It comes with several temples, beautiful gardens, and memorial caves,

and originally came to use as a military port,

although these days it’s mainly a famous sight-seeing spot.

You can take a boat ride around throughout all the little islands.

This would be a nice place to have your own boat.

Yeah, it would be.

Do you wanna do it?

Get a boat?

Let's get a boat! LET'S DO IT

Okay!

It's absolutely stunning. It's one of the three main, big sights of Japan.

One of the three ancient big sights of Japan.

There's this one, Matsushima Bay,

I think there's Miyajima,

and then there's a chain of islands somewhere near Kyoto.

I think this is the most beautiful.

Have you been to all three?

No.

I've been to two of them, though!

Can you read it for us?

Yeah, it says...

the nearest McDonald's...

from here...

Jun, help me out.

Jun.

What does it actually say?

I mean to be fair,

if you're gonna give directions to McDonald's, this is the way to do it.

A fantastic bay with 260 tiny islands

with Sharla in Japan.

See the islands and you can see Sharla in real life!

'Cause I just permanently sit here on this bench.

I like it that much.

This is the vlogger squat.

Chris, you could start an exercise routine for vloggers.

Go up and down.

Or like the action shot.l

Like, "Yeah, temples!!"

Wha- "Yeah, temples!"

Dammit, Chris!

The current one, this one I think, was built in 1604

by Date Masamune.

By a samurai?

One of the most famous Japanese samurai warriors.

As beautiful as the sea looks here,

this bay is actually filled with sunken rocks

that make navigation by outsiders difficult.

Date Masamune, one of Japan’s most famous samurai,

saw the potential as a military port and built up the infrastructure of the area,

including rebuilding the nearby Buddhist temple, Zuiganji.

Zuiganji is one of Japan’s national treasures.

Unfortunately the temple sustained major damage during the Tohoku tsunami,

including the loss of 300 cedar trees.

Part of the temple also includes caves built in the Kamakura period approximately 800 years ago,

which were used for memorial services and to house the ashes of the deceased.

These trees are so tall.

Thatched roof cottages

A momiji bush?

Oh, wow!!

You gotta check out the tree over here.

It's like the best part of the whole place.

700 year old tree.

It's not 800 years old but it's still quite impressive.

Ah, geez.

Well if it's not 800 years old then what's the point?

I don't get excited unless it's at least 800 years old.

Wow.

Omg.

This looks like something straight out of FernGully.

I said like something out of a fantasy movie.

Wow!

The bay and temples are too large to fully explore in just a couple hours,

so schedule the better part of a day here if you can.

It’s a beautiful and relaxing area,

so if you’re going to be in Miyagi, definitely add it to your list of places to go!

It took them years to build the islands.

They built these...

It took them years, maybe 60 years to put all the rocks in the bay.

One of the largest construction projects ever.

Where did they get the rocks?

Ah... from...

mountains.

They... brought rocks from the mountains.

Brought rocks from the mountains.

And put them in the bay. And put them in the bay.

60 years ago. Yep.

And then grew these trees on them. Yeah.

'Cause they wanted to... rejuvenate the economy.

...Mmkay.

(Not True)