Welcome to part 2 of my Matsushima trip
This is the best part
Matsushima is a seaside town near Sendai
Known for a bay with over 200 tiny islands
It's one of Japan's top scenic places
Today we're going to explore an island with spectacular views
Find a secret beach
And go to Entsuin Temple
Which looks like something from a Studio Ghibli animated film
Part 1 is already on my channel
If you missed it last week
And there's also a room tour of the hotel we stayed in
It's the fanciest Japanese hotel I've been in
There's new Japan travel videos every Thursday
If you want to subscribe
Remember to have a look at my designs
On cakeswithfaces.co.uk
Some of them are inspired by Japan
There's lots of things that make good presents
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So you can order from any country
Now back to Matsushima
It's really windy now
It's February at the moment and it's lovely and sunny
Quite a lot of these winter days have been sunny
But it's quite cold
It's about 4 degrees today
I think this place must be really different in summer
There's lots of ice-cream shops and souvenir shops
Like it gets really full of tourists in the summer
It's actually quite deserted at the moment
There's not that many people here
You probably saw on the boat there was hardly anyone else on it
This bridge goes across to Fukuurajima
That island there
It's 250 meters long
You can explore the island
There's some walking trails and some little temples
And shrines on there
If you want to go across the bridge it's 200 yen for adults
If the camera's a bit shaky here
I'm sorry it's because it was so windy
When they say there's 264 islands
We're just going down this hidden trail
I hope there's no snakes
I imagine in the spring this would be a lot more green & beautiful
It's probably at its worst at the moment
Bit it's still pretty nice
These are the views from the famous sightseeing spots
This is a good one; you can see a lot of islands in that one
If I went back I'd definitely go to one of the viewpoints
Where you can see the whole bay
I think this might be the temple we saw from the boat
Most of the way's been paved and quite flat
They've had ramps
If you go off the main path
There's steps and it's a bit more of a
Natural freestyle trail
There's a secret beach down there
We could go down it, I think
This doesn't look as steep in the video as it did in real life
To me at least
Phil's not scared of things like that
So he disappeared off
The view was still nice from up here though
Grab the rope
Is it scary when you come up again?
It's dead easy in the way back up
I'm a complete baby about climbing down steep slopes
I always get so scared I'm going to slip
You should see me when it's icy and slippery in winter
It's not my natural habitat
In my defense I'm not exactly prepared for climbing
I've still got my snow boots on
I made it
That was scary
But it was completely worth it
We found a beautiful secret beach with no one else there
Just look how gorgeous it is
It was here that I started to see why this is one of
Japan's top scenic places
The views were stunning
It feels like we're really somewhere else now
Secret beach
It's a private island at th minute
With the sunshine and the sparkling water
It didn't seem like the middle of winter at all
Look how blue the sky is
I'm sure it was snowing a bit just now
This is so weird
To be on a beach
in Japan
with these floating islands
And snow was falling
This is actually our final day in Japan
it's not the end of the series though
I've mixed up the order
We only really had one day in Matsushima
Then in the evening we took the bullet train
To the airport to fly back at about midnight
Right here it feels like we're a long way from home
It's so different and so beautiful
I'd actually really recommend
going somewhere different on the last day of your trip
It helps chase away those last day blues
That way you only have one day to explore
and enjoy a new place
So you make the most of it
Instead of feeling sad that it's almost over
We've come back to the main trail
But which way is it?
This way
We've gone up to this lookout point
It's a pretty good view of these islands here
Look at the sun glittering on the water
And just there's that island
With the one tree on it
I like that one
A single tree, clinging on!
In the distance I can see some islands we sailed past in the boat trip
We actually went quite a long way
Might be too windy to hear me
But there's the bridge where we came on
And we've come all the way around here
We got a bit lost in the trails
and spent a few hours just exploring Fukuurajima
Look at this, where this tree's been torn out of the ground
It's a massive tree as well
There's my hand for scale.
We're coming back to the start now
I really enjoyed that!
That was a fun little mini adventure
Walking around the trails
Not really knowing where you're going
Getting lost exploring
It was really good
The best bit was when we found the secret beach.
I was almost too scared to go down
Because it looked really steep
But that was the best bit
I don't know if it'd be so great in the summer
If it was full of people
I guess the reward for it being 4 degrees
And really windy
Is you get the place more or less to yourself
But I think it'd be good at any time of year
If I'm honest when we first got here
I was thinking one of the top views of Japan -
Is it really that great?
But now the sun's come up
Not up!!
But now the sun's come out
It's just got in.
And the sun's all about being on the water
It is really lovely
From the boat trip, although I enjoyed it
I didn't really get a sense of it
Because you're seeing the islands -
They're quite far often & you're going between them all
And you don't really get a sense of the whole thing
But being on here and seeing different views through the trees
Has given me a much better sense of what it's like
And a lot better views actually
So if you're going to do one thing in Matsushima
I'd go to Fukuura Island
This is the best thing!
For lunch we went to the fish market
They had various stalls selling prepared food
And an area where you can sit and eat
Phil's having a tuna don.
A tuna rice bowl from the fish market
I wish I'd filmed it
But they had some pictures up of the damage from the tsunami in 2011
You can really see how hard they worked to get it up and running
It's amazing that now you'd never know it happened
Restaurants around here aren't great for vegetarians and vegans
It's very seafoody
Everywhere seems to be serving fish without any vegetarian options
So I'm just going to grab something for the convenience store
We don't usually have to do this
But this is quite a small place so there aren't so many options
And it's very seafoody
I had a delicious pizzaman from the convenience store
It's a steamed bun with cheese and tomato inside
I also discovered how delicious Japanese egg Mayo sandwiches are
I wish I'd tried them earlier
I would have had a lot more of them
There's a trick art museum here in Matsushima
This is like the one I went to in Odaiba
They have paintings and optical illusions on the walls
You come away with so many hilarious photos
Of you doing silly poses
Finally we went to Entsuin Temple
Which looks like a setting from a Studio Ghibli animation
We've just popped into a temple
This view's actually really impressive
These trees are so tall
We've come to Entsuin Temple
It's just a 5 minute walk from the seafront
And where the boat cruise was
If you walk through the gate
There's lots of big caves on the right
Then you can walk through to three temples
One of them's shut at the moment
We've come in to Entsuin
Which was 300 yen each
It's really peaceful in here
There's so many big trees
And it's a really nice garden, aside from anything else
It's kind of interesting to look around
I think at the moment we might be the only people in here
Entsuin is a matchmaking temple
You can write your wishes for love & marriage
On a kokeshi doll
And leave it here for Kannon the matchmaking goddess of mercy
This is lovely in here
Here's a moss garden
It might be a Zen garden with all the raked gravel?
Is this supposed to represent the islands of Matsushima
Oh, it could be!
So the rocks are like the islands
There's that one with the single tree
Very accurate
We don't usually pay to come into temples
But this is lovely
Everything's in pastel colors
And really calm & beautiful
These old steps are not horizontal at all
It looks very picturesque though
The muted pastel colors
All the trees
And the weathered stone
Gave it a kind of dreamlike quality
Somehow it didn't look like it was real
These stickers are called Senjafuda
They have peoples' names on
People stick them on for good luck
If your name still shows as the sticker ways away
it's a good sign
I really like this idea
But I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate me
sticker graffitiing the temple
There's all graves in the caves back here
And graves behind the temple as well
It really makes you feel small
By these big rocks
These trees are so tall
First you go through the Japanese style moss garden
There's some bamboo - my favorite
They're really tall as well
So this side is the Japanese moss and rock garden
Then the other side is an english rose garden
Which is clearly in it's off-season at the moment
I'm sure it looks a lot better in the summer
The rose garden's inspired by a painting at the temple
That was brought back from Europe
There's a little stream running through here
It's really subtle
You can hear the water
There's an icy pond
Its heart-shaped
Look how spiky the ice is at the edges
That's it, we're just about done in Matsushima now
I've really enjoyed our day here
It feels a bit Miyajima-ish
It's a small town by the sea
With things to go and see
It feels like we're a long way from home
This feels very different from what it's like in England
The best thing we did
was going over the bridge (behind me) to Fukuura Island
It was really fun exploring all the trails
That was well worth 200 yen
The boat trip was good
But not the best view of the islands like I thought it might be
I really enjoyed looking around Entsuin
Which was kind of a surprise
Because I'm not really into temples and shrines normally or gardens particularly
But it was just really picturesque
So many good things take pictures of
You could easily come here on a day trip from Tokyo
Because it's not far from Sendai
And you can get there on the bullet train from Tokyo
In only an hour 45 minutes
Not long at all
Then it's about 25 minutes on the train from Sendai to Matsushima
But do you get here early
Because the temple's just starting to shut down
It's about 4 p.m. at the moment
Last night all the restaurants were closing at about 8pm
So it is it's not a late night party town
You need to get here early
There's a few things we haven't done here
There's a couple more temples
There's one just next door to Entsuin
that we didn't go into
There's another island that you can go over a bridge to explore
That one's free
That's got caves that monks used to hide in
Sounds interesting!
There's the trick art museum
I think there's a couple of - !
I think there's a couple of other little museums as well
That we didn't go into
You could go walking up the hills to those vantage points
Where you get a view of all the islands
That would be a really good thing to do
I'm sure if you stayed over here it'd look really good
As the sun's going down over the islands
That would be really beautiful
Matsushima's known for oysters
So if you like seafood
There's a lot of that here
A lot of unagi eel restaurants as well
If you're vegetarian or vegan, like me
It's not so great
There's a lot of ice cream
But you might have to stick to the convenience stores
But it's worth it for a day to come to
somewhere so lovely
So if you want more ideas for things to do in Japan
Have a look at my other videos
There's new videos every Thursday if you want to subscribe
I f you like my hedgehog scarf
which has been keeping me very warm on this winter trip
It's from my website cakeswithfaces.co.uk
See you soon! Bye bye!