{"id":9539,"date":"2019-10-02T05:57:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T12:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=9539"},"modified":"2022-09-28T18:17:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T01:17:53","slug":"japan-day-29-sakaiminato-yonago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=9539","title":{"rendered":"Japan Day 29: Sakaiminato & Yonago"},"content":{"rendered":"

I took a bunch of pictures today but most of them are only interesting to me. Sakaiminato continues to disappoint me but I keep finding ways to amuse myself. I thought the coffee shops opened at 9am instead of the standard 8am, but it turns out it’s 10am today. So I decided to ask about how to get to Ejima\/Eshima so I could see the bridge. I was considering taking a taxi across and back or renting a car, or just walking it. Well, it turns out there’s a 8:27am bus and there are only 3 buses per day. It was 8:25 or so and I asked where the bus was. The “bus” came right after I got outside and it was just a small van. I was the only rider! I got to chat with the driver and he said there’s really nothing on Eshima and the bridge looks more impressive from the other side.<\/p>\n

Well the bridge ain’t much. The famous pictures of it are taken with a telephoto lens from a boat off the other side of the island. On foot there isn’t much to it, but I like doing this sort of thing. I even took my girlfriend to the world\u2019s longest diagonal elevator. Before I started, though, I saw a FamilyMart and decided to get some breakfast since I still hadn’t eaten.<\/p>\n

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Just past the sign for the bort ride in Matsue that I didn’t take yesterday. It was too late in the day.<\/p>\n

This is what I’m reduced to but the most annoying thing is that this damn little island had a better selection than Sakaiminato which appears to have way more people.<\/p>\n

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The view wasn’t bad, either. Past the parking lot is a big lake. Or is it a sound? Maybe it\u2019s a sea.<\/p>\n

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Off I went, in the rain, to the bridge. This is the side that has the straight-on view that is more impressive. But with the wide-angle lens of my iPhone or with the naked eye, it doesn’t look that scary or steep. I think the whole thing is just and advertisement for the area.<\/p>\n

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I watched a YouTube video where the guy said it was like a rollercoaster. Nonsense.<\/p>\n

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It is a tall bridge though, with some nice views.<\/p>\n

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Oh, and the reason I didn’t notice this all is because from the Tottori side (where I came from yesterday) the bridge curves.<\/p>\n

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I couldn’t get any better pictures because I didn’t want to get run over in the middle of a busy road.<\/p>\n

Ok, time to head back. But the first thing I found was a Daiso! (The \u00a5100 store – \u00a5110 with tax.) They didn’t have what I was looking for but I did get a couple things I needed and I was only out \u00a5220.<\/p>\n

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The next interesting thing I ran into was this sign, so I went in and looked at the placard next to a statue of the founder.<\/p>\n

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That’s Mr. Onitsuka, the president of Asics, who is from here and owned one of the three companies that merged into Asics, Onitsuka Tiger. Those are the shoes that started Nike.<\/p>\n

And then I kept walking because, well, I forgot to call a taxi like my original plan. I didn’t mind walking through the farmland. I find it more peaceful than house after house.<\/p>\n

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I finally made it to the train station and found the next train was 27 minutes away and the hotel (where I needed to pick something up) was 23 minutes walking. It was humid and sweaty and I kept walking.<\/p>\n

Around noon I headed towards Yonago to see the castle ruins. I don’t think they get many tourists because the guy at the tourist bureau went on and on. There’s an Aeon mall on the way so I stopped in for lunch. Most people were buying bentos from the grocery store and microwaving them in the “Eat in” corner but I went to the bakery and got a hot dog, curry pan, and a fondue pan.<\/p>\n

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Then it was off to the ruins. They were kind of impressive, but also kind of ruins.<\/p>\n

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Also, there were some stairs. Close to the top I saw a Asian giant hornet and I had to wait for it to calm down before I went by. I think it was nesting in the stairs.<\/p>\n

But the walls were pretty neat and there was quite the view from the top.<\/p>\n

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The rest of the tour of the city was kind of a bust. I mean, the guy told me to check out a bridge and this is all it was.<\/p>\n

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I did find a craft brewery but it didn’t open until 5:30pm and I was too tired come back and put up with this sort of nonsense.<\/p>\n

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I went back to the station and found I just missed the train, so I went to the Aeon Mall because I saw they had a Mister Donut. Not the best doughnuts but still tasty and I always find it to be a nice place to rest.<\/p>\n

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They must’ve sensed that I’m a spoon thief because they didn\u2019t give me one. I got back to the hotel, took a bath, and ate some Chip Star (Japanese Pringle’s) for dinner. And now somehow it’s bedtime. Not a bad day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took a bunch of pictures today but most of them are only interesting to me. Sakaiminato continues to disappoint me but I keep finding ways to amuse myself. I thought the coffee shops opened at 9am instead of the standard 8am, but it turns out it’s 10am today. So I decided to ask about how to get to Ejima\/Eshima so I could see the bridge. I was considering taking a taxi across and back or renting a car, or just walking it. Well, it turns out there’s a 8:27am bus and there are only 3 buses per day. It was 8:25 or so and I asked where the bus … Continue reading Japan Day 29: Sakaiminato & Yonago<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10230,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9539\/revisions\/10230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}