Japan

Atomic Birthday

I am now in Hiroshima, and it is now my Birthday. Somehow this seems slightly incongruous, but basically it means I really don't feel like doing the peace museum today. Meanwhile It's been some time since my last entry as I've been continually on the move since I left Osaka and haven't had the time to get online. So lets see what I've been doing since I last updated this, even I have difficulty remembering all of it.

In Osaka I activated one of my rail-passes (the Sanyo-area one) so I could move around more easily. I then got on a train west to Himeji where I visited the castle, said to be the best in Japan and certainly worth the visit. After wondering around Koko-en, next to the castle which were pleasant enough, I got back on a train to go further west to Okayama.

After spending the night in Okayama I visited Koraku-en in the morning, though not as early as I had intended. Having gotten there later than I had intended there were a lot of other people there and I think I was getting tired of gardens by this point so I fairly soon headed off to Takahashi. In this small town to the norwest of Okayama I visited Raikyu-ji (a temple) which has a very nice zen garden, before climbing the hill to Japan's highest castle, though I didn't go into the castle itself. It was a hot, sunny day but the view from the top was impressive, and the walk down by a different route, through the forrested mountain side was great. Taking another train to Kurashiki I spent the afternoon wondering around some of the preserved historic streets there and the evening in the amusing Tivoli parked, copied in it's entirety from Copenhagen.

In the morning I took a local train a few stops to Soja where I rented a bike to ride the Kibi Plain cycle route back towards Okayama. Once I arrived back in Okayama (after the ride and another short train journey) I took a train south to Kajima where I took a boat tour the very impressive Seto-Ohashi bridge that island-hops across the inland sea at that point. Unfortunatly being a monday the museum associated with the bridge was closed so I went back to Okayama and from there on to Fukayama, where I visited the rather eclectic collection housed in the Auto and Clock Museum.

After a night in Fukayama I went first to Onomichi from where, after taking a cablecar up the hill and visiting a few of the temples, I took a ferry to Ikuchi-jima, one of the islands in the inland sea. Here I visited the temple complex of Kosan-ji which is alsmost entirely made up of copies of the most impressive bits of other temples.

The next day on the island I visited the Hirayama Ikuo Art Museam before going to Tomonoura via Fukayama by a combination of ferry, train and bus. I spent a couple of hours wondering around this harbour village before returning to Fukayama and then on here to Hiroshima where I arrived yesterday evening.

After all of that, and managing to leave my rail-pass on the Shinkansen I took here I'm feeling like settling down somewhere for a few days. I havn't done much more than wonder around the peace park here in Hirsohima, but I have another night here and during the day I will try and decide what I am going to try next. I would like to visit the island Mija-jima to the south of here which sounds interesting but the only accomadation on the island itself sounds to be rather expensive.

I've just updated the entry with placenames and a correction or two. Probably no more updates for a little while though as I'm thinking of spending a few days on Miya-jima. Will see what happens and let you know when I'm back in Hiroshima.

Posted by Haifisch at April 17, 2003 03:53 AM