Kii Peninsula Road Trip / 紀伊半島運転旅行

IMG 9603 Sakinoyu

Originally uploaded by sleepytako.

I rented a car. Drove 700km in 29 hours. It was great! I took a route through Osaka to Shirahama for the first day. That night I couldn’t find any hotel, business, love or otherwise so I slept in my car across the street from a konbini. That morning I went to Saki no yu (崎の湯) a great rotenbro (open air bath) that is built into some tide-pools. Amazing. Going at 8 am made the experience better. The cold air and the hot mineral laden water was better than coffee. The view was great. The whole town was very old and was atypical of the aging Japanese resort town archetype with once vibrant paints faded by the sun and half covered by overgrowth plus an ample amount of rust.

Next I tried to go to Hongu onsen (本宮温泉) up in the mountans. This location is famous for Kawayu (川湯) a river that during the summer you can dig your own bath out of the river bank, and during the winter the city digs out the worlds largest rotenbro. Sadly they were in the process of digging out that rotenbro when I got there, so I drove a little north to another onsen Tsuboyu (つぼ湯). It was a great sulfur rich spring. They had a private bath in the river that the spring fed into but it was booked so I took a bath in the public sento.


Kawayu


Tsuboyu

After that I tried to drive to the famous Ise Shrine, while I made it there fine and drove through some beautiful countryside to get there the shrine was closing just as I walked up to the entrance way.

After a pitch black mildly tiring drive down a crowded highway I was able to get on the free way and shoot back to Sanda.

Here’s the link to the few photos I took on this trip, my camera broke during the trip. Today, however, I took it to the Canon Service Center in Osaka who determined that it was the lens that was broken and they will fix it for free, along with they they cleaned the camera for free. Thank you Canon!