Mark Does Japan: Day 37

23 November 2025 Filed in: Photography | Travel

Saturday, 22 November 2025

Today was a short, about an hour, trip out of Hiroshima. Maybe I could have stayed in Hiroshima and day tripped but I have an early(ish) start tomorrow so I’m staying in Iwakuni for a couple of nights. It’s a very strange town as there are a lot of Americans here, and not the tourist kind. Apparently there is a US Marine Corps Air Station at Iwakuni. Which possibly explains the Cajun restaurant!

Anyway it was a sort of uneventful journey here.

Only need to tap IC cards on exit

So first Hiroshima about those IC cards and only touching when getting off. If you get on a tram through the entrance door there is no where to tap anyway but getting off that strange looking IC card reader queries the IC card fine but today it didn’t bother charging me. Maybe the driver would have stopped me had he been paying any attention but I saw the Suica card appear on my phone and it beep so I thought I was good to go. It appears not as I wasn’t changed only had the card read.

not so ancient tram

I had tried to catch one of the antique trams (Hiroshima used to be known for collecting them when other cities wanted to get rid of them) but this 1990’s one was the best I could do after a series of the brand new accessible one had passed through this stop and the electronic board was saying the next one would be accessible too. This took me to the main train station where they have built a flash multi-line tram stop which seems to have a congestion problem.

Anyway my train journey was on a local train and it was packed! Most of the people on the train were heading for Miyajima as once we got to the station with the ferry port most of them got off.

waiting for the red wing

Change of drivers at Hiroshima. The guy on the left was the driver and maybe the other guy was an examiner. These trains have windows between the passenger and driver’s compartment so you can watch the driver in action as he does stuff.

watching the driver

So I arrive in town too early to check in, but they will look after a bag so I can have lunch and move to one of the reasons I’m here, Kintaikyo Bridge (and as a bonus to ride a ropeway to visit a “fake” castle).

The bridge is pretty unique so I’ll let a few photos tell the story. I was there until just after sunset to see the illumination at night.

get off the bus and walk over to see this

like a rollercoaster

usually expect something flat over the top

a man with a huge fishing rod

The guy fishing seemed to catch a fish on every cast of that massive rod.

Time to stop wandering around it and pay the toll to walk over it (and to ride the ropeway).

going up

and down

After this first pass it was time to go to the ropeway to queue in the sun (again).

This fountain was along the way to the ropeway, no idea if the kid got wet or not.

a large fountain

Once at the top of the ropeway there are two options to get to the castle, sealed road or a broken path with signs that say it’s dangerous when wet. Well it wasn’t wet and there was a possibility of a view down so I took the broken path with steps up and down. No view except of the forest.

forest

and eventually a castle

a castle

This is a reconstruction as the original was demolished in 1615 due to a law that restricted the number of castles per province to one and so the daimyo demolished it. The current castle was built in 1962, which explains the easy to use stairs and the observation area at the top.