We chilled at the new hotel for a bit, anticipating dinner at Sushi Toku, which is the chef’s name. Toku, not Sushi 😀 We have very few pictures suddenly, but we headed out beforehand to this weird tiny little bar (I wanna say on the third floor?) where a very charismatic bartender/owner entertained us for a bit mixing exotic cocktails!
We ordered special wacky citrus cocktails of the day, which the owner prepared in a very vigorous fashion, ironically shaking like an earthquake 😀 The bar had only one other patron, and he eventually took a liking to us and bought us a “gimlet,” and then later the owner bought us a “gimlet highball”!
I remembered that we were still out of normal “tourist Japan” so people were making an extra effort to be nice to us. This little bar was so much fun, very friendly, and we ended up repeating this trip (where I think we took more photos than today I hope!). Anyway, between the bartender and the friendly patron there was a lot of bowing and smiling, it was really a nice moment connecting with locals.
But now it was time for the big serious sushi extravaganza of the evening at Sushi Toku, one of the very best places in Sendai. We were blown away, Robert reckons this was the best sushi he’d ever had, and I have to agree (and that is an enormously high bar!!)
Embarrassingly I really needed to excuse myself to the bathroom for a sec, but I was wondering if I could wait until the hotel? I asked the boys if the restroom was too confusing here to bother with or not, when a strange expression stole over their faces… Matthew spoke up first, “oh no Dad I really think you should go here!” Robert immediately seconded that recommendation, and I started feeling a bit afraid…
Sometimes the issue is that you simply can’t find it, upstairs? Downstairs? Or maybe when you do you find it you can’t figure out which is the men’s room, or how to deal with the lights? This one was pretty easy to find, the lights were on, so I wasn’t sure what the joke was. I confidently backed into the room so as to pull the door shut behind me, when a sudden motion made me jump around
So yeah both boys were watching me expectantly when I returned to the dining area, apparently my face didn’t disappoint because we all dissolved into hilarious knowing smirks haha
Stuffed again as usual, but not really uncomfortably stuffed–maybe the toilet scare settled me down some–and we went down the stairs and began walking home. It was very dark in Sendai by now as we slowly went along the narrow street. A random guy on a bike surprised us by exclaiming, in English, that we should be careful, the alarms had gone off!
Huh?? He got off his bike and we all stood still looking around to see what was wrong, then we noticed the power-lines randomly swaying overhead, and then we could all feel it in our feet: everything was moving jerkily and the effect was very very strange.
Yup, we were experiencing an earthquake, and not a minor one either! It lasted maybe a minute or so: we immediately looked it up online and it said there was a 6.2 offshore but not that far away. At least there were no tsunami warnings! So that was quite the experience, a new one for me at least.
The young guy who had stopped us turned out to be a transfer student from Maryland, which explained why his English was so good haha
After all that, we decided to walk to the giant Weston hotel and their bougie 26th-floor bar to have–what else–Japanese whiskies! But when we entered the lobby, there was a big crowd of people in front of the elevators, and it looked like no one was getting through.
That’s because the automatic safety features had halted all the elevators for the earthquake! But after a bit, when no further tremors were felt, everything was switched back on and up we went.
So yes it was quite an introduction to Sendai! Unbelievable sushi, a crazy earthquake, what more can you ask??
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