Matsushima Bay · Oku-MatsushimaNo.1223★★Open in map →
Miyagi Oysters
Matsushima Bay does not only grow oysters to eat; it grows the seed that stocks farms elsewhere. Aomina, the visitor building on Miyato at the outer rim of the bay, opens a grilling shed through the winter.
- FromSendai Station
- ~1 hrJR rapid, then 10 min by road
- Get off atNobiru Station (JR Senseki-Tohoku Line)
- From there
- Miyagi Oysters
The sweet spot
These oysters are sold under their own name, so there is nothing hidden about them. The less obvious fact is that the bay is a nursery as much as a larder. Follow a rack in some other bay back far enough and the seed can lead here. Eating them out at the rim puts that direction the right way round, because you look at the water first and the plate second.
Where it is
23 more notes in Miyagi · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Aominathe island's visitor building, stocking Higashimatsushima produce and taking the boat bookings
- The winter grilling shedan oyster shack beside the building, open only through the cold months
- The boat landingthe jetty for the cruise along Sagakei, the island's ocean-facing cliffs
- Otakamorithe hill immediately behind, one of the four classic viewpoints over the bay
- Satohama shell mound and the Jomon museuma National Historic Site about a kilometre southwest, with a cut section of the mound on show
How to actually get there
- Sendai Station → Nobiru (JR Senseki-Tohoku Line rapid, no change).
- Nobiru Station → Aomina (about 10 minutes by road; there is no walking route).
- Check the boat desk inside, then the produce counter or the grilling shed.
- Climb Otakamori for the bay, and call at the shell mound on the way back.
- Sendai to Nobiru by rapid train
- The Senseki-Tohoku Line runs rapid services from Sendai Station out along the bay to Nobiru with no change, and Nobiru is a rapid stop. It is faster than the all-stations Senseki Line, but there are fewer of them. Fix the outward and the return train before you leave rather than after you arrive.
- Back from Nobiru Station
- The same line runs back into Sendai. The harder half is finding a car on the island side, so arrange the ride to the station while you are still at the Aomina desk. Allow extra time for that road once the light has gone.
About the place
Miyagi is Japan's second oyster prefecture after Hiroshima, and its beds run from Matsushima Bay along the coast as far as Kesennuma. Inside that trade the bay carries a particular job: the prefecture treats it as a seed ground. Spat gathered here goes out to farms inside and outside Miyagi, so racks in other bays often begin with this water. The water here is shallow, so the frames are the simple hanging kind rather than the long-line rigs used off the open coast. Miyato is the island at the outer rim, the place where the sheltered inner water and the open sea change over.
How to enjoy it
The grilling shed runs from early November to the middle of February, confirmed at the time of writing, so an oyster trip has to be aimed at those months. Outside them the building still opens at 8:15 as a produce shop and boat desk, and the hill and the shell mound are there all year. Go up Otakamori first. With the shape of the bay in your head, the shell layers below and the shells on the grill read as one continuous thing.
Background & history
People have been eating this bay's shellfish for a very long time. The western side of Miyato holds the Satohama shell mound, lived on from the Jomon period through to the Heian era and made a National Historic Site in 1995. Its shell layers are that eating, stacked up and readable in section. Farming is recent by comparison: oyster culture began in the bay during the Edo period, and the hanging method that shapes it today was settled in the Taisho years.
Before you go
- Cash
- Entering Aomina costs nothing and you pay for what you buy. The grilling shed was running a timed all-you-can-eat at the time of writing, 2,500 yen for adults and 1,500 yen for primary-school children. Boat tickets are sold separately at the desk inside.
- Before you go
- The grilling shed is a winter fixture only; for the rest of the year the building works as a produce shop and boat office. Cruises are cancelled in wind and swell, so treat the boat as the part of the day that may not happen. The bay side runs colder than central Sendai.
- Another way
- On Sundays a boat links Matsushima with Oku-Matsushima, so you can arrive from the famous side of the bay by water instead of by road. By car the island sits close to the Naruse-Okumatsushima interchange on the Sanriku Expressway.
- After you get off
- Nobiru Station to Aomina is about 5.6 kilometres by road, roughly ten minutes in a car. It is not a walking distance, so take a taxi at the station. Once you are there, Aomina rents bicycles for moving around the island.