The summer after Alex's graduation we went to Japan hoping to ride bicycles along the Shimanami Kaido, a 60 km route linking islands in the Inland Seto Sea. Alex had been to Hiroshima and Miyajima a few years before on a Week Without Walls trip, so we planned to go explore more of the area. We were there before the official summer season and the bike rentals along the route weren't available, so we ended up walking and driving around the sometimes curvy and hilly roads to little villages to explore and enjoying good food and icy treats - as usual during our travels. We stayed at old and modern ryokans, and hotels back in the city and took LOTS of photos. Paul documented the trip on Facebook and I just made a few collages to post there. All my photos are: here
Trip as narrated by Paul on Facebook including screenshot collages of most of his photos with notes by me in parentheses
June 19 - (check-in at airport) traveling to Hiroshima from Hong Kong - An eating adventure?
June 19 - Trip with Becky and Alex (We stayed at Senkoji Sanso, an old ryokan perched on an Onomichi hillside and walked down the hill in the rain past a small cemetery and over the railroad tracks to find an izakaya for dinner in the covered street mall.)
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| Dogo Onsen, inspiration for onsen in the anime Spirited Away |
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| June 22 - Not the clearest of days but what a view over to Shikoku. |
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| Modern Ryokan. Quite different than the other old Japanese Inns I’ve stayed at. |
(We stayed at a night at Chaharu, a modern ryokan in Matsuyama, right across from the famous Dogo Onsen - didn't go in though, since our ryokan had its own lovely onsen. We did walk through the covered street mall full of shops and swooping swallows - their nests were up in the corners under the eaves. I bought a couple of Imabari towels with swallows and citrus. Imabari is known as the cotton capital of Japan, and the islands along the Kaido are famous for their citrus variety.)
June 23 - Orange popsicle at 10 in the morning? You betcha! (This was at a shop selling a variety of citrus juice from the many varieties grown in the area - seasonal, of course.)
The fifth day we took a 2.5 hour ferry from Matsuyama back to Hiroshima and spent the night near the harbor (at Grand Prince Hotel, a stone's throw from the ferry.)
Went to the top ranked ramen joint near us for an early dinner. Becky wanted a picture of the old ladies who ran the place but it was hard to get. Very homey. Very satisfying. Was already driving back to the hotel and saw a 100 Yen rotating sushi joint and we just had to stop. Wow! Now that’s some dessert!
June 24 (check-in at Miyajima while riding the ferry over) Spending the night at this quaint little island. The sixth day we went from Hiroshima to Miyajima and spent a night on the island. On the seventh day we tour around in the morning before catching the ferry back to Hiroshima.
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| (We also ate several momiji manju - custard-filled maple leaf-shaped fried treat.) |
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| Itsukushima Shrine, famous Miyajima torii |
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| June 25 Leaving Miyajima |
After getting back to Hiroshima there was only two things to do. Go to Bic Camera and eat lunch and dinner.
(We went to have dan dan noodles for lunch - the local style is served dry and spicy as opposed to in spicy soup, then checked into Hotel Granvia for our last evening in a busier section of town close to one of Paul's favorite camera stores. Our last dinner was a delicious teppan meal.)
June 26 - (check-in at airport after returning rental car) Great week. Now it’s time to go back to work.
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There were so many photos that I only posted some screenshot collages. I didn't want to make a long post even longer, so am posting these captions at the end just as a recap of what you saw earlier even though there are a few extra photos that didn't get caught in the screenshot collages. Reading through makes me want to travel there again!
6/19/2018 - flew to Hiroshima, rented a car and drove to Onomichi
Tatami room with a view of the harbor
Japanese draft!
Green Salad with Prosciutto
Beef sinew with tofu in Ponzu sauce
Shrimp and scallop with herb butter with crostini
How it should be served
Iwate pork loin and roasted potato with crispy skins
Cold chicken tsukemen with a spicy Setoda lemon sauce
Restaurant 5 from the front view
6/20/2018 - ferry and moseying around 3 islands, and over 3 bridges to the 4th island, Omishima
One of the three ferry services that cross from Onomichi to Mukoujima
Fukumoto Ferry Service! one of the three ferry. Joel, does your family own this?
Classic Onomichi ramen
Local ice cream after brunch
On the car ferry. We took the third. This is suppose to be the shortest ferry in Japan. Took three minutes to cross.
Shimanami Dolce Gelato and sorbet on the island of Ikuchi
One of the best orange sorbet anywhere! It’s made from local oranges which are famous around the region as is the lemon.
Cram in a little culture at an art Museum
The museum is a collection of art work of Ikuo Hirayama
The main gallery
Hard work deciphering art so needed some sweets to get the brain going.
Comes with caramel sauce pack!
What a combo!
Dinner at Sawaki Ryokan, our home for the next two days.
Grilled pork belly, smoke salmon and octopus salad
Shrimp and octopus tempura
Fish Fried as the chef of the house calls it
Onsen Egg
Akou in sweet soy sauce
Akou, Kare and Kurage, which is jelly fish, so fresh is the sashimi that the fish head was still moving.
Kare, which looks like a flounder
Shrimp, scallops and Sea bream on hot rocks
6/21/2018 - explored the island we stayed on and the 5th
Entrance to Oyamazumi Shrine
The garden here is full of ancient trees covered with moss
Rings of life
Down but not out
Some of them over 2600 years old
That's a lot of sake!
The main shrine building
Sleeping giant
A park behind the shrine even has a zipline!
Must be a nice view from up there!
This the slide in the park. Looks like it came straight out of a warehouse!
Bamboo forests abound. Great bamboo shoots here.
Farmhouse below the park
Mud wall. Reminds me of my grandma's old farm house in Southern Taiwan.
Flowers blooming everywhere
Haven't had any yet but the oyster around here is suppose to be awesome!
Shio ramen on the island of Hakata
1.8 km of a narrow one way track brought us up to this fantastic vantage point
Famous for its sea salt, Almost everything on this island uses it.
Yes. Even on soft serve ice cream!
Back to the ryokan for our set dinner
Still lots of seafood
A smaller sea bream today. One per person.
Finally some udon!
Alex's favourite. Lobster!
After dinner stroll to the local brew pub. These are the manholes here on Omishima.
Just opened a month ago, Omishima Brewery is now the centre of action after dark in this sleepy little town! Oh, the new 24 hour convenient store Lawson which just opened last month as well probably is a little busier. But not as fun.
The hardware. They serve three type of beer every month. This month is a lemon beer using local lemons, a golden ale and a black stout.
Tasty stout!
Refreshing lemon beer. Almost like a Shandy!
Old and the new. Rundown houses across the street with the pub in the reflection.
That's Becky having a drink there.
6/22/2018 - back over bridges to the 6th of the Shimanami Kaido's islands, Ohshima, then over to Shikoku and Matsuyama
The whirlpool at the Funaori Seto Strait. The current will rush through here at over 10 knots and in the old days the sites of many boat wrecks.
Stopped at the Yoshiumi Rose Park on the island of Oshima to look at the roses but more importantly to have some soft serve ice cream.
View from the Tateyama Peak lookout looking at the bridge joining Oshima and Shikoku.
After we crossed the bridge into Shikoku we stopped at the rest stop and had to have a bowl of ramen. Gotta be the best ramen we've had at a rest stop.
The famous Dogo Onsen public bathhouse. Built in 1894, this bathhouse sits on one of the oldest onset hot spring in Japan which has been in use for close to a thousand years.
Dogo Onsen Bathhouse at night
Inside the mall, walking street in front of the bathhouse, swallows flies through the hall catching moth in the lights. Which in turn they feed their chicks.
Dogo train station. And yes, that's a Starbucks.
New annex building of the Dogo Onsen bathhouse
Our Ryokan for the night. I have already posted the interior of this modern inn on another post.
Backside view of the Dogo Onsen bathhouse
Side view
6/23/2018 - long ferry across the
Still quite the shipbuilding area around here. Beside having a big navy presence here you seethree identical container ships with two completed and one still being built. These are big suckers, close to a thousand feet long!
Prince Hotel. Our home for a night before heading to Miyajima.
6/24/2018
Breakfast/lunch before in Hiroshima heading to Miyajima. This is the biggest competition to Yoshinoya Beef Bowl in Japan. Sukiya. Oh, I got the eel beef combo.
The ferry terminal to Miyajima
As soon as you get off the ferry you see deers everywhere. And they will eat anything! Watch your bags!
A local wedding
Didn't have Starbucks. Did have dinner at the brewery later!
What everyone comes to see. The Great Torii. Gate to the Itsukushima Shrine.
Itsukushima Shrine. The island's name is actually Itsukushima, popularly know as Miyajima.
The Torii looks small in a lot of photos especially when the tide is up and covering the lower quarter. It's actually 16 meters, or over 50 ft tall.
When we first got there after getting off the ferry the tide was out and we could walk to the Torii.
It would later be partially under water.
The main walking street
Yes, paleta on Miyajima. It was tasty!
Local oysters!
Fried oyster set meal
Grilled oyster
This oyster restaurant is over 70 years old.
Five story pagoda
Walking to our ryokan
Home for the night
Deer right outside of our ryokan
A Fugu right in the river/harbor channel boy our ryokan. Popular dish in Japan. Poisonous Puffer Fish.
The tide is coming in
The sun is setting
Everyone waiting for the sun to set past the Torii!
At the brewery for some tasty beer!
Local Hiroshima beef. Yes it's Wagyu, which just means Japanese cow.
Clam and oyster chowder. Wow!
More oysters on the pasta
6/25/2018
All the manhole covers have different color maple leaves on them. It's only June but some of the leaves are actually red already.
(Momiji Manju) A famous local snack. various fillings inside a flour covering with maple syrup.The come in boxes but you can also get them deep fried with a batter which is what we had. Two days in a row! Frying my dessert for me! We got the ones with the custard filling.
Can't go a day without soft serve in Japan!
On the ferry to Miyajima. You can see the Great Torii in the background at 11 o'clock.
The JR Ferry
Parked our car on the mainland at a Family Mart convenience store for 2000 Yen for 2 days.
Bought some ice coffee and saw this prepackaged Boba. Alex didn't want to give it a try though.
Musashibo. Dry Dan Dan Mian.
My favorite camera store in the world! Along with B&H in New York.
Garlic Fried Rice. Teppan
Fresh Abalone. Teppan.
Local beef. The tenderloin is "Excellent" grade and the sirloin is "Special" grade.
veggie on teppan
Our chef. No, he does not toss shrimp into his hat. This is not Benihana.
Just look at that! (wagyu beef)
No need for words (wagyu)
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