Today Steve and Marie had to work for their junior high school’s cultural days so Tina and I thought we should go on a day trip together to a new and exciting place but still reasonably close to home! Well it took us forever to work out where considering we have travelled so much this year but Shinya suggested Shodo Shima an island off the coast of the Hyogo area. In hindsight we did this trip all wrong – but how were we to know! It was a fantastic, exciting and hilariously funny day trip! It started with us finding out ferry times in the morning – too late to leave earlier! But we headed to Himeji Port to catch the 11:15 ferry – the ferry would take an hour and forty minutes to reach the island. Past ferries that we have caught have been anything but luxurious so the thought of spending an hour and forty minutes on one did not sound appealing but when we saw the ferry we would be catching we were pleasantly surprised. It was huge! It had couches, chairs and tables, video games, a café area and space underneath to carry cars and tour buses! So Tina and I found a couch and spread our things out around us but due to the tour buses suddenly we had five 65 year old Japanese tourists siting with us! One man was very drunk and kept telling us that we were beautiful and he wanted to share his lunch with us! He even went as far as getting the tour photographer to take photos of us with them! So our ride to the island was quite entertaining!
The huge ferry!
Inside the ferry
The people that sat with us - the guy between Tina and I is the drunk one!
Tina on the ferry - it was freezing outside!
Me on the ferry - it was really windy too!
When we arrived at the island we didn’t quite know how we should get to where we wanted to go, so we asked a few people and soon had the bus figured out as best as we could. However it was going to be a long ride! The coast line was amazing but I was only able to get one photo from the bus.
View of the coast
Our main destination was to go on the Kankakei ropeway. However it was a lot harder to find! So we changed buses only to discover that suddenly we were at the Monkey Park and our bus would stop here for 25minutes which sadly was not enough time to see the Monkey Park! So then our bus continued with us wondering how we got on this tour bus as it looked like a normal public bus! We then stopped at a really beautiful look-out before continuing to the ropeway finally! We went down the ropeway and the scenery was just amazing! Another place where Autumn is so beautiful!
View from the lookout
View from the ropeway on the way down
Beautiful Autumn leaves
Finally we made it back to the port just in time to catch the ferry home. Shodo shima is a beautiful island and I recommend people to visit it but I think you need more than one day there and it would be great for swimming in summer. Tina and I had a crazy day exploring the island but we are glad we got to see another new place in Japan!
2 comments:
You and Tina are so cool! I'll have to go check it out sometime.
This was one crazy trip that's for sure. I am glad that we went though because it was really beautiful.
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