Saturday 13th May 2017
Asamushi to Ishinomaki
Set off from the lovely old ryokan at 8am for what was going to be a leisurely drive of 340kms to the east coast and then down the coast road. About 9am it started to rain, heavily enough to stop and put the bimini on. We reached Hachinone on the coast and then down to Kuji.
All along this coast there were inundation signs of where the March 2011 tsunami had hit this coast as a result of a 9 magnitude undersea earthquake about 70kms off Tohoku.
A lot of repair work and roadworks are still happening. Near Noda a massive concrete wall is under construction to guard against future tsunamis.
The mountain sides have newly laid concrete blocks to hold back erosion.
The temperature never rose above 10 degrees all day according to the information boards on the roadsides. It was foggy in places and it rained continually.
We often wondered who (owners, paid gardeners) maintained the topiary trees we see in the front gardens of houses. Well, today we saw a huge paddock full of mature topiary trees for sale. It seems you can buy them as mature trees and people would only have to trim them every so often.
On the gardening front pretty apricot and pink azaleas were growing all along this route- in people's gardens, planted along the roadside and growing wild amongst the trees. There were huge bushes, almost tree-like and in full flower.
Once we reached Miyako and it was still raining we went inland as far as Surisawa and then south. It was still slow going, slow traffic, rain and fairly ordinary road surfaces.
We finally reached Ishinomaki just as light was fading having been on the road for nearly eleven hours.
Asamushi to Ishinomaki
Set off from the lovely old ryokan at 8am for what was going to be a leisurely drive of 340kms to the east coast and then down the coast road. About 9am it started to rain, heavily enough to stop and put the bimini on. We reached Hachinone on the coast and then down to Kuji.
All along this coast there were inundation signs of where the March 2011 tsunami had hit this coast as a result of a 9 magnitude undersea earthquake about 70kms off Tohoku.
A lot of repair work and roadworks are still happening. Near Noda a massive concrete wall is under construction to guard against future tsunamis.
The mountain sides have newly laid concrete blocks to hold back erosion.
The temperature never rose above 10 degrees all day according to the information boards on the roadsides. It was foggy in places and it rained continually.
We often wondered who (owners, paid gardeners) maintained the topiary trees we see in the front gardens of houses. Well, today we saw a huge paddock full of mature topiary trees for sale. It seems you can buy them as mature trees and people would only have to trim them every so often.
On the gardening front pretty apricot and pink azaleas were growing all along this route- in people's gardens, planted along the roadside and growing wild amongst the trees. There were huge bushes, almost tree-like and in full flower.
Once we reached Miyako and it was still raining we went inland as far as Surisawa and then south. It was still slow going, slow traffic, rain and fairly ordinary road surfaces.
We finally reached Ishinomaki just as light was fading having been on the road for nearly eleven hours.
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