Saturday, March 26th: The Bridges
Woke up still feeling unstable but I was willing to travel. We packed up and got rolling in Hiroshima rush hour. Not too bad considering the lack of experience, and nothing like a DC rush hour(s). We stopped at Onomichi to see the waterfront shopping arcade, which turned out to be a bust in my opinion. I was still feeling really unwell, which may have contributed to my opinion. From there we island hopped - driving the Nishi-Seto expressway with 6 or 7 bridges joining the larger islands of the Inland Sea together. Took some interesting pictures of the different bridges and the views from the mountains. I was still not feeling well at all and didn't do too much other than passenger.
We stopped at Omishima to see a shrine that houses a large collection of Japanese armor. There were some very lovely sword blades, beautiful craftsmanship, and some really interesting lacquered armor. Scott is skeptical about some of the dates, but I don't know enough to question it. I had a banana for lunch. We went on to Matsuyama where we hit rush hour again and were unable to get to the Matsuyama-jo castle in time before they closed. Instead we eventually found the train station and then went around and around trying to find the rental car return. I was starting to feel better, so we got our stuff, walked to the train station and stopped for fried rice and gyozo. Rode the comparatively slow train to Okayama and crashed pretty hard.
We stopped at Omishima to see a shrine that houses a large collection of Japanese armor. There were some very lovely sword blades, beautiful craftsmanship, and some really interesting lacquered armor. Scott is skeptical about some of the dates, but I don't know enough to question it. I had a banana for lunch. We went on to Matsuyama where we hit rush hour again and were unable to get to the Matsuyama-jo castle in time before they closed. Instead we eventually found the train station and then went around and around trying to find the rental car return. I was starting to feel better, so we got our stuff, walked to the train station and stopped for fried rice and gyozo. Rode the comparatively slow train to Okayama and crashed pretty hard.
