Onomichi

Arriving by plane from Sapporo at Hiroshima Airport on a rainy night with a bad cold and one deaf air (a painful descent it was in the plane) to then have to drive 1hr to reach Onomichi wasn't all that enjoyable. I spent the first week basically recovering from a very decent throat and ear infection, which also delayed my flight to Vietnam. A side note on accessing medical care in Japan as a foreigner: you are not welcome, not at all. I've since researched this a bit and confirmed some aspects of Japanese society are quite closed and the freindliness and politeness (in my case) very much stops trying to access those areas.

Anyway, I'd mainly come to Onomichi to do the Shimanami Kaido bike ride that traverses various islands and some say is one of the best rides in the world. I did end up doing my version of it, not as a one-way ride and back by bus, rather a loop to try take in some of the side routes. It was undoubtedly a beautiful ride and I was lucky with warm sunny weather given the time of year. The route is also known for its many citrus trees, these happened to be fruiting, which made for a nice snack along the way.

Onomichi itself is worth the visit too, in particular the Temple Walk that takes in 25 different temples in only 2.5km, plus some quirky attractions such as the cat alley - as it suggests, small streets with lots of cats. The blossom season had also started, of course one of the main attractions in Japan.

Since I had a car here, I also did a few day trips by car.

For the first one, I selected a destination completely randomly on Google Maps called the Flower Valley or something similar. Got there and it was closed until spring, probably could've worked that out earlier. However, the drive took in some nice mountains and villages where I was able to get a better feel for life in rural Japan, which is obviously very quiet. Many homes are abandoned in these towns, some towns seem to have no human activity at all. At the closed gates of the Flower Valley, I again chose a random location on Google Maps, which turned out to be a remote but very nice (and VERY quiet) waterfall walk in an area that I think was affected by a recent bad storm or even earthquake; the track was covered in landslip and broken trees, occasionally it was hard to find the path (getting lost here would've been a bad outcome).

The second day trip was also randomly selected off Google Maps, a temple on a coastal headland. Initially, the drive was not promising through an ugly urban area with heavy industry, however the temple itself turned out be very nice, small but positioned on a cliff top with sea views. Oddly, the temple was filled with ... breasts, in all shapes and sizes, moulded breasts... apparently a temple to visit for fertility. After this I again turned to Maps and chose a small coastal town to the north. This port town (Tomonoura) was quite a surprise and I later discovered it's actually a fairly major tourist destination. Tomonuora is a centuries old fishing village known for its well preserved traditional Japanese houses. It's also dubbed the real-life Ponyo town, serving as the setting for the Ghibli film (which I enjoyed a lot). Turned out to be yet another highlight as there's something about old fishing villages that I always enjoy.

Side trip to Hiroshima

Being so close to Hiroshima, I had to visit the Atomic Bomb Dome and related Peace Memorial Park. It is fair to say this place makes an impact, hard to put into words but it's an odd and unsettling feeling standing beneath the site where a nuclear bomb detonated and instantly killed around 80,000 people plus so many more from the after effects. Ringing the Peace Bell there creates a sound that also seems to resonate within the soul.

And thus ended 2 months in Japan. Next: Vietnam.