Japan 3.13: Tomonoura and Sensui Island, the end of the third Japan trip

The night before our final day, we decided to take a short walk to the other side of the train station, to see the Fukuyama Castle.  We were surprised to find that you could walk right up to the castle, and we were not the only ones with the idea.  There were dozens and dozens of people hanging around the castle.  Many were doing a late night picnic.  It was beautiful and a great way to spend the night.



The next day, we left our bags with the reception desk and took a bus ride to Tomonoura.  Tomonoura is a small port town south of Fukuyama.  It was a village that helped inspire the children's movie Ponyo as well as being the shooting location of a few scenes in Wolverine.  In any case, I wanted to visit the local island, Sensui.  Outside of one hotel, the island is not inhabited, and is supposed to be very serene.

We took a five minute ferry ride over to the island.



We took the outer trail, and pretty much had the route all to ourselves.  Miles enjoyed climbing the rocks and hanging out on the beach.



Once we reached the end of the walkway, we took two of the more inland routes, but they didn't have much of a view. 

Upon arriving back in Tomonoura, we wandered through the streets, enjoying our last walk in a Japanese village.



We decided to go to a local shrine, Ioji, which was said to have a short path into the mountains with a great view.  It did indeed.



Back in town, we looked around some more and then headed to a ramen restaurant near the bus stop.



Like many of the restaurants in these small towns, its hours were not listed on Google and they did not have a website.  The restaurant was closed.  We took the bus back to Fukuyama and ate waffles at the train station.

We grabbed our bags and took the train to Shin-Osaka station, and then took a bus shuttle to the ITM airport.  From the airport we walked just a few minutes to our hotel.  Our flight would leave at 8 AM the next morning.

 For dinner, I used google to locate a Chinese restaurant nearby.  At the restaurant, we sat on the floor on some pillows.  Unlike most restaurants, this one had no pictures, and a menu only in Japanese.  We used the google translate app to find something we could eat.  After our order came, I heard someone else in the restaurant ordering yakisoba, which I very much had wanted to eat again before leaving Japan.  I added it to our order.  It was fantastic.