Onomichi

Tuesday, May 12, was a travel day, from Tokyo to Onomichi near Hiroshima. Onomichi is the start of the Shimanami Kaido, a 70 km cycling route from Honshu to Shikoku, going over several islands along the way. 

It was a long day, almost 5 hours by train. But I wanted to do the Shimanami Kaido first, while the weather was good since the rainy season starts in June.

I happen to know someone from Vancouver who lives in Onomichi. Kane was in one of my Japanese classes in the Vancouver Japanese Language School. I contacted him and we arranged to meet for dinner.

He showed us around Onomichi a bit: the main  shopping street and some of the restaurants he liked. 

The next day Celene and I did part of the temple walk. Its a path through the residential area on the side of the hill overlooking Onomichi, that connects 25 very old temples. 

At one of them a nice guide opened the doors for us to have a look inside while he explained what was there. 

Rather than walk the whole way, or climb to the top of the hill where there is a large temple complex, we took the cablecar. The views from the top were amazing.

We also walked down a bit to Senkoji temple.

There were several little areas selling charms and with places to sit and enjoy the view.

After going down the cablecar, Celene explored the shopping street, and went back to the hotel for a nap. Then I did a sketch of the view from beside the hotel.

For dinner we found a funky little place in the shopping  street called Coyote Cafe. The owner's passion was photography, and the walls were covered with his photographs and shelves of art magazines.