Kesennuma Day Trip 2021

    The drive from Shiogama to Kesennuma was surprisingly long for a city within our prefecture but it was well worth it. While this neat little city is a stop on the Pikachu-filled Pokemon train that operates in Tohoku, one of my biggest reasons for avoiding Kesennuma in the previous stamp rally was the train Logistics. Getting there from Shiogama would require several hours on the train, and truthfully it required a couple hours by car, but at least we could stop to use the bathroom without losing our seats and it was safer overall.

    We left in the mid morning and got there shortly before lunch, with plenty of time to look around and figure out where the manhole cover was. First, we needed to find a bathroom, so we went straight to one of the two buildings that sit right on the coast. As we entered the building and subsequent walked around, we saw exactly one person who was studying in a study room. It was a fantastic way to find a little peace by the seaside during a pandemic.

    After finding a bathroom, we went back out to the street and I used my Pokemon Go app to locate the general area of the manhole cover which was also a pokestop.

Finding a manhole cover was exciting and I even jumped up and down in my excitement. Attached to a tree next to the manhole cover was a map directing us to go back across the different street into a little shopping area to find the actual location of the stamp for the stamp rally. We did so and as we walked I looked across the street to see a sign on the building that said Black Tide Brewery. I wouldn't call myself a beer connoisseur, I do enjoy a brew from time to time and got excited by the chance but also kept in mind that "Brewery" in Japan could mean  many things. The word being in English do not make it more likely to be one thing or another. What do they brew? Soy sauce? Sake? Beer? There was no way to know from the outside, so we continued on to the stamp location.

    We found a banner that advertised the Lapras Stamp Rally but no stamp pad. As we stood there, looking around with our cards in our hands, a man came out of one of the buildings that we were right behind and brought us the stamping equipment. He explained that the wind had been so strong that day they had moved it inside to make sure it didn't get damaged. We thanked him and stamped hour stamp rally cards.

    After this excitement, it was clearly time for a snack, so we went back into the building that had said Black Tide Brewery and checked out a small fried potatoes shop where my daughter acquired a yummy treat while we thought about where to go for lunch.

    We crossed the street back toward the water and walked by a handful of restaurants on our quest for food, finally settling on one that had a delicious roast beef plate. As we enjoyed our meal, I used my phone to confirm that the old-looking building I could see from my seat was a sake shop with a sampling station and that the Black Tide Brewery did in fact make beer and opened at 2PM.

    After lunch, my family put up with my visiting the sake shop where I enjoyed and English guide to the sake in the sampling machine as well as a sample of yuzushu, which I had never had before and it now a personal favorite. I bought a couple of bottles of different things and noticed it was just after two in the afternoon, time for the brewery taproom to be open, so we headed back across the street where I got one beer to go and two canned beers to enjoy later.

    We then put the booze in the car, save for the to-go beer, which I drank while we walked to the Shark Museum, some twelve minutes by foot along the coast.

The only time we saw other pedestrians, we were right across from the museum and my beer was gone, making it probably one of the safest public drinking experiences one could have in January 2021. Inside the museum, we learned a lot about sharks and the devastation the area incurred back in 2011. It was worth the walk.

    As far as holidays in the pandemic go, our January 2021 day trip to Kesennuma was fabulous. We felt safe but also got to take a break from our lives for a moment without risking our lives terribly to do so. Tiny towns, if visited respectfully and with proper precautions, can be a family trip miracle in 2021.