Kintai-kyo

Yesterday was Showa no hi, the birthday of the former Emperor Showa, so I had the day off school. Stef and I left the apartments at 8:10 and walked 15 minutes to the Hatabu train station. From Hatabu we took a train to Shin-Shimonoseki station, where we got on a shinkansen (bullet train) headed for Shin-Iwakuni station. We were on the Kodoma, which stops at all the shinkansen stations, but we still made the trip in 58 minutes. It would have taken at least 3 to drive. At Shin-Iwakuni station, we took a bus to Kintai-kyo. Kintai-kyo (bridge of the brocade sash) is a famous 5 arch, wooden bridge in Iwakuni. Today is their annual festival on and around the bridge. There was a historical rifle demonstration, a parade of people in Edo-period clothing, music, a flea market, and lots of festival food. It was so much fun. I bought a kimono and obi for the the unbelievable price of 2,000 yen (about $20). I put more pictures up through the link to the right.

We heard there was a Mexican restaurant in Iwakuni (where there's also a U.S. Marine base). We found the place, Tex-Mex Mike's, which was closed on Tuesdays. Boo! We drooled over the menu for awhile and then headed back to the nearest train station, Iwakuni station. There we learned that Iwakuni station is for the local trains and does not connect to Shin-Iwakuni station. We got on the bus which said in English "This bus stops at Kintai-kyo and Shin-Iwakuni station." After Stef's scare involving a bee on the bus (she's allergic) we stopped at Kintai-kyo. Some people got on and the bus headed off for what we thought would be Shin-Iwakuni. Fortunately a drunk guy started up a conversation with Stef and asked her where we were going. When she said Shin-Iwakuni, he said the bus didn't go there. He told the bus driver to stop at the next stop. The bus driver let us off and told us to go to the stop across the street and take the bus back to Kintai-kyo. We crossed the street, figured out the kanji for Kintai-Kyo from our brochure, and discovered we had to wait 45 minutes for the next bus. We waited in the middle of nowhere until the next bus came. We took that bus back to Kintai-kyo, where the bus driver told us we had to change buses. We waited for the bus to Shin-Iwakuni station under a sign that read in English, "All buses go to Shin-Iwakuni station." Apparently they meant all of the buses except the one we just got off of, and the one we were on that had stopped at Kintai-kyo almost an hour prior. Anyway, we finally made it home. The goldfish Stef won even survived the day.