Our Travels In Japan (and other places): Riding the Hello Kitty Train to Onomichi

Well, to Fukuyama. then a local train to Onomichi.

Skipped running this morning so Sumi and I could walk up the mountain at the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine again, this time without tourists. We caught the first train down to Inari at 5:30 and got there at about 5:45. There were a handful of tourists and a bunch of locals getting their exercise in. The exercise ranged from old ladies walking up the mountain faster than we could to this one guy running up and down the mountain wearing the flattest of sandals. The slapping sound he made with each step made my joints hurt just hearing them.

It was a cool, quiet, and pleasant hike up the mountain to the shrine at the top and back down again. By 7:00 we were back down and ready for some breakfast.

Obligatory picture of the torii

Most of Sumi's pictures were of the Guardians of the Shrine.

We have not had good luck with finding restaurants so far this trip. There are a lot that closed down during the pandemic, but still zombied on the Internet. We tried three different places for breakfast this morning. Two were gone, the third was a "smoking cafe" that smelled like a 1970's bowling alley when the door opened. We (meaning I) caved and we went to a different McDonald's away from the station. It was food, and it was a place to sit and eat while we planned our day. My goal is to find at least a bakery that opens early for the rest of the trip.

Today's trip was done entirely so that Sumi could experience the fabled Hello Kitty Shinkansen (HKS). It debuted in June of 2018 and was supposed to just be a temporary PR stunt for a few months and end that September. It was such a hit that Japan Railways just kept it, and now it runs once a day on rotating routes. Sumi had meticulously planned this day, and we decided to visit the seaside town of Onomichi today, because that was a good destination for today's HKS.

So we hopped on a regular shinkansen to get to Shin-Osaka, where HKS would be departing from. The number of giddy-as-a-schoogirl middle-aghed obasans with their phones out filming the arrival of the train like a rock star coming to town was ridiculous. Needless to say, Sumi fit right in, though she was the only one I saw to have the good decency to look slightly embarrassed about it :-)

The main passenger area was fairly subdued and muted but...

Car 1 is all about Kitty-chan merchandise. And also the color pink.

There's a place for children to get their pictures taken with Hello Kitty

It wasn't nearly as gaudy as it could have been, other than car 1. And it was still a shinkansen, so a smooth ride at a very high rate of speed. All in all, I'm glad Sumi could experience this. And buy more Sanrio merchandise. In short order, we found ourselves, after a brief local transfer, in Onomichi.

Our only previously history in Onomichi was with the only really terrible hotel experience we've ever had in Japan. As a result, we hadn't even thought about going back, but we're glad we did. Onomichi is a medium sized village with a mountain on one side and the ocean on the other. It also has 25 buddhist temples dotting the mountain, including Senkouji, a temple literally built into the rock on the side of the mountain. We trudged through the sun and heat to our hotel from the station (about 1km) then, after a brief pause while Sumi had her luggage explode in our room, we headed out to check out the temple walk.

Speaking of the room, for reasons that became clear by the end of the day, there were very few rooms left in Onomichi, which was odd, because it's not a popular foreign tourist attraction, and we're not in domestic vacation time yet. Sumi booked a family room at the Royal Hotel, the tallest building on the Onomichi shoreline.

This is one of three rooms in the suite

Onomichi has it's own small ropeway that takes you up to the top of the small peak where Senkouji is located.

At the top of the mountain is an overlook structure that gives you a nice view of the entire city and surrounding area

Our hotel is the tall white building

The temple is built into the rock on the side of the mountain, with carvings and cul-de-sacs everywhere. Hard to capture in pictures, but a very cool place

Chinese Zodiac built into the side of the mountain

The walk down from the temple was just as interesting, because it was basically tiny paths that wind through the neighborhood. And by tiny, I mean one person wide stairs that weave between old houses and temples. As we descended we came across an ancient pagoda in the middle of the neighbohood.

Tenneiji Pagoda (Kaiunto)

Built in 1388, this is one of the best remaining examples of late Kamakura period architecture. It apparently used to be 5 stories, but had two removes in 1692.

At this point we were very hot and very hungry, so we started looking for a place to eat. There were a ton of coffee shops and cafes, but nothing with real meals other than ramen shops. Like, everywhere.

25 ramen shops just in this area of town

Onomichi is famous for it's specific type of ramen, much the same way Hakata and Fukuoka are for tonkotsu ramen. What makes it unique is the sardines they put in it...And all the fish they use for the broth... So, we were stuck looking for an alternative, but being a coastal town, they had a lot of fish. And not much else. All the restaurants we thought sounded good were either closed or got pretty mediocre ratings online. In Japan, it takes a lot to get a bad rating, as the food and service is usually pretty good, so we took the reviews seriously. We walked through Hondori, a long shopping district hoping to find something, but it was pretty empty and nothing was open yet (it was 4:30), so we sucked it up and walked a mile down the road to the local Coco Curry shop. We TRIED, ok?

So, the curry was delicious, I got my vegetables, and we started walking back across town to the hotel. When we got to the station, it was a madhouse. There were people everywhere, some wearing yukata, and they were all heading to Hondori. After looking for some ice cream and not finding much, we headed to Hondori and ran into a full on small town matsuri.

There was no posting that we saw (and we were looking for stuff to do), and an hour earlier this place was a ghost town.

This is what it looked like when we first came here

There were kids games, food vendors, crafts, everything. Had we waited one hour, we wouldn't have needed to walk all the way across town for curry. We got very excited when we found a delicious smelling crepe shop, but the owner came out and apologized. He had sold out of everything and had to close for the day. Our timing was impeccable, as usual.

As we searched for just an ice cream cone, we passed a woman holding some very elaborate strawberry sundaes on a tray that looked amazing, but were also 20 bucks, so we kept looking, but came up empty. We decided that we could split a $20 sundae so we went back to the spot only to find the woman was gone. There were, however pictures of all sorts of strawberry desserts and a hand-drawn arrow point down the block, outside of Hondori, where there was a tiny hut.

http://clown-works.com/berry01

Let me tell you, Sumi is somewhat of a connoisseur of sweet food that is bad for you. The more sugar it has, the more knowledgable she is about it. This was some of the best dessert we've ever had in Japan, and we've sampled desserts from all over the country. Multiple times. Take a look at earlier blogs for examples. Sumi had a strawberry smoothie, I had a chocolate strawberry parfait. The fruit was ripe and delicious, the ice cream was smooth and flavorful. It was far too much to eat, but we did anyway.

They also had a cat theme

Different cat stickers on the cups

All in all, I would highly recommend Onomichi as a day trip. We only saw a few of the 25 temples in the town, and if you can eat seafood, I'm sure the ramen is pretty special. And Berry. Go to Berry.

There were quite of a bit of Japan things we came across today on our many walks, so I'll leave you with a few parting pictures of "only in Japan"