After seeing the bell tower above us, we followed the path around to the left and found a roofed-over rest area with a spectacular view. Below us the cherry trees were not in bloom but they all had a pastel layer of pink around them. In the distance we could see the islands in Matsushima Bay. Matsu means pine tree and shima means island. Japanese does not have plurals so these are more like English uncountable nouns. The first picture was looking off to our left, out into the Pacific if you could see that far.
The next picture is the view to the right, sort of looking toward Sendai which is a half hour away by train.
This picture was taken with a telephoto lens and shows the upper right portion of the previous picture. You can see the rice paddies that go right down to the water's edge.
With the telephoto lens, you can actually see the Pacific Ocean in the distance.
Much of the surface of the bay is covered with large rectangular floats that have large underwater attachments. These are mainly used to farm oysters and various types of edible seaweed.
After spending a long while admiring the view, we turned and continued up the last little bit of the hill to explore the temple.
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