Where to Stay in Kesennuma, Miyagi-ken

What is Kesennuma known for?

The Shark Museum is the only museum of its kind in Japan, and the city's kitchens run with it, putting shark on the menu in forms visitors do not find elsewhere. The Ice Museum takes a narrower subject. Art and food share the billing, with the Rias Ark Museum of Art on one side and the Takeyama Rice Retailer House and Museum of Rice Cookery on the other.

What are the main landmarks in Kesennuma?

The Shark Museum has no rival in the country. The Ice Museum and the Rias Ark Museum of Art give Kesennuma a run of museums that would suit a much larger city. Kugunari Beach is the other kind of landmark.

Heritage sites fill in the rest: the En'unkan Garden, Chida's House, Sanjidō Sasaki, the former school former Tsukitate Elementary School building, and the Takeyama Rice Retailer House and Museum of Rice Cookery.

What is the history of Kesennuma?

Kesennuma became a city in 1953. Older buildings predate that by a long way, and Chida's House, Sanjidō Sasaki and the former school former Tsukitate Elementary School building all belong to the era before the modern municipality existed. The Takeyama Rice Retailer House and Museum of Rice Cookery preserves a merchant household, and the En'unkan Garden survives as the ornamental side of the same inheritance.

Then came March 11, 2011. The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami destroyed large sections of Kesennuma, and major fires followed on the same day, which is why so much of the central city dates from the reconstruction rather than from before it. Recovery is part of the record.

What the city shows visitors spans both sides of that break. The Shark Museum, the Ice Museum and the Rias Ark Museum of Art belong to the working city, while the heritage houses hold the older thread. Sharks remain the signature.

Kesennuma still puts them at the front of how it introduces itself, in the museum and on the plate alike. Miyagi Prefecture holds the whole story. The city's 1953 start is the shortest part of it: the merchant houses, the school buildings, the museums and the sea all carry more weight.

Where is Kesennuma?

Kesennuma sits on the coast of Miyagi Prefecture. Kugunari Beach gives the city its stretch of open sand, while the museums and the heritage houses fill the built-up ground behind the waterfront. Inland the municipality keeps going.

Its area is wide enough that the former school former Tsukitate Elementary School building and the houses at Chida's House and Sanjidō Sasaki are a drive rather than a walk from the centre of Kesennuma.

What is the climate of Kesennuma?

Summer is the beach season. Open water off Kesennuma keeps the temperate seasons from running to extremes, and the difference shows most in the months when Kugunari Beach is worth the trip. Temperate does not mean uniform here.

Winter turns the museums into the main business of a visit, and the Shark Museum, the Ice Museum, and the Rias Ark Museum of Art all work regardless of the weather.

How do you get to Kesennuma?

Kesennuma is reached along the Miyagi coast. The city centre is compact enough that the Shark Museum, the Ice Museum, and the food that goes with them work on foot once a visitor has arrived. The rest wants wheels.

Kugunari Beach, the En'unkan Garden, Chida's House, and former Tsukitate Elementary School building are spread across the municipality, and a car turns them from separate expeditions into one loop.