4 November 2016
Nights of the warming lights
Discovering the covered shopping streets of Sendai
Sendai has lots of lights, and lots of shops, and lots of warmth, too many restaurants, lots of people, and no tourists besides myself that I can recall seeing.
I am here for 3 nights, there is no shortage of places to wander around of an evening and do nothing. Perhaps more than there appears to be in Sapporo.
Sapporo has a lot more underground and a larger city area, Sendai has densed it all together above ground and added lighting. I think its better than underground, but I think that when its not cold. Once its below say, 3 degrees, underground is awesome.
The main food of choice in Sendai, this cities famous food that every Japanese city has its version of, is grilled beef tongue. They grow cows here, cut their tongues out, and throw the rest of the cow away.
The only beef you can buy is tongue, any other part of the cow is inferior and should be avoided at all costs.
Strangely absent in Sapporo were the cars driving blocks with loud speakers blasting political messages. They are back. As was a new kind of solo message screaming blonde haired boy, photo below.
There is also another big boss guitar store to add more anger on top of my building anger about how terribly terribly pathetically historically bad Australian guitar stores are in comparison.
Then to talk about the weather, it is about 10C at night, so still cool enough for my jacket, but there is no need to walk around with my hands in my pockets, which makes me look dodgier than I already look by walking around in the same pair of camo pants for days at a time.
Covered mall number 1 of many. Higher quality than all those that have come before it, even including Kyoto.
Idiot screaming on the corner, with his poor friend holding the flag. He had no one paying him any attention, so I did. However I think given the flag he was probably screaming about people like me and how we should be executed for polluting their superior gene pool.
Another covered shopping street, this one has trees inside, and an apple store, but no apple trees.
Eventually it becomes quasi outdoor, with the roof coverings only running down each side.
Running off the sides of all these are plenty of bright lights featuring slightly less family friendly establishments, and pet shops.
You can also stand in the middle of the road and look at the leaves, only they are not lit up here, no colors of the night.
Then I got attacked by a pedobear. A huge pedobear. Also his new friend, pedobunny.
For dinner I went to my old favourite Ootoya. You can find these in other countries too, I always get the same thing which I think is tofu, or chicken, or fish, or a blend of all three deep fried, I have no idea what it is, the lotus root is what appeals to me for some reason.
Final street mall is the christmas tree mall.
Now for some impressive street corners and buildings, contrasting with my memories of Hakodate last night and its karaoke bar.
Uniqlo has their christmas lights in full beaming lightness already.
Taxis wait in line at the station, I am able to stay away from them by using the complex assortment of pedestrian overpasses.
The local loft building is enormous, and has a cake buffet.
Wow, Din Tai Fung. Have I been to one in Japan before? I genuinely cant remember. The map shows they have them in 10 cities here now. I have definitely been to one in China, Singapore and Korea. I dont know how much it is here, I probably wont find out because even though its quite late, there was a line and a 30 minute wait.
Time for a quick lap of the Tokyu Hands to look at the magnetic sand penis.
And as a bonus, here is my seven eleven dessert. It has mandarin in it, that I knew. I had no idea what the white jelly was. But given the low number of calories in the whole thing I was not expecting sweet.
It was almost flavourless white jelly.
Perhaps this is where the non tongue parts of the cow went, to the flavourless white jelly convenience store dessert factory.