Sunday 14th May 2017

Ishinomaki to Mito

We took a taxi to the ferry terminal as today we were going out to the much anticipated cat island of Tashirojima, where cats outnumber the one hundred residents who live there. The ticket seller motioned for us to sit down and wait. Eventually he helped us to buy return tickets from a machine. About twenty other people came in and bought tickets. Just before the departure time of 9am the ticket seller made an announcement  (in Japanese) and there were mutterings and chatter amongst the crowd. The ticket seller handed me a note in English stating that he did not know if the return ferry would operate due to the bad weather conditions. As there is very little accommodation on the island and our car was parked in front of the hotel, we decided not to risk going out. All the other passengers did the same and refunds were handed out.

As the cat island was the only point of interest for us here, we decided to cancel our second night at the hotel and get on the road to lessen the long day we were facing tomorrow. It was still drizzling and the traffic was slow. We eventually reached Sendai and on the outskirts we heard that all too familiar megaphone, red lights flashing and asking us to pull over (we assume that is what was said).

Up walked the policeman and not a word of English. The senior man got out and asked questions. He had been on his honeymoon to Sydney three years ago and liked it very much. On his phone he used a translation to ask for "our documents". The suitcase came off the luggage rack and the car papers were handed over. He took these back to his car and talked on the phone for ages. Next he asked for passports, then driving licence. This was all happening in the rain with us and the junior policeman standing there and the rain getting heavier.

Senior man came back and kept apologising. It seems we were pulled over as we did not have a Japanese numberplate. Japanese numberplates are standard, all the same format so we were an obvious target.

After this delay we got onto the Expressway and whilst traffic was fast moving, the conditions were still terrible. 

Rice paddies were all along both sides of the road and it would be a lovely sight if it wasn't pouring rain. Road signs indicated there were monkeys, racoons and wild boar along this route. We didn't see any. We have not seen any "road kill" on any of the roads in Japan. Either the animals are smart or those human litter gatherers we see along the roads pick them up as soon as it happens.

From Sendai down to Hitachi we were in the radioactive contamination zone (the map shows 20km, 50km and 100km exclusion zones). We passed around Futaba, the nuclear disaster centre. It took us a while to realise that the strange electronic signs on the roadsides were actually contamination readings.

At Mito as the rain was starting to ease we decided to stop for the night and we would have about a three hour drive to Yokohama tomorrow to deliver the car to the shipping agent.

                                                    Light in hotel at Mito

Across the road from our hotel we found a traditional restaurant and we indulged in steak, potatoes and red wine (from South Africa), for the first time in two months.