Iwakuni City - The Land of Rocks

This morning, the owner of Wakasagi-no-Yado Minshuku offered to send me and my bike to the top of Aonoyama. He said that from there, it would be a relatively downhill ride to Iwakuni City. Being lazy, I accepted his offer...hahaha.... Furthermore, looking at my map I saw that even after he dropped me off, I would still have to ride a good 80km to Iwakuni City. So I thought, why kill my legs? lol...

On my way to Iwakuni

The sign below states that this is the highest point on national highway #187. #187 was the road that will bring me into Iwakuni City so you can imagine how happy I was to see that sign! Iwakuni City is a coastal area, so if that sign is the highest point, it can only mean that its a downhill ride all the way!

Taking a break from braking to take a picture

I stopped at a small town called Miwa-cho to have my lunch by the river. In Japanese, Miwa means beautiful river and this town that was built along the river definitely deserves that name! Lunch was a simple affair of coke and onigiri. Very fusion huh! lol

Lunch point by the river

The beautiful Nishiki River that accompanied me all the way from Miwa-cho to Iwakuni City for over 50km

Entering Iwakuni City at around 3pm, I checked into the Iwakuni International Sightseeing Hotel. A very nice and comfortable business hotel with extremely professional staff. Leaving my stuff in the room, I immediately went to see the famous Kintaikyo Bridge. This bridge was built in the shogun era for samurai to use. Not a single nail was used in its construction and the entire bridge was made just from wooden planks! Beautiful huh... According to the signboard, commoners were not allowed to use the bridge and had to cross the river by boat. Only samurai could walk over it. Even today, they still discriminate between the rich and poor by charging 200yen just to cross the bridge... I, of course, boycotted it... hahaha... I used the free bridge which was 200m away to get to the other side.

Crossing to the other side, I took a 2min cable car ride up the mountain to go take a look at Iwakuni Castle. Having passed by castles in Fukuoka, Kokura, Hagi and Tsuwano, this is the first castle that I will actually be going in!

The view of Iwakuni City from the top of the mountain

The castle looked magnificent from the outside, but inside it was rather non-descript. It`s basically been converted into a museum housing artifacts from the feudal period of Japan.

Iwakuni-jo (Iwakuni Castle)

One of the many swords on display in the castle

After visiting the castle, I just managed to catch the last cable car back down to my hotel. Otherwise, I would have had to hike 30mins down the mountain. Something that I really do not want to do after 80km of riding!

Waiting for the cable car to arrive

Going back to the hotel, I decided to check out the `roten-buro` or outdoor bath. Its basically a huge outdoor bathtub that was constructed on the roof of the hotel. Nice view of Kintaikyo bridge, but the water was a little too hot so I came out after 5 minutes... hahaha....

My room which was about the size of a closet

The hallway to the `roten-buro`