Little town Japan

After an afternoon at Tohoku University and Sendai we finally headed towards our final destination: Matsushima. Matsushima (fig) is a little resort town on the pacific coast famous for its islands(fig). Small and coquette, it also features thermal baths and some natural wonders (fig). We were staying at Tosoku Hotel, a wonderful high scale hotel nicely located on top of a hill overseeing Matsushima bay (fig).

Fairly standard item as far as hotels go, it had the whole range of services: from hot baths and massages, several restaurants from traditional Japanese to French cuisine to live music every day and some shops.

For Japanese, the thermal baths were the main local attraction. Since you go inside absolutely naked (only an optional 10cmx10cm towel to cover the private areas) pictures were not really an option, but they were not really that different than any thermal baths around the world. What was special was that the baths were used uniformly throughout the day (and not just in the evening as I would have thought) and everybody were walking around the hotel in kimonos complimentary from the hotel (fig)