10 Best Things to Do in Sendai

A quick, friendly rundown of Sendai's biggest highlights — from Date Masamune's mausoleum to the pine-covered islands of Matsushima Bay — a good starting point for a first visit.

Short on time in Sendai? Here are ten places and experiences first-time visitors and repeat travelers both keep coming back to — a quick list to work from if you’d rather not plan every hour of your trip.

1
Zuihoden
Zuihoden is the mausoleum of Date Masamune, the samurai lord who founded Sendai in 1600, built in 1637 in lavish Momoyama style — black lacquer, gold leaf, and polychrome carving. The original complex was destroyed in a WWII air raid and rebuilt by 1979, closely following the original design. The mausoleum sits in a forest of towering cedars that gives the approach a hushed, reverent feel well before you reach the gate.
9:00 AM – 4:50 PM (Feb–Nov); 9:00 AM – 4:20 PM (Dec–Jan); closed Dec 3123-2 Otamayashita, Aoba-ku, Sendai
Sendai
2
Aoba Castle
Date Masamune began building his castle on Mount Aoba in 1600, and though the castle itself never survived intact, the hilltop site is still the place most associated with his legacy. Surviving stone walls, a reconstructed side turret, and a bronze statue of Masamune on horseback — illuminated every night — now sit within Aobayama Park, along with sweeping views over the city below. Masamune, nicknamed 'Dokuganryu,' the One-Eyed Dragon, remains Sendai's defining historical figure.
Park: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM1 Kawauchi, Aoba-ku, Sendai
3
Matsushima Bay
About 25 minutes northeast of Sendai by train, Matsushima Bay is dotted with roughly 260 small pine-covered islands and is officially recognized as one of Japan's traditional 'Three Views,' alongside Miyajima and Amanohashidate. Sightseeing boats loop out among the islets, past a few larger islands connected to shore by red-lacquered bridges. It's an easy half-day trip and one of the most photographed views in the Tohoku region.
4
Osaki Hachimangu Shrine
Built in 1607 as the Date clan's guardian shrine, Osaki Hachimangu is a National Treasure, its black-lacquered, gold-leafed main hall considered one of the finest surviving examples of Momoyama-period shrine architecture in the Tohoku region. The shrine hosts the Dontosai Festival every January 14, when thousands walk here through the winter cold to burn their old New Year's decorations. Even outside festival season, the ornate carving and gilding on the main hall reward a close look.
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM4-6-1 Hachiman, Aoba-ku, Sendai
5
Jozenji-dori
Jozenji-dori runs east-west through central Sendai, named for a temple that no longer exists but whose era overlaps with the city's founding in the early 1600s. Four rows of zelkova trees, some over 60 years old, form a canopy over the avenue, and this single street does more than anything else to justify Sendai's old nickname, 'Mori no Miyako' — the City of Trees. It looks entirely different depending on the season.
6
Sendai Tanabata Matsuri
Held every August 6 to 8, the Sendai Tanabata Matsuri is widely considered the largest Tanabata festival in Japan, filling the city's shopping arcades with thousands of large, handcrafted paper streamers made from washi paper folded into elaborate net patterns and origami. It's one of the 'Three Great Festivals of Tohoku,' alongside Akita's Kanto Matsuri and Aomori's Nebuta Matsuri. Food stalls line the streets throughout, making it as much a place to eat as to look up.
7
Pageant of Starlight
Every winter from early December through New Year's Eve, roughly half a million lights are strung through the zelkova trees of Jozenji-dori and nearby Aoba-dori, turning the City of Trees into a genuinely dazzling nighttime walk. The event has run since 1986, and its appeal is mostly in the simplicity: white lights wrapped through bare branches along a street already known for its scale and symmetry.
8
Sendai Daikannon
Visible from much of the city, the Sendai Daikannon is a 100-meter statue of Byakue Kannon, the white-robed bodhisattva of mercy — completed in 1991, it's the tallest statue of a goddess in Japan. An elevator inside the statue's base carries visitors up through floors housing hundreds of smaller Buddhist figures before reaching an observation level near the top, with views out over the city.
10:00 AM – 3:30 PM weekdays; 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM weekends & holidays31-36 Nakayamaminami, Motosawa, Izumi-ku, Sendai
9
Aoba Matsuri
Held every third weekend of May, near the anniversary of Date Masamune's death, the Aoba Matsuri reenacts his procession from the castle with elaborate hand-pulled floats, mikoshi portable shrines, and hundreds of costumed performers, including dancers in the suzume odori, or 'sparrow dance.' It's a livelier, more participatory festival than Tanabata, with central Sendai's streets closed to traffic for drumming, chanting, and the procession itself.
10
Sendai's local cuisine
Gyutan, grilled beef tongue, was invented here in 1948 and is now central to the city's food identity — Sendai Station even has an entire floor, Gyutan-dori, dedicated to it. Zunda mochi, mochi topped with sweetened mashed edamame, is the other signature specialty, its exact origin uncertain but its bright green flavor unmistakably local. Round it out with sasa kamaboko, a bamboo-leaf-shaped fish cake invented in the early Meiji period, and you've covered the three dishes that define eating in this city.

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