Iwate and Sendai Trip Journal Friday, Sept. 12th

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Around Tokyo. Getting ready to go north.

We lucked out on the weather. It didn’t rain much on us despite the forecast. We had breakfast at the hotel and headed out to Sengaku-ji and its memorial to the 47 ronin, and then to J!NS for glasses at the NeWoMan mall near Takanawa as recommended by ChatGPT. We walked to the Daimon metro station, named for the nearby gate. We accidentally got on an airport express but fortunately it stopped at the Sengaku-ji station. Perhaps we should look into this as an alternative to the monorail. We were pretty early so we couldn’t get in to see the graves of the 47 ronin just yet. Workers were sweeping up the after-effects of yesterday’s heavy rain. We found the office where you can get your goshuincho stamped. It opened after a while. This is a Soto sect temple, and to get your goshuincho stamped, you must trace part of a sutra and put your wish on the paper as well. You may also make a donation. We gave about ¥2500. The paper will be burned as an offering. There are four sutras from which you may choose. We recognized one as being from the heart sutra, so we chose that one. It was this line: 色不異空 空不異色 (Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form). 

Main Hall at Sengakuji

After a while the site of the graves of the 47 ronin was opened, and for ¥300 the woman at the gate gives you a big bundle of incense, which she lights with a torch. She asks you to put one or two at each grave. In this way you honor the samurai spirit of the 47 ronin.  Later we found out that we did it incorrectly, laying the sticks perpendicular, rather than parallel to the grooves in the incense. Next time we’ll do better.


Individual tombs with incense.

Next we headed for J!NS which was only a short walk away. At the mall, there were hundreds of  people milling around and signs reading “NeWoMan open 9.12”. That’s today! We guessed it was just another part of the mall opening, so since we were early, I went to take photos of trains at the adjacent Takanawa Gateway station. It turns out that ChatGPT neglected to tell us that even though J!NS was open today, it was also part of the grand opening, and we’d have to fight the crowds just to get in. Change of plans! Let’s go to the J!NS at Yurakucho. 

Queue to get into the NeWoMan mall.

Keihin-Tohoku line approaching Takanawa Gateway station.

We had purchased online tickets for tomorrow’s Hayabusa 15 Shinkansen. The eki.net app gave us a QR code for ticket pickup. We spotted a ticket machine for Shinkansen tickets at the Takanawa Gateway station. I was surprised, because the Shinkansen doesn’t even stop there. We scanned it and were able to get our seat reservation tickets, but not our basic fare tickets.

We got on the Yamanote loop and headed counter-clockwise. J!NS was in the OIOI (Marui) department store on the 5th floor. The staff spoke good English, and we were able to line-less bifocals with a UV coating and frames that fit well for about $120. This price included the eye exam.  There was an Australian woman trying to find a frame that wouldn’t hold the lenses so far from her face. The opposite problem Japanese people have in the states when buying European frames! Since the glasses were bifocal, we had to come back after at least a week. Single focus glasses can be done same-day. 

A Yamanote line E235-0 at Yurakucho Station.

Next, on to BIC camera to buy a 16 mm lens for me, but I decided against it because it wouldn’t have a USA warranty, and it required a mail-in rebate to get the best price. Instead we got some pens and a camera hard case.

Now back to the station to look for lunch. We found food trucks and only one of them was vegetarian. They served ban-mi, Vietnamese sandwiches, and it was pretty good. 

It had started raining, so we went back to Marui to purchase a rain + UV umbrella. We picked out one and the clerk says “let’s check it out to make sure it’s good”. She pops it open and checks the seams, and folds it back up. You don’t see service like that too much any more.

One more thing I noticed about Marui and other department stores. Each “department” is a store with its own brand name, and those brand names are almost always romaji names.

Next to Hamarikyu gardens, one stop clockwise on the Yamanote loop, getting off at Shimbashi, then walking toward Tokyo Bay. On the way, we came across a yaki imo shop and got two different kinds of sweet potatoes to eat at the park. Continuing to walk towards the park, I noticed that we were passing by the Nippon Television building, and I recalled that this may be the location of the Ghibli clock. I Googled it, and sure enough, it was. Unfortunately we missed its animations by 15 minutes. The animations run at the top of odd-numbered hours. Still, the clock was full of whimsical details. 

Driver from a D51 steam locomotive at Shimbashi, marking the birthplace of Japanese railways.
Also a monument to the composer of the "Railway March".

Ghibli Clock

From there it was a short walk to Hamarikyu gardens and a sweet potato snack under a huge tree while listening to the cicadas.  Some of the nicest things in the park are the beautifully trimmed black pines. They looked like the pines on hanafuda cards. There was a rest area with furin tinkling in the cool and welcome breeze. The canals in the park once served as unloading points for supplies brought to the Imperial Palace. We walked along the waterways and climbed a little hill from which we could see Rainbow Bridge. When it was time to leave, recorded music started playing from unseen speakers 15 minutes before closing.  

Black pine and Skyscrapers.

We had a snack in the shade of these huge Chinese nettle trees.

Crepe myrtle, black pine, rock, crow.

Deciduous and coniferous. 

One of the canals around Hamarikyu gardens.

Black Pine

After exiting the park, I used the GO taxi app for the first time. It was kind of a fiasco. You need to not plan your ride until you are at your intended pick-up point. The app’s pickup point does not follow you. Then when you do select a pickup location, you need to keep watching the app, because it may move the location across the street, which can be a problem on a busy street or one without a nearby crosswalk. You can text the driver, but only with canned messages. Make sure to swipe to the left to see them all. You can request them to call you. It’s through the app, so you don’t need a phone number. Our data-only Ubigi data plan worked fine with GO taxi.

Our dinner was at a really fun shokudo (diner) https://www.shinpachi-shokudo.com. You sit at a counter and order from a tablet. There was an English menu. I ordered a whole mackerel set (rice, pickles, miso soup) plus a side of green beans. It was very delicious and cheap, too. About $6. One of the staff told me “nihongo jyouzu” on the way out.


Shinpachi Shokudo


Grilled mackerel, green beans, miso, and pickles.

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