u/Tenmashiki

This is a trip report sharing my experiences for the road trip. Technically, there's a 2 days Tokyo part after the Chugoku portion, but I'll not bore you with those. Personal interests are views of nature and shrines/temples, so those things makes up the bulk of locations that I visited.

Some background, the Sanin region is apparently one of the least visited regions by foreign tourists, so a lot of the restaurants and even hotels are not really equipped to deal with them. Both me and my friend can read and speak rudimentary Japanese, so that makes traveling around the region a lot smoother. If you can't do Japanese, you'd need the help of Google translate to help you get by. But I guess that is applicable for all of the non-touristy destinations in Japan.

We took an anti-clockwise route starting from Tottori and ending in Fukuyama. There's a surprising amount of things to see in Chugoku, we actually have to skip some of the locations after Fukuyama.

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11th Apr - Arrived at Tottori from Haneda

• Took a taxi from the airport to our hotel as we missed the bus' timing. Cost around 3k yen, which is very reasonable.
• Hotel: Tottori Green Hotel Morris. This is a really great hotel for its price point and location. Very close to the train and bus station, but really quiet despite its location. Tottori is chill and not busy at all.
• Visited Tottori Sand Dunes by taking a bus from the bus station. You can get a slight discount if you purchase the day ticket, even if you're only doing a return trip using the bus. Had gyukotsu (beef bone broth) ramen at one of the restaurants around the Sand Dunes. It's a type of ramen originating from Tottori, so why not. I enjoyed the clean-tasting broth and very much prefered it over the typical tonkotsu soup base.
• Dinner: 御縁. A teppanyaki restaurant with very good ratings on Tabelog. Serves horumon soba, which again is a Tottori specialty. The offals were cooked perfectly with just the right amount of chew. Very delicous. The chef was friendly as well. Recommended.

12th Apr - Tottori to Matsue

• Started our car rental on this day. Rented from Toyota's Rent-a-Car.
• Visited Karoichi Fish Market for breakfast. A relatively small fish market, much less interesting as compared to say, Aomori's Furukawa Fish Market. Had a shredded crab don at one of the eateries. It was okay but not mind blowing.
• Visited Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory. I'm not a fan of the mangaka, but I do recognize his works. And you'd basically see Conan spammed all over Tottori, from the moment you landed at the airport. Will be an excellent place to visit if you're a fan of Detective Conan, but still nice if you're not.
• Visited Tottori Hanakairo Flower Park. A park with an interesting design where there is a huge dome greenhouse in the middle, with a circular corridor around the edges of the park that you can use to explore the place and visit different buildings connected to the corridor. You can have a good view of Mt. Daisen from the park. When we visited, we can see nemophilia patches together with the mountain.
• Hotel: Route Inn Higashi Matsue. Convenient if you're driving as it is located close to the highway. Ample parking. The hotel comes with public onsen baths as well. Good stay.
• Dinner: すし博多. It's the fanciest kaiten sushi place I've been to. And the best tasting one I had ever tried. Their crab salad was so delicious I had to place second orders, again probably because the region is famous for crabs. Highly recommended, especially if you are staying at the same hotel.

13th Apr - Izumo

• Visited Cape Hinomisaki + Hinomisaki Shrine. Great views of the ocean and columnar jointed volcanic cliffs. Nothing noteworthy about the shrine though.
• Visited Izumo Taisha. No way I would have missed this. The scale of the shrine is incredible. The shimenawa of the shrine is HUGE.
• Lunch: うなぎ料理 大はかや. I'm a huge unagi fiend, so this restaurant is one of the restaurants I was very much looking forward to, especially when I was disappointed by another unagi restaurant in Hokkaido during my previous trip. This one did not disappoint. The unagi was grilled right. Highly recommended.
• Visited Matsue Castle. One of the original castles in Japan. Not as impressive as Himeji or Matsumoto, but definitely better than the concrete reconstructions. Worth entering to have a look, with the added bonus that it is not as crowded as the other 2 castles mentioned.
• VIsited Zuikozan Kiyomizudera Temple. Probably will be amazing during autumn due to the large number of maple trees leading to the temple. Very quiet.
• Dinner: 炭火焼肉じゃけぇ 松江古志原店. Best yakiniku I had for the trip. Great cuts of beef, great service. I enjoyed their special yukke and oxtail soup. Recommended.

14th Apr - Towards Tsuwano

• Visited Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine. This place is a trap for foreign tourists. To put it simply, it's a UNESCO site, but it is not a tourist attraction. If you understand Japanese and can get a guide there to walk you through the history, you may get more out of it. Otherwise, it's a huge waste of time and money. It's a 30min walk one way from the closest parking lot to the entrance, or you can shell out cash for an infreqeuent electric buggy to bring you there, but there's a high chance they are used by the elderly. Not recommended.
• Lunch: Genshosha. Random curry place. It's decent.
• Arrived at Tsuwano town centre. A very atmospheric town. It's nice seeing the steam train, though we're unable to see one in operation since we were there during the weekdays. The streets had an olden Japan vibe, which were enhanced by certain gutters that had koi in them. Sadly, the vibes were somewhat disrupted by the politician campaign vehicles blaring their horns and the relentless rain.
• Accommodation: Hoshi Ryokan. A family operated ryokan with homely vibes. Comfortable Japanese-style rooms with decent dinner and breakfast without breaking the bank. A good accommodation to consider if you're traveling to Tsuwano.

15th Apr - Tsuwano to Hagi

• Visited Taikodani Inari-jinja. Very impressive shrine with bright vermillion colours, and for some strange reason a vermillion tractor in the shrine grounds. Incredibly photogenic, and you'd even get a good view of the town beneath the shrine. We skipped the Tsuwano Castle Ruins due to the rain.
• Visited Unrinji. Took a detour to the cat temple, and was not disappointed. The cats in the temple were very clingy. One of them climbed onto my friend's shoulder and refused to get off. It was very welcoming and you were encouraged to enjoy the temple at a leisurely pace. Worth the detour if you're a cat lover.
• Visited Hagi's former castle town. Not too impressed, maybe because there's an overlap with Tsuwano. It is still a nice place to stroll about.
• Lunch: 瓦そば柳屋 萩城下町店. My first time having kawara (roof tile) soba, a signature of the region. There is a nice contrast between the charred, crunchy soba directly on top of the tile, and the typical springy soba texture. This restaurant is worth visiting if you're in the castle town.
• Hotel: Hagi Royal Intelligent Hotel. No idea how it got its name. An average business hotel with plenty of parking space.
• Dinner: 小倉. Highlight of the trip. It's an omakase-style eatery helmed by an elderly couple who has been doing this for over 40 years. There's no menu. You're just there to have whatever the chef and his wife cooks up for you. Every single dish was a banger. I originally thought the chef was a no-nonsense artisan, but it turns out he was just fully focused on preparing the meals. It was a meal made with focus and love for the craft. Once he was done with the dishes, he became really chatty and we had a really long conversation where he reminisced on the past customers he had served. Plenty of foreigners surprisingly, though it's kind of amazing how they did that since I don't think they are that well versed in English. At the end of the day he got us to fill up a notebook to remember us by. Apparently he did that for most of his customers. Highly recommended. A must go.

16th Apr - Hagi to Tsunoshima Bridge

• Visited Tsunoshima Bridge. Worth the hype if you're visiting on a clear day where the sun is bright. The bridge with the ocean view is just incredible. The view can be enjoyed at multiple angles from either sides.
• Hotel: Hotel Nishi-Nagato Resort. You're basically staying at the hotel for the bridge and ocean view. There's an onsen in the facility with outdoor baths, so you can enjoy the ocean views while soaking in the onsen. Dinner and breakfast are buffet style. Pretty decent stay at a decent value in my opinion, as it is only slightly more expensive than what I paid for at Hoshi Ryokan, but we get an onsen in the hotel.

17th Apr - Tsunoshima Bridge to Yamaguchi

• Visited Beppu Benten Pond. Nice pond with clear waters. It's okay to visit if it's on the way.
• Visited Akiyoshido Cave + Akiyoshidai. Very impressive cave system with plenty of rock formations to enjoy. You can spend a decent amount of time inside as the cave is huge. Akiyoshidai, while nice at first glance, gets boring quick since the views are pretty repetitive. It is an interesting natural formation, but it's a place we were done with after 30mins.
• Visited Yamaguchi Daijingu. Very interesting for me since it is a replica of the Ise Jingu, though at a smaller scale.
• Visited Ruriko-ji and its five story pagoda. The pagoda was the most beautiful pagoda I have seen in Japan till now. The garden was amazing, and it's surprising you get to see it all for free.
• Visited Jyoei-ji Temple & Sesshu's Garden. You get a glimpse of how a monk lives, but otherwise it wasn't that interesting.
• Hotel: International Hotel Yamaguchi. An average hotel. The amount of parking available is quite low and the lots get filled up at night, so it's quite inconvenient.
• Dinner: 馬肉料理ゆい. The restaurant specializes horse meat cuisine in an izakaya style setting. I do enjoy basashi myself, but the main reason I visited this place is more so due to the novelty of trying out horse cuisine. However, I'm pleased to say that the restaurant exceeded my expectations. I had horse yukke don, basashi and horse yakiniku, and they were all delicious. In particular, some cuts of meat from the yakiniku had marbled horse meat, which makes it a lot more tender than the typical lean cuts of horse meat I had eatened. Recommended.

18th Apr

• Visited Yudaonsen. This is probably the most underwhelming onsen "town" I have ever visited. It is essentially just an onsen area along the main street of Yamaguchi. Lacked the laidback vibes of an onsen town in my opinion.
• Lunch: 和み家 国衙店. Apparently a very popular family restaurant in the area. Serves good portion of delicious food at a very reasonable price. On the day we visited they were having a sashimi promotion, and that made the deal even sweeter. They pride themselves on their karaage, which was delicious.
• Dinner: 汁なし担担麺 階杉 山口店. Eatery that specializes with soupless dandan noodles. Being a dandan noodle fan, I couldn't help but to visit it once I saw it on the map. We fucked around with the maximum spice level (thought it would be nothing since Japanse can't really handle their spice) and found out. It was not intolerable, but the spice overwrite the other flavors of the bowl of noodles.

19th Apr - Yamaguchi to Miyajima

• Visited Kintaikyo Bridge. Beautiful wooden bridge. It's also pleasant to walk around the vicinity and visit Iwakuni Castle, though that is a reconstruction. Got to try Iwakuni Sushi at one of the eatery. The lotus root between the layers of rice was a surprising addition and gave it quite a bit of texture.
• Visited Miyajima. I've been to Miyajima a few times, but this will be the first time I stayed for a night. Seeing the torii gate and the shrine at night was amazing. The cost of doing so though......
• Hotel: Hotel Miya Rikyu. At the price point, this is the worst onsen hotel/ryokan I have ever stayed at. The price was kind of steep, but the onsen and the food was really average. It's not bad, but I have definitely stayed at better onsen ryokan with better food at a lower price. The Miyajima tax is real. Would not recommend.

20th Apr - Miyajima to Hiroshima

• Lunch: 焼がきのはやし. Restaurant recommended by one of the Japanese Youtubers. It's slightly costly, but that's a given in a tourist spot. I had the conger eel bowl, and I'm not really impressed, but that's probably just me liking conger eel a lot less than unagi. Their grilled oysters though. I'm not an oyster person, but even I could appreciate how delicious it was. Limited to an order per person.
• Visited Hiroshima Botanical Garden. Just okay, if you have time to kill.
• Hotel: HOTEL MYSTAYS Hiroshima Peace Park. Spacious for an urban hotel as compared to those in Tokyo. Located right next to the peace park, so it's easy to just walk around the area without the need for public transport. I don't think there's parking available though, so you'd have to do it at one of the paying spots. Decent stay.
• Dinner: 蔵屋 紙屋町店. We wanted to visit Nagataya for okonomiyaki, but the queue was insane and we decided to search for alternative. This teppanyaki place was pretty good, serving a wide variety of dishes on top of okonomiyaki. Though they were not the best Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki I had eatened, it is still delicous. Plus, the overall variety of the food and the entertainment you get from a counter seat in front of the teppanyaki top makes it a great dinner place.

21st Apr

• Visited Hiroshima Peace Museum and Peace Park. Visited the first time. It was a sombre experience.
• Visited Atomic Bomb Dome. First time I visited it during the day. I think it's better seeing the dome at night.
• Visited Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine and Hiroshima Castle. For some reason, the castle was closed for about a month already, and I could find no explanation why on site. The shrine was pretty nice.
• Dinner: 鉄板焼き やまおか. Teppanyaki again, but this time it's for the steak. Seeing the great reviews on Tabelog, I made a reservation for a course meal and was not disappointed. The chef was incredibly skillful, especially the way he worked on the garlic in preparation for the fried rice. The steak was nice, but what stole the show for me was the fried rice cooked with beef fat. The taste was sublime. Highly recommended.

22nd Apr - Hiroshima to Fukuyama

• Visited Ōkunoshima. The rabbits were so damn cute. If you want to feed them (which is officially not allowed, but almost everyone did it anyway), you'll have to prepare food in advance as they do not sell rabbit food on the island. Things I saw people bringing to feed rabbits include lettuce, carrots, specialized rabbit feed, etc etc. I'd recommend going early as the crowd to get to the island during lunchtime was way bigger than our ferry group in the morning.
• Lunch: 天狗寿司. A traditional sushi place in Onomichi's shopping arcade. The premium nigiri set (with an uni gunkan) cost me just a bit more than 2k yen, which is a steal. Highly recommended.
• Visited Ushitora Shrine and Senkou Temple. The thousand year-old tree at Ushitora Shrine was a marvel and a spectacle. And since the Senkou Temple is nearby, we visited the area as well.
• Hotel: Daiwa Roynet Hotel Fukuyama Ekimae. The Daiwa Roynet chain has never disappointed me. This hotel lives up to my expectations. On top of a very comfortable room, we were able to see Fukuyama Castle out of the window as well, which makes for a beautiful scene at night when the lights were on.
• Dinner: 焼肉ホルモンいけちゃん. A convenient yakiniku place near the hotel, hard carried by the quality of Hiroshima beef. You can have a very good meal at a reasonable price.

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That's all for the trip report. Will probably do Shikoku or Kyushu next.