Japan's Best-Kept Secret: Why Sendai Should Be Your Next Destination

Arriving in Sendai

I honestly had no expectations going into Sendai, so I was heavily surprised when we got off at the train in Sendai Station. We walked through a somewhat busy crowd until we made it to the entrance of the train station and BOOM… Japan. I had been in these somewhat less popular destinations in Japan, and Sendai isnt the most popular by any means, but it has the look of what most people think japan looks like. Its really hard to explain, but it looks… Japanese. Our hotel wasn’t far from the main station so we walked our way over there and stopped at the Konbini on the way there. We got to the hotel, checked in, struggled to figure out the elevator, took the stairs, got locked out from the stairs, walked back down stairs, made our way back inside, then back into the elevator, and found out that once again, the key card was the answer. Elevators in Japanese hotels a lot of times require key cards to get to certain floors and you’ll most likely get locked in staircases, so avoid those at all cost. We finally get to the hotel and get our stuff together

Start the Missions

After getting all settled in, I knew I had a large itinerary ahead of me. I head out with Chuck with plans to meet up with Isa later. Our first item on the itinerary was S-Pal Sendai, a popular mall in Japan. Our main reason for going here was to find the observation tower and to say we struggled to find this would be an understatement. We eventually make it to the top floor to the observatory and it was pretty underwhelming, possibly the least whelming observatory that we ended up visiting in Japan. It wasn’t bad by any means, but there were just better ones where we had been later. After this, we went to the Parco because my friend Chuck wanted to discover where the Pokemon store was. This was also an insane struggle because we just couldn’t use google maps, but here is how you can avoid being dumb like us: Read signs haha. All you gotta do is go to the nearest signs on the floors and search for the store you’re looking for and it should tell you the floor number. We didn’t know this would be an issue, but this should help you if you end up going. We found the Pokemon store AND the Jump store. I went into the jump store while my friend Chuck went to the Pokemon store. I was in a dangerous place because I didn’t plan on buying anything when in Japan, but this place was actually tempting me. the only thing holding me back from buying stuff was the lack of room I had left in my backpack… Thank God. I recommend not going to this place if you are someone who enjoys anime and also wants to save money because they seriously have everything. It’s a collectors dream. We end up leaving and heading to the next stop

Clis Road

Next stop was Clis Road, a buzzing street in Sendai with a shopping street connected to it. We were gonna meet Isa here, but he wasn’t there yet. It was roughly time for dinner so we decided to test our luck with Japanese KFC. One thingI’ve learned is that Japanese fast food chicken tastes way different than American fast food chicken. You’d probably expect me to enjoy Japanese chicken more because I’ve been singing it’s praises for so long, but I’m gonna tell you right now that there’s something off about it. I don’t know what it is, but the flavor and texture of Japanese fast food chicken is strangely off putting to me and I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not terrible by any means, but it tastes strange. Isa ends up showing up to the KFC and we talk for a bit before heading off.

Solo Missions

As I separate from Chuck and Isa, this is where my epic walking adventure starts. I’ll spare the details, but I essentially just walked around for 3 hours looking at the city, going to the back alleys, exploring. This was my first realization of how safe Japan is. You can walk around at night without having to worry about anything. Even if you are a female traveler, you can walk around at night without having to look behind your shoulder. I seriously can’t think of a safer country than Japan. I made a lot of random stops as I walked, but they were just random little things I wanted to take pictures of and I was having the time of my life. I was going to meet my friend Isa later for a shisha sesh and it was only an hour away, and since I had more than 1 hour of walking time between the destinations I had set, it was time to go speed running mode. I put on the pedals to see every destination and sadly cut some off so I would be there on time. To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting Isa to make it on time, but that didn’t mean I would comprimise my word. I make it to the shisha 1 minute early and no Isa to be seen. I text him and he tells me that he’ll leave to go there now… So I rushed for no reason… at all, despite me telling him when I’d be there and giving him reminders. I’m going to give all people reading this a fair warning right now and this might come off as harsh. Don’t travel with people who don’t respect your time because they will waste your time without a second thought and they won’t learn. It doesn’t matter how much you ask them to respect your time, they don’t care. Don’t travel with these people ever. Sorry, not sorry. 20 minutes later, he arrived and he didn’t care that he left me waiting for so long, he just thought it was funny. Nonetheless I had a good time, but I kept this in mind because shenanigans like this weren’t uncommon with him. We head back and call it a night.

Pokemon Pandemonium

The next day, me and Isa were headed to Ginzan onsen, so I went up and at it early. Chuck and I grabbed breakfast which was just as good as the breakfast in Aomori, then i headed out to take some pictures and video. I ended up grabbing a cheap, flimsy travel tripod to replace my stolen one. I continue to walk towards the PARCO to meet Chuck because he wanted to grab Pokemon cards. The thing with Pokemon cards in Japan is that they restock on the day we were going, Saturday, and they have limited amount of packs they can sell to each person so having friends comes in handy for this type of thing. I get there before Chuck and actually right as the mall opens. Let me tell you, there was a line so long out the mall I got there at a really good time. The escalator was stacked to the brim and it took me 10 minutes to get onto it in the first place. I finally get to the escalator and up to the top floor where the Pokemon store is and get in the most hectic line I’ve ever seen. Everyone in that mall was there for Pokemon. I make my way through the line and see Chuck had made it. He gets in line and as he’s passing by me, he hands me his credit card and I buy him the cards he wanted. I wait for him outside the line and he makes it through. from here, we split off again because I need to head back to get ready for Ginzan Onsen.

This itinerary doesn’t seem like a lot, but if you watch my full video on it here, you’ll realize how much I walked that day. Ginzan Onsen is the next blog and this is a crazy story for the ages. Sendai was amazing and I would heavily recommend anyone who goes to Japan should go. It’s not super busy and it’s very japanese looking. I will say that I wish I stayed longer because I didn’t give myself enough time to truly see everything. If you want to see the full video for this blog, click here. I don’t have much to say other than that, nut thank you for reading. Love Y’all