Leanne had 4 days off between shifts, so we decided to make the most of it and go down to Sendai, the closest big city to us at about a 4 hr drive.

Every year during Christmas time, the city lights up all the trees on one of their main roads. This event is known as the Sendai Illumination.

Enough about trees with lights! A trip in Japan wouldn’t be complete without a lot of delicious Regional foods! Sendai is known for their beef tongue, edamame “zunda” shakes, and fresh oysters.

Though Sendai is not known for this, Japan is one of the few places on Earth where you can eat puffer fish. If you eat the wrong part, or it is incorrectly prepared, there is toxin in the puffer fish that can be actually deadly. We happened upon a Japanese restaurant where they served puffer fish as well as turtle soup, so we ordered both.

While we were eating, the Japanese older woman who ran the restaurant was happy to take and hold for us, show him the fish in the tanks, and give him love and attention.

One of the most scenic sites in Japan is Matsushima, a collection of about 260 islands off of Matsushima Bay. We drove up to the bay and took a sightseeing cruise all around the islands.

On the way back home, we got Costco memberships and shopped til we dropped. Costco has a lot of the same stuff ($5 rotisserie chicken anyone?), but also a lot of cool Japanese items including my favorite drink “Chill Out”. No need to keep going to konbinis to get that now! With the car full of essentials, but mostly non-essential Costco impulse buys (like a Ripstik!), we headed home back to the snowy North, Misawa.