Akashi to Himeji, or, How Long Could This Really Take?

Getting up this morning, we were greeting with a lot of rain. Today and Thursday look to be scattered rain and occasional thunderstorms pretty much the whole time, so we decided to bum around Akashi for the morning, then ride the 20 (not 10 like I thought) miles into Himeji in the afternoon, hoping the rain would let up a bit.

Well, yeah, it didn't. We took a train into Sannomiya to do a little shopping for stuff we couldn't find in Akashi, made our first stop at Coco Curry House (new spring menu! I recommend the Vegetarian Plus Vegetables Curry), came back, and it was still raining. So, finally at about 1pm, we decided to hit the road and get a little wet. And by a little I mean drenched. But it was 70 degrees and we were to be riding on a bicycle path for most of the way.

Except there was no signage of any kind for the bicycle path. And no map online of the whole path. The few maps of dubious quality we did find were not very specific. As a result, we ended up taking a nice tour of a massive industrial park located on its own peninsula. In the rain. We followed a long path until we came to a sign that looked like this

and a dead end. This happened enough times that we gave up on the bike path and just asked Siri to help us get to Himeji. The rest of the trip was wet but uneventful. Well, other than Sumi face-planting into the sidewalk while trying to get off the road. We only have 20' tires on our bikes, and when they're wet, they don't always bounce up small curbs as easily as one would expect. The pavement took a big bite out of one of her knees, but now she'll have matching scars on both knees from two separate bike trips, so there is that. Otherwise, she is OK. She still had 7 HP left, and there's a healer at the hotel, so she'll be fine. Besides, according to a t-shirt we saw today on some other tourist, "What doesn't kill you gives you XP", so she should be leveled up by the end of the day!

Anyway, we rolled into Himeji around 6pm (that's 5 hours for 21 miles, if you're keeping track at home, ugh) and found our hotel. Now, we tend to use Booking.com for our hotels, and we often have no idea what we're really getting into until we show up. Those of you who have read this blog before will remember a certain "Love Hotel Incident" from a few years ago. Well, Booking.com now labels those as "Adults Only", so we can now make an informed decision. But we still only know what the rooms vaguely look like and information from reviews.

This hotel was one of the cheaper options for us, at $80/night. More than we pay in some areas, but Himeji is a little more expensive overall, so not a bad price, by any means. We weren't expecting a 5-star hotel. Like, marble trim along the elevator doors, a place where people have weddings, a full chapel and bridal shop on the first floor, an army of bellhops, security guards, and cleaning staff, a bed that is 9 feet wide (not exaggerating), and a smart phone with free data plan and international calling in every room(!). Here we are, slopping in with our soaking wet, mud-drenched clothes and bicycle helmets while other guests are wearing tuxedos. I'm constantly amazed at how well the Japanese service workers just take it in stride when they see us show up and don't even blink. A few pictures to illustrate the type of place this is:

Some weird Mary and Jesus shrine at the entrance. Not your typical Japanese decoration.

Hardwood and marble everywhere.

We were too tired to even eat, so we grabbed some cereal, milk, and juice from the konbini downstairs (did I mention they had a full convenience store in the building?) and called it a night. Tomorrow it will still be raining, so the plan is to visit Himeji, get our "chores" done (laundry, repacking, bicycle maintenance)  and do all the prep for our trip down into Shikoku.

Sorry, no other pictures. The rain kept the iPhone in a handlebar bag for the trip.