Japan (Day 4 – 7) – Onsen, Hiking, Shizuoka, and Hiroshima

Hello again!

I apologize for the lack of posts. Internet wasn’t too great up at the onsen and I didn’t have a outlet converter for my laptop charger so I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time on my laptop and write some posts. Now it’s time to play catch up!

—– Day 4 —–

So, after getting stuck in Tanabe, I decided to take the second bus the following morning leaving at 11:30. This, fortunately enough, gave me plenty of time to explore the little city I got stuck in. Being a coastal town, the first thing I decided to do was head for the beach. It was a small little beach and, given the rain that had fallen the night before, pretty wet, but it was a beach haha.

There was also this little forested park right next to the beach that was a pretty little walk through.

After following the beach for a while, I noticed on the map that there was a little shrine nearby. It took me a little bit to find because it seemed to be hidden, and once I get there almost roped off (I hope I didn’t trespass!) but boy was it a really neat shrine.

It was a tiny little thing, and almost overgrown given that it was semi-blocked off, but I had the shrine all to myself so it was very quiet and peaceful.

I took a winding path on my way back to my Airbnb and caught as many temples and shrines as I could.

I then finally made my bus to get up to Yunomine Onsen, where the hostel I was staying at was located. The ride started through the city, but then quickly made a turn inland and up through the hills to the hot springs. There was this turquoise-blue river that we followed all the way up that made the ride a sight-seeing experience. Not to mention the landscape was a deep green with all sorts of trees, and I managed to spot little areas of bamboo too.

The town I arrived in was absolutely picturesque, with a hot spring fed stream running right next to the road. Some people even cooked food and boiled eggs in the hot springs near the center of town

[Sous-vide anyone?]

I made it to my J-Hoppers Hostel and checked in as soon as I could, which they luckily let me do a bit early, and immediately headed up the mountain.

This area of Japan apparently held a number of world heritage pilgrimage paths to different shrines, called the Kumano trails. The trails encompass a large portion of the Kii mountains in this area, and I jumped on the shortest one that I could start from the hostel I was staying at. The path took me through the forested hills, and was actually pretty steep, forcing me to catch my breath a number of times, even without a higher elevation. It was also raining at the time, and hiking with an umbrella in your hands, trying to avoid slippery branches and huge puddles, proved to be pretty exhausting. I eventually made it into the next town and headed toward the nearest shrine, the Kumano Hongo Taisha. The shrisdfne had apparently been part of a larger complex that was destroyed due to a flood, at which point the destroyed buildings were reconstructed at their current location. This was also the first temple I visited that had the iconic long set of stairs leading up to the shrine, which I thought was pretty cool.

There was also a historical visitors center nearby that I unfortunately wasn’t able to check out due to time constraints (I needed to hike back before it got dark). But I did notice this giant guy,

I’m not sure if there’s a record for largest torii gate, but I could imagine that this one takes the cake. At least 50ft tall, though I’m a bad judge of size, the gate was ginormous.

You can hopefully read a little bit about it in this picture.

There was also this little guy.

Back at the hostel, I happened to be luckily enough to be there during J-Hoppers’ 1 year anniversary of being at that location, so they threw a little Japanese barbecue for the guests there at the time for $5. I of course joined in and had a fun evening chatting with a bunch of Spanish visitors, a German, and a number of Japanese guests along with the hosts. I managed to speak all 3 languages I know (very loosely counting Japanese) all at the same venue which was a fun little milestone. The food was great, complete with udon, grilled beef, pork, chicken, and a bunch of different veggies, and of course a bunch of sake. I ditched out a bit early, right around when everyone was starting to get a bit loud, and took my chance to finally bask in one of the onsen. The hostel itself had 3 of its own private little pools, which made my first experience a little less awkward, instead of the more classic and public approach of a bunch of other naked guys in the pool with you.

They were small but it sure felt good after a bunch of hiking.

—– Day 5 —–

I woke up early the next day knowing that my travel time to Shizuoka was going to be a bit long, 5:30 in total. Bus bus ride down was as beautiful as on the way up, and I then quickly hopped on the next train headed up the coast. However, soon after I hopped on the train I realized that I was heading down the coast, not up. I had hopped on the wrong train… ugh. I had been relying on google maps to tell me which track to take but for some reason it didn’t tell me which one to take this time. My 50/50 chance led me to go south instead of north. Not a big deal, I’ll just hop off at the next station. So I did, and found that the next train going north didn’t pass for over another hour. Oops.

The rest of the trip managed to be pretty uneventful, and I made it to Shizuoka around 6:00. The hostel I was staying at there was conveniently located right near a castle and shopping district so I decided to hit the town and walk around a bit. I first decided to hit the castle, given how pretty the one in Osaka was. This castle complex actually didn’t still contain the castle, it had been destroyed, but still held two of the moat turrets. I took these pictures at night so they might be a little washed out.

The shopping district was pretty happening at the time, probably because I was there on a weekend, and so almost all of the shops were still open. Tons of kareoke, clothing stores, restaurants, and even a few arcades!

[This picture looks empty but I swear there were a bunch of people…]

—– Day 6 —–

The following day was rainy. I’d experienced rain before already, which seemed to be come and go, so I banked on that because today was my day to see Mt. Fuji. The host at the hostel recommended a spot called Nihondaisha to go check out in Shizuoka that also has a view of Fuji-san. I unluckily lost lost the bet with the rain though. It never let up so I wasn’t able to get any sightings of Mt. Fuji. However, the shrine there was of course beautiful, and felt a little bit more classical Japanese than some of the previous, with beautiful art and murals all along the walls. Because of the rain and lack of a line of sight to Mt. Fuji, there weren’t many people at the temple at the time so I got the opportunity to take a lot of good pictures.

I got back to Shizuoka and the rain worsened. It was about a 10 minute walk from the station to my hostel, but that was plenty of time to get completely drenched. My day kinda ended there and I called it an early night given that my shoes were soaked and the storm was not letting up. I should have checked the weather and prepared better!

—– Day 7 —–

My last day in Shizuoka started with one last ditch attempt to see Mt. Fuji. I woke up early in the morning and caught an 8:45 train to a stop 30 mins closer to Mt. Fuji in attempt to close half the distance and hope the clouds would clear up. Although it wasn’t raining and it was starting to get clearer, it just still wasn’t enough when I arrived at the station. For some reason it seems like the clouds sit really low in Japan…

[Should have been able to see Mt. Fuji in either of these!]

I hurried back to check out of the hostel before 11:00 and booked a few tickets for my ride all the way to Hiroshima!

If I didn’t mention this before, I originally had about 4 days of limbo right in the middle of my trip. This was because I wanted to experience things when I got to Japan and plan those 4 days around what I found I liked most. Well, while I was up at the hot springs I asked one of the Japanese guests whats one place you would recommend I go, and he immediately answered Hiroshima. I had been playing around with the idea for a while, and his confident suggestion tipped the scale, so I booked 3 nights in Hiroshima at another hostel and made my plans.

[Bullet Train!]

So yeah, now I’m in Hiroshima, a decent ways south west of where most of my adventures have been taking place. First thing I noticed when getting here is there is a lot more tourists. I’m hearing English and other languages all the time here. The hostel that I’m staying at also seems a lot busier than some of the others, and full of foreigners, not locals.

[Quick pic walking through the Peace Park]

I’ve honestly been neglecting trying all of the different types of food or plates in almost all of the regions that I’ve been to so far. So I decided to change that and immediately scoured google for the local unique plate and a good restaurant for it. Evidently Hiroshima’s special plate is this crazy stuffed pancake like thing, meant for meals other than breakfast, known as Okonomiyaki. I found a recommended restaurant called Okonomiyura, after the name of the plate, and headed out the door. I would classify Okonomiyaki more like a cooked tower of food rather then a pancake, but whose counting.

The walk to and from the restaurant also passed through a shopping district of Hiroshima, and since I had some time to kill I decided to explore a bit. Can anyone guess what my first stop was? You guessed it (or should have), the arcades! There were like 3 of them that I walked by in the 4 blocks or so of the shopping area. I stopped in a chain that I had seen in other cities and sat down for a couple games. The first one I picked looked super new, but given how complex some recent arcade games have become, I wasn’t quite able to follow the instructions given they were in Japanese, and wasted all of my in-game time looking at strange screens instead of actually playing the game. RIP.

The next was one many might know, guitar hero! Or at least something very close to it. Other than that I just walked around watching people play and there were some really crazy games. There was this one specifically where the game gave you cards and you moved them around on a field, each card controlling an army, as you attempted to out maneuver your opponent to destroy their base. Seemed pretty neat, but also one I probably wouldn’t be able to play without being able to read instructions :'(.

My next stop was at a book store. This one was just out of curiosity since I can’t read a lick of Japanese, but it seemed legit. It had a number of $1 book sections and sold some used books as well.

The last stop was a game store. The nostalgia was real here. Lots of old card and board games, specifically Yugioh and Magic, The Gathering. The other side of the shop contained a plastic model shop, where you get anything from manga/anime figures, to Gundams, to little toy pets.

And that about wraps up my day. Sorry for the explosion of 4 days worth of stuff, hopefully I’ll be able to write another post sooner now that I can recharge my laptop!

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