Andre and Wendy

We started off this morning by taking a 1.5 hour local train from Okayama to Onomichi. A nice train ride with lots of small mountains around, again surprised at just how many mountains we are going through.

Arrived at Onomichi and walked along a very nice walkway along the water, very pretty. There are a few cherry trees in bloom which is always a nice surprise as we didn't expect to see any more for a couple more towns. Check in is at 3PM so we leave our bags and head off touring. Check out times have usually been 10AM and check in at 3PM, there doesn't seem to be any chance of ever getting into your room early even if it is ready, they really are strict about 3PM.

We start off by taking the Mt. Senkoji Ropeway to the top for some fantastic views from the observation platform. Wow, it is beautiful up here. So many little islands. This ropeway cost $5.00Cdn, I can't imagine what we would be paying to do this at home. This area is actually famous for biking between the islands and all the bridges, no time for us this trip, maybe another day...

From the top of Mt. Senkoji we walk down and visit some temples. There are 25 temples on the Onomichi temple walk. We visit a couple of the main ones. At one point we see a chain that you can pay $1.00cdn to climb up, we passed on that option.

Close to the bottom we join up with Cat Alley. There are many stones painted like cats, cats painted on the stairs, cats painted on walls, and we saw one live cat.

Walked around to visit a couple more temples in town then time to find something to eat. We keep eating at weird hours and this town does not have many places open at 2PM for lunch. We ended up back at Lawsons and bought some things to eat outside at the picnic tables. A beautiful day today, we are down to t-shirts this afternoon outside.

It is now 3PM and we head to our hotel to check in. Andre and I pass a sign about boat tours, quick call to Heather and we are all booked for a 5:30PM sunset tour.

Finally reach our hotel and check into by far the smallest room we have had yet. We can't even open one suitcase in the room. One is open now in the tiny hall outside the bathroom, mine isn't even open. This is really tiny. Not sure what size the bed is, don't think it is a double even, good thing is it is much more comfortable than the very hard bed we had the last 2 nights.

On the road again at 5PM to check in for our sunset boat ride. We are given warm jackets for the boat ride. 3 other people join us from England, and that is it for the tour. We are in quite a large rib boat, the 6 of us had lots of room at the front, no one was in the back. We had a driver and a guide. The guide was the same person that we talked to in the office when we reserved the tour. The guide spoke about 3 words of English, all “talking” was done through a translator device. It was a nice tour, they took us by the dry docks to see the boats that are being worked on. Then we went to see a torii gate on a beach, followed up by waiting for the sun to set. The ride was close to 1 hour, we were served what he called beef boullion soup which was nice and warm, it was cool on the water.

Back to the dock and we walk along the water for a bit then decide to try to find something light for supper. Again we have a hard time finding somewhere to eat and decide to head back to Lawsons. On the way we came across a little hole in th wall that makes dumplings and gyros as well as some other things. We ordered a couple of different ones to try along with some sauces, delicious, but we could not eat the sauces, oh so hot. A beer and sour lemon and dinner is done. I had no idea what sour lemon was, but when I see it I order it, seems like a popular drink here. We had a nice conversation with a young man from Egypt, turns out he is staying at the same place as Heather tonight.

Dinner done, off to Lawsons to pick up something for breakfast as we don't have breakfast included in this hotel.