Further Wanderings

We’d debated whether to take a bus or a train from Kobe to Hiroshima. No matter how one goes, domestic travel in Japan is spectacularly pricey, with the bus for the ~300km journey costing 5000 yen (about NZ$75), the local trains 5700 and the legendary Shinkansen (bullet trains) almost 10000. We ended up opting for the local train in order to avoid backtracking to Osaka to pick up the bus and to see the famously efficient Japan Rail system in action.

And were rather disappointed. Typically Japanese trains arrive and depart on time to the minute. However on this day, high winds delayed our first train of the day by 4 minutes. And since we had exactly that amount of time to make our first connection of the day, our well planned series of 4 train rides to Hiroshima fell apart almost as soon as it has started. The rest of the day was spent showing our tickets to the (very helpful, if not always multilingual) station staff, climbing aboard whatever local train they suggested, getting off a while down the road, and repeating the process at the next transfer station. This was a bit frustrating, and led to many more train changes than we’d anticipated and no time to stop for lunch, but in the end had us in the Hiroshima suburb of Hatsukaichi only 20 minutes or so later than we’d hoped.

The view looking down from the slopes of Mt. Misan
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Departing Korea was kind of sad. As though we were leaving too soon. So it was fortunate that we knew we’d be returning.

We’d gone to check out the ferry terminal the day before, and discovered we didn’t need a reservation, so the whole process of finding our way there, booking our ticket to Osaka and booking our return trip from Fukuoka was quite simple.

We spent the remaining time before departure chatting with one of the (very helpful) English speaking volunteers from the information desk, trying to explain some of the trickier bits of magazine articles he was reading.

The five-story pagoda at Kofuku-ji temple in Nara

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