I don’t do bucket lists. If a place intriques me, I want to return.
I reduce the pressure to do and see everything on a trip by telling myself it’s only a prototype. It’s sufficient to experience enough to whet my appetite for the next iteration, er, I mean visit.
Just as well I held on to that attitude when visiting Sendai in September 2018.
For several days, Super Typhoon Trami had been making its way slowly towards Japan.
On September 30th, now a “a hurricane-force extratropical cyclone,” it passed over Sendai where I hunkered down in my hotel room. 1,000 flights were cancelled, much of the rail system shut down, insurance claims ran into the billions of dollars.
A few days earlier I’d been a few hundred miles up the coast from Sendai, hiking short sections of the 640-mile Michinoku Coastal Trail. I’d planned to explore parts of the trail near Sendai, but Typhoon Trami decided otherwise.
Next day, the cyclone had passed, the sun was shining, the sidewalks were drying, but it was time to move on. The bullet train to Tokyo showed up slightly late, something I’d never experienced in all my trips to Japan.
By using public transit I did get to experience some of the sights of Sendai, including star architect Toyo Ito’s beautiful Sendai Mediatheque which defines what a public library should be in the 21st century. I rode a deserted city bus in the rain, through a desolate area, to the somber Arahama Elementary School. March 11, 2011, schoolchildren and some adults stood on the roof as the Tohoku Tsunami swept away their neighborhood.
I’m returning to Sendai at the end of October 2022. Weather permitting, I plan to walk nearby short sections of the Michinoku Coastal Trail. Another iteration, another prototype.
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