Finally on day 35, I had no choice, it was either Japanese breakfast or no breakfast. I half expected breakfast to be a set menu when they wanted to know what time I would be eating breakfast, so I wasn’t that surprised to find rice, fish, a half boiled egg in vinegar, seaweed, various pickled vegetables and a small portion of yoghurt. I ate up, and it tasted fine, but it would have been even better for lunch.
I had reserved a seat on the 8.53 back to Wakayama and was sorry to leave Kii-Katsuura. I missed the fish auction at 7am (not actually sure it took place on Saturday) and a boat trip around the islands, both of which I only learnt about this morning. But all in all the two and a half days around the Kii peninsula, have been good and well worth a visit.
Despite being an express train it took three hours to reach Wakayama, with many great views along the coast. I dropped my backpack at the hotel and decided to do some sightseeing in Wakayama. As with many Japanese towns there is a castle, some shrines and temples and countless shopping possibilities.
According to the tourist info it is “considered one of the most preeminent religious practices in Western Japan to visit Wakayama’s three Saigoku Shrines in a single trip”. So I decided to visit all three, I walked to the two first and took the train to the third.
Hinokuma and Kunikakasu Shrines (on the same location, but I have no idea which I photograhed here).
Kamayama Jinja Shrine, where a monk was playing a drum at some kind of ceremony.
And the most beautiful of the three, Itakiso Jinja Shrine.
I took the train back to Wakayama – and again experienced many taking pictures as the train pulled in.
Back in Wakayama, I walked the couple of kilometers to the castle, orginally built in 1585, and with a Japanese tea garden and a wooden bridge the goes uphill or downhill and where the floor is polished so you need to take your shoes off – and then it is slippery, as it is quiet steep.
Whilst walking around I had identified two potential places to eat, one steak and one sushi. I was most inclined to steak, but when I got there it was closed. The sushi restaurant was about a kilometer away, but close to the hotel. It was open, but not accepting guests as it was awaiting a group. I walked around to find something else and finally choose a restaurant where the plastic food on display looked ok, but I couldn’t read the menu. It turned out that they served old food from Kyoto, so the fish was either dried or pickled and the beef was beef tongue. I took the grilled tongue, which was their speciality. Although it is many years since I have eaten tongue, it tasted OK.
As I walked back to the hotel to check-in, a J-pop band was performing. I cannot imagine they were super famous, but they were popular with the girls. Otherwise, my Saturday night passed washing clothes in preparation of the next couple of days, that will bring the walking and pilgrimage part of my vacation to an end.
Finally, I have to correct a mistake from a few days ago where I liked a car called “carbus”, pictured below.
It turns out that I had misread the name and is instead called:
I think they will have to work with the name if it is to be a success outside Japan. At least for me, it relates to a can of e.g. beans, which does not give me an association of something strong. I thought carbus was a pretty imaginative name for it!