In Search of My Blue Castle: A Day of Adventures

Today, I had three things on my To Do list.

1. Sleep in.
2. Go running.
3. Clean my apartment.

All of that was accomplished by about 1 pm. So I tried to force myself to sit down and study Japanese. I went as far as putting post-it notes on most every appliance in my house. However, it proved to be less than exciting as the word for 'bed' is 'beddo' and the word for 'door' is 'to' and the word for shower is 'shawa', etc.

It was such a nice day out that I was feeling pretty restless so I made a plan to go visit DATE Masamune's grave and set off.

On my way there, I saw a baseball game going on. So I stopped to watch. Everyone stared at me as I walked up the bleachers and took a seat. Once seated, I looked up and realized which team the people on my side were cheering for and followed suit.

I cheered for the white team

The game was between kids who couldn't have been more than upper elementary school age but it was pitch baseball and everything. At that age, I was just participating in softball where the coach still pitched to the kids. It was a very serious game though with ball boys and bat boys and full uniforms. Kids even tried to steal bases and pitchers would try to catch them in the act.

The ball boys were adorable and couldn't have been older than first grade

I had no idea who was winning or what inning we were on. I just watched and cheered and got so into it that when my team loaded the bases, I eagerly hoped something would come of it. And when the other team loaded the bases, I hoped desperately our pitcher would pull through. (It turns out the outfielders were the heroes of the day) At the end of a few innings, my team cheered really loudly and everyone packed up to go. So....we won! (I think). In any case, I hope to catch more games like this in the future.

After that I went in search of the mausoleum and ended up running into a temple, a cemetery and a monastery before I found the right buildings. And those buildings were closed. So I wandered around on the paths that were open. The entire area was absolutely beautiful and the woods around the gravesites of Masumune and other leaders of Sendai were aptly named the Resting Peaceful Forest.

The stairs to the mausoleums, named Zuihoden, Kansenden and Zenoden

An old stone indicating DATE's gravesite

Children's cemetery - really a sad but beautiful place

The Resting Peaceful Forest

Then I wandered far over to the other end of town to find a memorial for a Sumo wrestler. (It was on the map and it sounded intriguing)

In transit, I saw some soccer players.

I love the juxtaposition of the field and the trees with the skyscraper in the background

And a train

At the park where the memorial was located, a rock concert was happening. I stopped to listen and watch. The bands were pretty good but not professional by any means. Their following seemed to be a lot of energetic college students who were determined to enjoy themselves no matter what. It was a lot of fun.