Fukuura Island – 2

Some more photos of Fukuura Island in Matsushima bay. If there is one thing this place is famous for it’s the oysters! They are sold everywhere by everyone and their grandmother. There’s not a restaurant that doesn’t serve some variety of oyster and the bay is thick with artificial oyster reefs. Tasty and quite environmentally friendly I think. I saw these two signs for example, one of them is warning that the road narrows up ahead and the other one is offering fresh oysters. Fine as long as you don’t meat incoming traffic in the other direction! I also found some rather beautiful blue berries that were definitely not blueberries. I didn’t taste them but they made thankful colorful subjects under the dreary lead grey skies.

The island temple is the Benzaiten, dedicated to the Goddess of flowing water. Her temples can be found all over Japan and a common feature of them is the chance to let her sacred water rinse out your hard earned cash, but not so this one. They did sell the usual fortune slips in a rather cute daruma casing though! Enjoy!

Fukuura Island – 1

One of the many island in Japan’s famous Matsushima Bay is Fukuura (福浦島), probably not the most scenic but easily the most accessible. It’s easy to find too – as you reach the far end of Matsushima city you’ll see a rest house and a long flat bridge painted bright red, the 252m long Fukuura bridge that ended the island isolation back in 1933 (until then it was only accessible by boat). The island is not big, about 300 times 250m but it has a very varied topology making it a rather interesting hike. The island has a small sandy bay, a look out post, some rather interesting and extremely secluded beach caves (good luck finding them!) and a temple complete with a nice restaurant/rest stop. I went there last autumn so the weather was pretty bad and it was rather cold but being a big fan of islands I enjoyed it anyway. Another good thing about not going in the summer is that you beat the crowds. For a die hard Tokyoite like that is very, very, big plus. I’ll be posting some more photos tomorrow. Enjoy!

Ninja Crepe

I didn’t know it, but apparently the (rather famous) restaurant chain “Ninja” has recently opened in Kyoto (I know it from their great place in Akasaka-Mitsuke central Tokyo). Not to be content with great food and great service they have started up a crepe stand next to their restaurant, complete with staff dressed up as ninja fighters. The crepe itself is black (naturally), from some rather interesting ingredients. If you’re into the Japanese crepe thing, I really recommend it. I don’t know if there’s any Ninja crepe stands in Tokyo though. Enjoy!

Concrete Mushrooms

Walking the forests around Tochigi prefecture last year I came across this weird concrete creation, a series of huge mushrooms in the middle of the forest. No explanation signs or anything apart from the usual “keep out” signs. Any idea what it might be?