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SENDAI |
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The largest city in the Tohoku region, SENDAI is a sprawling but
pleasant place, with broad, tree-lined avenues and a lively downtown
district. Though often just regarded as a staging post on the way to
Matsushima Bay , the city's castle ruins , with their local history
museum, and the ornate mausoleum of Sendai's revered founder, the daimyo
Daté Masamune , are worth a brief stop. During the Star Festival , the
Tanabata Matsuri (Aug 6-8), the city centre is awash with thousands of
bamboo poles festooned with colourful paper tassels, poems and prayers,
celebrating the only day in the year - weather permitting - when the two
astral lovers, Vega the weaver and Altair the cowherd, can meet.
The City
Though central Sendai had to be rebuilt after World War II, its streets
follow the original grid pattern laid out by Daté Masamune in the
seventeenth century. The main downtown area, a high-rise district of
offices, banks and shopping malls, lies on the east bank of the Hirose-gawa.
Its principal thoroughfare, Aoba-dori, runs west from the train station
to where the city's few sights are located on the far side of the river.
After an initial bus ride, the area is best tackled on foot.
The natural place to start exploring is the wooded hilltop park,
Aobayama-koen , which was once the site of the magnificent Sendai Castle,
popularly known as Aoba-jo. Only a few stretches of wall and a
reconstructed gateway remain, but the site is impeccable, protected by
the river to the east and a deep ravine on its south side. Buses run
from Sendai Station (stand 9) to Aobajoshi-mae (20min), from where it's
a short walk to the statue of Masamune astride his horse, surveying the
city below. A fearsome warrior, Masamune was nicknamed the "One-Eyed
Dragon" thanks to a childhood attack of smallpox. He had been granted
the fiefdom in return for helping bring Tokugawa Ieyasu to power in
1603, and the Daté clan continued to rule Sendai for the next 270 years.
Their castle was constructed in highly ornate Momoyama style, with
painted ceilings and huge rooms divided by glorious screens, more like a
luxurious palace than a fortress. Though it's a bit gimmicky, you can
get an idea of its former glory in the small Aoba-jo Exhibition Hall (daily
9am-4.30pm; ¥700), located above the park's souvenir shops, where a
short, computer-generated film takes you "inside" the castle; the red
seats are equipped with foreign-language earphone sets.
Ten minutes' walk down the north side of the hill brings you to the more
interesting Sendai City Museum (Tues-Sun 9am-4.45pm; ¥400, extra for
special exhibitions). This modern, well-laid-out installation traces the
city's history from the early Stone Age to the present day, though the
main emphasis is on the glory days under Masamune and his successors. On
the second floor you'll find displays of his armour, with the
distinctive crescent moon on the helmet, his sword and various portraits
- always with two eyes.
When Daté Masamune died in 1636, aged 70, he was buried in the Zuiho-den
on a wooded hillside just along the river from Aoba-jo. Eventually his
two successors joined him, and their three mausoleums (daily
9am-4/4.30pm; ¥550) now stand at the top of broad, stone steps, all in
the same opulent Momoyama style, their polychrome carvings glittering
against the plain dark wood and overhanging eaves. In fact, the
mausoleums are fairly recent reconstructions - during the five-year
project the graves were opened and you can see the treasures they
unearthed, as well as a fascinating video of the excavations, in a
one-room museum beside the Zuiho-den. Though the mausoleums are only a
short distance from Aoba-jo as the crow flies, getting here is either a
good twenty-minute walk, or you have to take a bus back to Sendai
Station and out again (stand 11) to the Otamaya-bashi stop. If you're
walking from the castle, cross the river by the City Museum and take the
first right, heading southeast to cross again at the next bridge, then
look out on the right for the main approach road.
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