Today I went to Matsushima which is a popular tourist spot a little way out of Sendai.  Matsushima bay is said to contain hundreds of islands and it certainly looked that way on my little cruise around and about the islands.  There are also a couple that you can get to over footbridges from the mainland.  I did that and enjoyed shady strolls.  I was surprised at the almost total absence of seabirds.  A similar landscape at home would be hoaching with them.

It's a lovely place.  As well as the island scenery there are a couple of Buddhist temples and at least one Shinto shrine to visit, not forgetting innumerable souvenir shops and places to eat and drink. 

In addition to the islands the bay is home to a number of oyster farms.  I had a yummy lunchtime snack of deepfried oysters and a glass of beer.  As the day wore on the heat and humidity were relieved to some extent by cooling sea breezes.  I'd also binned my jeans and town shoes in favour of a pair of lightweight trousers and a pair of faux crocs.  That has proved a much more comfortable outfit.

I went souvenir shopping.  I have never in my life owned a purse and given that in the UK I almost never carry cash nowadays you'd think I could go to my maker without ever having had one.  But in Japan cash is still a major player and you can easily accumulate stacks of coins, in particular little one yen and five yen coins that machines won't accept and that are hard to pick out of the damp lump of cash in your pocket with sweaty hands to dispose of in a shop where you're holding up customers in a hurry.  So now I have a natty artisan purse to replace the lump and keep the coins fresh and cool.  As a bonus I've discovered my passport fits into it.

As I said Matsushima is near Sendai.  I came to Sendai yesterday to enjoy the Jozenji Street Jazz Festival weekend.  It's a two day event that's been going for over 30 years and takes place in and around the aforementioned street and in a little park nearby.  In fact there were 23 venues in which jazz of all sorts was being played from late morning to early evening.  A jazz festival that doesn't operate at night!  Strange but true.

All of the venues were outdoors, none had an actual proper stage and all of the gigs were free thanks to sponsorship which I think comes mostly from the booze industry. 

I managed to take this picture as I was entering the area they were playing in before I was hustled along by a steward to the back of the crowd where all I could get were photos of the backs of people's heads .

One of the sponsors doing lots of business.  The festival itself was doing good business having sold all its merch (essentially T shirts) on the first day and had resorted to selling off their 2021 T shirts of which there was an abundant supply all bearing the legend "jozenji street jazz festival 29.5".  The explanation being that because of Covid what would have been their 30th edition couldn't be held so they did a truncated online version and called it their 29.5 edition.  I guess they hadn't properly worked out what demand for T shirts was likely to be from a cut down festival or weren't geared up for online selling.  Whatever the explanation I got a perfectly acceptable T shirt for ¥1000, about £6.

A guy approached me and asked me where I came from and whatnot.  He said he doing a PR video for the festival and asked if I'd be willing to appear.  Of course I said yes and started mentally preparing my spiel, how I enjoyed jazz, played the saxophone, how Scotland and Japan both enjoyed whisky, blah blah blah.

Of course it didn't quite work out that way.  First you need to know a little bit of Japanese culture.  When daddy or mummy come home from work or the chidren come home from school then provided someone else is in the house when they enter they announce their arrival by saying "tadaima".  Textbooks reasonably enough translate that as "I'm home" although its basic meaning is "right now" or "straightaway".

So that's all he wanted from me.  Posed in front of the camera on his count I said "I'm home" in a fairly jaunty style.  After I think four takes we moved on to the same jaunty style and pose and again on his count I said "tadaima".  I think I got that one in three.  I can't wait to see the rushes.

Someone else shared their beer with me as we contemplated the number of Japanese soccer players in Scotland and such worthy topics so I had a good if sweaty and tiring time.

On Japanese trains there is a conductor whose duties are no doubt manifold but don't include checking tickets because you can't get in or out of a station platform area without going through a ticket gate (I subsequently found this to be untrue).  But whatever they do they stride up and down the train and when they leave a carriage they turn and bow to the passengers in that carriage.  On the train down from Akita there was a second official who wore a red and yellow arm band and something not quite a flac jacket but getting that way and a body camera.  He strode through wafting his white gloved hands about in the air in a fair imitation of  a regal wave and he bowed when he entered the carriage as well as when he left it. (I later found a partial explanation for the armband. I saw others both on trains and in stations.  The armbands read "on alert" and I did see notices telling the public that police and railway staff were "on alert".  Why, where and was it for ever I never discovered.)

This is typhoon season here and last week typhoon number 13 (of the season that is) was busy making its way towards Japan.  It was downgraded to a tropical storm on its way but still it was forecast to be nasty all the way up to where I was in Akita but in the event it didn't make it that far but here's what I missed

Typhoon 13.