the cranes required to clean the debris up.

When you look at the following picture, I think it makes it slightly easier to comprehend the level of immense force that this tsunami had behind it.

That used to be a truck. Now it looks like what happens when opening a can goes wrong.

When I returned to the guesthouse, Keiko asked me how my trip was. I replied using one word in Japanese, ‘Kanishi.’

Sad.

After some more discussions about things that I saw and witnessed, I decided to head upstairs for a little while and get some writing done about the experience done before dinner.

When I headed downstairs for dinner, there were a few other guys around the table. Masa, Motoki and Takayuki, all from different areas of Japan. We were later joined by several more people, virtually all of them from different areas around Japan, but all of them were up here to do one thing – help rebuild the coastal areas of Sendai. There’s a huge amount of construction work to be had for people willing to take it, and many of the companies involved want people from all over the country as wage rates are different depending on the area you come from.

A rough count later, some nine people were staying at the guesthouse that were part of the rebuilding efforts. So Sendai and the districts around it have help that is willing to stay and see the job get done.
Some of these guys have families at home. Many of them showed me pictures of their daughters, wives and girlfriends.

While I couldn’t stick around to help, I managed to see what’s happened and write about it. Not that this particular entry will help rebuild the areas around and north of Sendai, but at the very least I hope it showcases to some people how bad things are up there still and shall continue to be for some time.

And then we all started drinking. I lost count of how many bottles of alcohol were consumed, but I think I paid for two drinks the entire night. Everyone there, workers and volunteers alike, wanted to share at least one drink with me.

As I’m writing these entries, I realise that the more I delve into the stories surrounding this trip, the more I must sound like a raging alcoholic.

Next on the agenda – Osaka Revisited