sharla

A Trip to Yamadera | Yamagata's Mountain Temple

Added 2021-11-21 14:00:05 +0000 UTC

On Thursday I convinced Chris to join me for a trip to Yamadera, the cool temple that is located on a mountain top in Yamagata Prefecture! He's been before but never during the Autumn season so he was curious how it would look. I've wanted to visit for years, it's probably the last major "sightseeing spot" in Tohoku that I've yet to see.

The drive on the way to the temple was almost as great as the destination. North Japan really looks amazing in Autumn and is the perfect time for a road trip!

It's just over an hours drive from Sendai, the train also goes straight there from Sendai station if you don't have a car! 🚗

Yamadera is a famous tourist location for both Japanese and foreign visitors, so the surrounding town has lots of little touristy shops for souvenirs and snacks. I picked up some local persimmons for 50yen each! (I usually pay about 200yen each at my grocery store so this was a great find✨)

We paid a couple hundred yen for access to the temple area, and started our climb to the top! There are one thousand stairs on the way to the peak so prepare your legs😅Probably not the best choice of activity for my first week out of quarantine, still recovering haha.

There is lots to stop and look at along the way (you'll see more of that in the video which will be out early Dec.) so the climb is enjoyable despite the 1000 stairs.

It took us about 30 minutes or so to reach the top! It was a little cloudy unfortunately so the Autumn colours weren't as vibrant as they could've been, but pretty amazing none the less.