The sea in Tohoku is beautiful and cruel. A vast mass that owns the horizon, it shimmers in the sun, abundant and giving, like a mother that charms and nurtures. However, it is also a primeval force, a deep darkness that may swell up in rage and devour its charges.

This duality of the sea has fated two towns in Miyagi Prefecture. Neighbors on the eastern coast, Matsushima and Higashi-Matsushima have lived with the sea very differently — never more so than during the tsunami that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011.

Matsushima, whose coastal views earned it fame as one of the three most scenic spots in Japan, survived the deluge unharmed. In fact, the emblem of its beauty, the pine-covered islets dotting the bay, served as a natural buffer that weakened the force of the waves.

In contrast, Higashi-Matsushima, lacking a picturesque bay and thus snubbed by tourists, was almost entirely destroyed. One of the disaster's unforgettable images, a 45-meter ship washed atop a building, was taken here.

The two towns show the random nature of luck, the way chance and position may reign over life and death. Yet both places are worth a visit, spanning a range of views and impressions that make Japan intriguing to explore.

The famous haiku poet Matsuo Basho, upon visiting Matsushima in 1689 on his journey to the "deep north" of Tohoku, wrote that the bay possessed the "fathomless beauty of a lady exquisitely arrayed."

Thus, my friend Dale and I take the bullet train from Tokyo to Sendai, and then a local train to Matsushima. As soon as we get there, however, chance manifests itself in a summer rain, which does bad things to the charms of a bay.

Our first stop is Zuiganji, a Zen Buddhist temple founded in 828. A dirt path leads through the temple ground to the main building, alongside a row of caves carved into the base of a cliff. Since the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), these caves have held memorial services and stored the ashes of the deceased.

The temple ground is suffused with a sense of peace, housing the dead in serenity. In the rain, we walk through a grove of cedars, past mossy memorial stones and hydrangeas in wet bloom. Drops of silver pearl down the tips of the cedars; the rain ripples a pond with sea roses.

Back on the main strip, a few steps down the pier is another Matsushima icon: Godaido Temple and the vermillion bridge connecting it to the coast. The place looks great in photos on the internet, but may disappoint from up close. The wooden temple was built in 1604 by a samurai who may have been out of his element; gray and unadorned, it has the aesthetic pizazz and vision of a designer committing ritual suicide.

Dale and I are getting a little restless. The sky is still gloomy, and when it turns out that Kanrantei, a teahouse ideal for watching the waves of the bay, is closed temporarily for construction, we decide on a whim to shift gears.

"Why do you want to go there?" says the station agent, as though we had asked to enter the "Forbidden Zone."

The question is fair. We are in a lovely place, and instead of enjoying the views and sighing "Ah, Matsushima" with a mouthful of grilled oyster, we ask to move on and see the ugly little sister — Higashi-Matsushima. Tourists do the darnedest things.

"We wish to see the wild sea and ... the devastated areas," explains Dale in broken Japanese. We have discussed whether the plan is morbid, but decided our interests were genuine.

We make quick arrangements to stay at a ryokan (Japanese inn), whose proprietor seems almost shocked to host foreign visitors.

A short ride on an empty train takes us east, up the coast. In the gathering dust, the small station is surreally deserted, a prefab that looks like jetsam. A mark on a wall records 20 meters — the height the tsunami reached in 2011.

"This place is ... wiped out," whispers Dale, almost awed.

If a landscape could be scarred, it might look like this. Expanses of silent dirt, washed of dwellings and man, with no traces of life, are surrounded by trees that tower in the dark. A lonely car is idling at the station — the proprietor of the inn.

After a short night at the "Otakamori Kanko Hotel," a large rustic inn from the 1970s, we get up just before dusk to hike up a nearby mountain and see the sunrise.

In the crisp summer morning, looking down on the wooded shoreline, the fishing boats and the oyster nets anchored in inlets, we get a sense of "Tohoku damashii" ("spirit of Tohoku"). Marked by long winters and the struggle with poverty, the place has the raw, earthy feel of life with the sea — as essential a part of Japan as the dainty appeal of Matsushima.

We call a taxi to get closer to the sea, and soon face the Pacific Ocean at Ishinomaki Bay. There is no picturesque coast and no islets here, just a stark coastline and the dark gray water moving under the sky.

An industrial crane sits on a stretch of sand in a melancholy communion with the sea. A young woman is fishing at the shore, at her side a small bucket containing the catch of the day. She looks up at us, wondering what we are doing here.

As my eyes move along the horizon and then to the waves lapping slowly against the shore, I reflect on the great tsunami and all that it took from Higashi-Matsushima. Saying goodbye at the inn, we met the proprietor's mother and two kids, who were all friendly and cheerful. However, his wife wasn't there, and in a place afflicted like this, absence can have tragic meaning.

The sea before me is indifferent to such concerns, unaffected by the suffering it has caused. It is sure to outlive impermanence.

It is said that all things are travelers. Or, as Basho wrote in his journal, "each day is a journey, the journey itself home." We have been lucky.

It is hard to explain, but I feel a sense of elation, glad to have come to this place. Beyond the sights and delights of Matsushima, one needn't visit here for pity or charity, but rather for a powerful new experience, which is often the aim of a journey.

Our day ends back in pretty Matsushima, with a cruise round the bay and its 260 islets. We pass the weathered cliffs and the wind-bent trees that have given the island its name (matsu means pine tree; shima means island).

On the deck of the ship with the breeze in our faces, we look at the waves as they crest and foam, agreeing with Basho that the area is exquisitely arrayed.

Around a promontory off in the distance, we can see, dimly, the edges of Higashi-Matsushima.

Getting there: Take the JR Tohoku bullet train from Tokyo to Sendai, then transfer to the JR Senseki Line and head for Matsushima Kaigan Station. A great time to visit the region is the Lantern and Fireworks Festival in August. The grounds of Zuiganji emple are lit up with paper lanterns, and 8,000 colorful lanterns are arranged on the islets and set floating into Matsushima Bay.