Oh boy. I’m not sure why I decided to spend three days in Sakaiminato other than it’s nice and quiet and that’s not bad. It’s also the hometown of Mizuki Shigeru, best known for his character Gegege no Kitaro, and a researcher of phantoms and ghostly apparitions and I like that sort of thing. The stations on this peninsula all have nicknames of apparitions and the walk from the station to the Mizuki Shigeru Museum is lined with Japanese spectres.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I started with a giant breakfast that came with my room:

I did NOT finish it all and it was a leisurely morning since my train didn’t leave until 10:24. It was a small two-car train at first that stopped in the middle of nowhere after a beautiful trip down the coast.

After a 43 minute wait we got on a much newer one-car train that took us to the big city of Tottori.

Then, after a 51 minute wait we rode a much bigger four car train to Yonago.

And then finally a 21-minute wait for the Gegege no Kitaro-themed train (one car) up the peninsula to Sakaiminato.

I checked into the hotel and went to the tourist bureau that pretty much confirmed the road to the museum was all there was to see in this town, and then I asked how to get to the “close” towns of Izumo and Matsue. Turns out you can get there, but it’s 3 hours back from Izumo and 1 ½ back from Matsue. I’ve got nothing better to do, really. (I was mad for a while and considering other options, but meh. I’m on vacation.)

I went down the street to the museum. Today is the LAST day they’re open until 7pm. Tomorrow is October and that means they’re closing at 5pm. I dilly-dallied to see the lighting on the street. The models of the spectres that line the street are all lit by floodlights and there’s shadows of other apparitions projected onto the sidewalk. But the town rolls up the streets at 5pm and it didn’t get dark enough for the lighting until 6-ish. The only people out then were all speaking Asian languages I didn’t understand and all the stores were closed.

I got back to the hotel and the hotel restaurant (the only one I knew about) said they were full for the night. Fortunately I bought a beef sushi bento that I couldn’t eat for lunch because I was too full and I had it for dinner.

Sushi rice topped with nori, topped with egg, topped with great Tajima beef.

Later from the bath on the top floor I saw a Lawson that’s only 5 minutes away so I should be OK. I did my laundry, took a bath, bought a ¥300 beer from the beer robot, and I feel much better.

So there wasn’t a whole lot going on in Fukuchiyama, and the JR people weren’t all that nice to me, but it kind of grew on me. And my room at the Sunroute was fairly quiet. It was on the 2nd floor and right across from an ER on a main road which seemed ominous. I even heard one bosouzoku go by with his loud motorcycle (one of several) but that was the only once and it was around 7pm.

Anyway, I didn’t want to pig out (yet) so I went back to the station where I saw a coffee shop. I was the only one there! The guy got a little upset when I said I didn’t like “sour” coffees and was describing the flavor I wanted, insisting that his coffee was not that way. (Take that you hipsters with your light and bright crap!) I think he was quite a coffee nerd and I had a really nice cup of Kilimanjaro with some toast.

Then it was an easy ride to Kinosaki – just one train! I got there way too early to check in, so I looked for the craft brewery I heard about. I upset that guy too when I said I wanted to walk to the brewery. Seems like I found all the touchy people today.

It was a Weizen and not bad, but screw those guys.

It was another hot (and humid) day so I decided not to walk to the top of the cable car (I wore long pants again) and took a ride up. It was nice and cool up there and I even had a fairly good hot dog.

There was a weird game where you were supposed to pray at the temple and then make a wish and try to throw plates through a hole in a board. It looked hard and I confirmed it by watching some people completely miss the board.

I spent some time up there and it was nice and breezy and cool. I figured it was cooling down so I should walk down the mountain. Not the best idea either. It was rather slippery and slightly muddy at the top (a few times I wondered if I was going to end up sliding my way down) and it took a while to get to the temple, Onsendera, at the middle cable car station. I met some people coming up and found out that from Onsendera it was 1000+ steps straight up/down.

At the bottom there’s a spring where the water comes out of the ground at 80°C! They sell eggs there and you can cook the eggs in the hot water to make your own famous Japanese onsen tamago.

I got back to the ryokan and checked in just after 2pm.

I changed into my yukata, got my onsen pass, and went around to all the public onsen except for two – one was closed and the other was all the way back at the station and I didn’t feel like walking that far in my ryokan geta. Five baths killed a lot of time because I got back just in time for dinner! I told them that sure, I’d pay the extra ¥10,000 for the special kaiseki dinner (in-room no less). It was great and not so much that I wanted to pass out afterwards.

After that it was just another bath in the ryokan onsen, and off to bed!