Sendai and Matsushima 仙台市と松島

The last couple of days we traveled to nearby Miyagi Prefecture and visited the City of Sendai and nearby Matsushima. Matsushima is a small bay fishing town famous for oysters and some 260 tiny islands and is considered the 3rd best scenic view in Japan. Sendai itself is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. I was thinking it would be similar to Utsunomiya but it was much larger with over a million people and a whole lot cleaner with a very nice downtown area. Gyu-Ton or beef tongue(and beef in general) is the regions famous food dish and is served in many ways. We had it a few times and must say it was pretty good. Of course we tried several of the advertised gaijin friendly bars and nightspots and we found a few good dart bars close to our hotel where we spent the evenings. We also found a very authentic Mexican restaurant (well Mexican American anyway) called Casa DelSol. It was great as good Mexican food is definitely a rarity in this country.
Anyhow we would recommend both Matsushima and Sendai for a visit and would say you could definitely cover them with a day trip or single overnight visit. We drove it but both places are easily accessed by the Shinkansen and local train system. There are more pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157617495854121/