May 23, 2012
Dan-chan, graduate student in forestry who does research in the jungles of Malaysia and Borneo and intrepid Fuji-san climbing guide, met me at the train station in Sendai. Who was this samurai with the horned helmet who appeared everywhere in the region?
Date-san appeared on all the train station signs in cartoon form as a rice ball, onigiri, with horns; here he was at Matsushima.
May 23, 2012
I’d spent last spring reading news reports and watching footage of 東日本大震災 (“the big earthquake disaster of Eastern Japan”), especially of the tsunami that traveled six miles inland in areas near the city of Sendai. Curious to see what had happened in the last 14 months since the earthquake, I boarded a Shinkansen for the relatively short ride up to the Tōhoku region, 東北, “east north”. My friend Dan-chan, our guide on the Fuji-san climb, recommended visiting Matsushima, 松島, the pine-covered islands near Sendai.