TOP 10 Things to do in Onomichi & Tomonoura 🇯🇵 Japan Travel Guide

TOP 10 Things to do in Onomichi & Tomonoura 🇯🇵 Japan Travel Guide

hello I’m in Onomichi we’ve been spending some time exploring Onomichi and Tomonoura two beautiful towns in Hiroshima Prefecture so let me show you our favourite places I’ve got 10 places but I’ll give you my top two first These are my must-do’s and then after that we’ll go through places to eat, and other things we really enjoyed in each town that you can pick and choose based on how much time you have left at each location. I’ll also include things you can do on a rainy day and a few places that I might skip if I was to do it again. We’re starting in Onomichi Onomichi is a charming port town that sits on the Seto Inland Sea and it’s where the famous Shimanami Kaido begins, which is a 70 kilometer cycling route across the islands here. We won’t be doing it this time, but let me know in the comments if you’d be interested in seeing that kind of video. Onomichi is a hilly place with the most beautiful winding paths, seaside views, and a yellow train that I think I became a little too obsessed with… if you’re visiting Onomichi, the top thing to do is to explore Senkoji Park. Within Senkoji Park, you’ve actually got a number of attractions and things to do, but I’m just grouping them all together here. They include the Mt Senkoji Ropeway, Senkoji Temple, the famous Cat Alley, the path of literature, and the Onomichi City Museum of Art. To get to Senkoji Park, we’re taking the ropeway. the start of the ropeway is about a 15 minute walk from Onomichi Station, and it leads up to the summit of Mt Senkoji. The ticket machine surprisingly takes card, and tickets are ¥500 one way per person. So you board an elevator up to the ropeway. It runs every 15 minutes, and the ride itself takes about 3 minutes. But the views are insane! They just keep getting better and better every second! Once you get off, don’t forget to grab yourself a stamp, before heading to the observatory. The view from up here is one of my favourites From up here you can see the beautiful silhouettes of all the small islands scattered in the sea. This kind of view is so iconic, that in Japanese there’s actually a word for it which is “tatōbi” meaning ‘multi island beauty’ The first island you see is Mukaishima, which is technically still a part of Onomichi town, and it is the starting point of the Shimanami Kaido. so this is Mt Senkoji or Senkoji Park. Either name is fine. It’s named after this which is Senkoji Temple You take the ropeway up to the PEAK observatory and then it’s a short walk from the summit to Senkoji Temple you’ve got two routes you can take to get to Senkoji You’ve got this one which is called my Japanese is so bad bungaku no Komichi and this other one… I don’t know if it has a name This Bungaku no Komichi has a boulder with its name on it and can be translated to the Path of Literature The Path of Literature is a beautiful path through the natural landscape. But what makes it so popular, especially among Japanese visitors, is these large boulders you see throughout your walk, that are engraved with passages from famous poets and authors. Or you can take the other route yes, we walked both of these paths to make this video I really like the views from this way and there’s some cool things to see here too one of them being this rock called tsuzumi iwa or the drum rock but most people just call it pom pom iwa because it makes the sound pom pom when you hit it If anyone can explain why it does this, it’s totally different! please do so in the comments Look at the size of this guy that’s huge that’s like another 10cm on my finger! I have small hands, that’s not that big If you’ve seen a few of my videos, then you’ll know that I’m a huge eSIM fan. It’s a super simple way to stay connected when you’re travelling overseas, and you don’t have to worry about buying a physical SIM card. There are so many eSIMs to choose from, it can feel a bit overwhelming and look, while I can’t speak for all of them, one I have used is Airalo, who are the sponsors of this video. For those interested, I’ve got a little discount for Airalo that I’ll go into shortly. I’m based in Japan, so I’m always talking about Airalo usage in Japan. But what if, for example, you’re travelling to both Japan and South Korea? You don’t actually need to worry about getting two separate eSIM packages. There’s actually something called Asia Link, which is a data package that covers 18 countries in Asia including Japan and South Korea. There’s other regional packs like the Island Hopper for the Caribbean islands, the Euro Link, which covers 42 countries, which is crazy and the Ocean Link which covers Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and other Pacific islands. If you’re interested but you’re a little bit nervous about actually installing and activating an eSIM, I made a step by step guide which you can find through the link in the description below and if you want $3 off Just a few hundred meters from the Pom Pom Iwa is Senkoji Temple; a temple that feels like it’s perched on the cliff side, overlooking the city It’s got some amazing views, but it also has a few very unique things. My favourite one being the giant beads. After the mantra, you pull down on the giant beads. They make the sound kachi kachi, which is why they’re called kachi kachi beads. this sound is said to help focus the mind to help send prayers and wishes more strongly to the heavens so kind of like a lucky charm This temple is over 1,200 years old. For context if it helps, on the other side of the world, this was the Viking Age. But many temples and shrines in Japan are built on mountains often built around the natural landscape When Buddhism arrived in Japan, it’s kind of blended with the Shinto ideas that gods or spirits (kami) are found in nature, in things like rocks, mountains, waterfalls, forests, and that higher elevations would bring you closer to the divine (or heaven) Also if you’re collecting temple stamps (goshuin), don’t forget to grab one here! The staff are extremely skilled and the calligraphy of the one we got was so beautiful! Coming down from Senkoji, our last attraction is Cat Alley. But before we go to Cat Alley, I have a recommendation for anyone that’s interested in local art. It’s here above the pom pom iwa so this is the Onomichi City Museum [or Art] it’s on the path up to Senkoji Temple and it’s free entry so if you’re here on a rainy day or even if you’re not it’s got some really nice artwork I think a lot of the artists are local and there’s just a lot of like Japanese landscapes to enjoy it was really cool how some of the paintings were done in like a I don’t know how to describe… I don’t really know how to describe art but it was kind of like that 1600s European water painting style but with a Japanese landscape, so that was really cool. What was your favourite one? That one was really cute That was that was on the stairs, right? I liked it it’s a nice little museum okay Cat Alley now from memory there’s only the one route down you’re going past this pagoda I think… hang on
I’ve got a better map this one’s a little bit cluttered but it might make more sense for this section so here’s Senkoji Temple and you’ve got this route down here which leads to this gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous Ghibli-looking staircase at the top of this staircase you’ve got this gorgeous view with the pagoda the ropeway and if you’re lucky the iconic yellow train so you’ve got a path to the left of this view (left when you’re looking down coming down the stairway) and on the right is the staircase going down now we saw cats going down both these ways but the iconic famous Cat Alley is the route on your left NOT down the staircase if you head down you’re walking past the base of the pagoda and then you’ll find the Cat Alley on the left there’s apparently quite a few cats that live around here and you can see a board with all their names on it but we actually saw more cats outside of the cat Alley just walking around the Onomichi alleyways but it’s still super cute to walk down just watch out for all the mosquitoes hot tip: near the Onomichi Art Museum there is a sign pointing to a cat alley maybe a different one… but Don’t go down here It’s a scam! I’m just kidding Maybe it used to be something but when we were there it had not been maintained and it was just like walking through rows and rows of cobwebs and bugs flying around and jumping at us and it was not a vibe… so especially if you’re somebody that is not into bugs I would not recommend going down this way so just a word of warning that is not the way to the Cat Alley okay no time to rest we’re moving straight on to recommendation No. 2 located in the charming harbour town of Tomonoura Tomonoura is a small seaside town about 25 km from Onomichi and I’ll go into how to get here and our accommodation a little bit later on The reason we decided to include Tomonoura in our Onomichi trip, well, there was a number of reasons, but the initial ones were a specific temple that I wanted to visit and the fact that this place was the inspiration for the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo anyway more on that later on the temple I was dying to visit is called Fukuzenji To clarify, what I wanted to visit was Taichoro the name of the reception hall within Fukuzenji Temple and OMG it was worth the trip Taichoro was founded during the Edo period some 300 or so years ago and was used to host important visitors. One of those guests was a Korean envoy that famously named this place ‘the most beautiful view in Japan’ which can now be seen written overhead. Entry is about ¥300, but I cannot convey how peaceful this place feels through a screen Taichoro is a 2 minute walk from the Tomonoura bus terminal, or 7 minutes from the Tourist Information Centre. Tomonoura is small, so all of our recommendations will be within walking distance of this bus terminal. Onomichi and Tomonoura can both be accessed from Fukuyama Station which is why we decided to book our hotel for this trip here. That and it was cheaper than booking at either Onomichi or Tomonoura that’s the hotel there it’s so close the bullet train (shinkansen) stops at Fukuyama Station and from Osaka, it’s just 1 hour 6 minutes! From there, it’s 20 minutes to Onomichi on the lovely yellow train or 40 minutes by bus to Tomonoura Fukuyama Station is the first stop and Tomonoura is the last so couldn’t be easier. There’s quite a few hotels to choose from around the station. We stayed at the Oriental Hotel. It wasn’t a very big room, but it was clean, affordable, the staff were lovely, and we even got access to free bikes that we could borrow also look at this fridge It’s designed to perfectly fit a big bottle of water and they’ve got cups in here keep them nice and cool cause it’s really hot right now in Japan nice I like this hotel! If you wanted to you could probably do Onomichi and Tomonoura in one day if you’re just visiting the top two recommendations we just went through; one in the morning one in the arvo, but I think one day at each is a good approach to start with. So now, let’s go through the rest of the recommendations at each location starting with places to eat in Onomichi Turns out Onomichi is famous for its ramen! Onomichi ramen is characterized by its soy sauce based broth with pork back fat (se-abora) which adds a rich mellow flavor without being overly heavy it typically features a dashi base from chicken and small fish so the fat is from pig but the broth itself is from chicken/fish? sounds so good also some important things to note about travelling around this area, many stores do not take card so make sure to have some cash on hand and although this shop did have an English menu there’s not as much English around here as big cities like Osaka and Tokyo, so just keep that in mind We both ordered the Onomichi ramen but K got the one with the $h!t ton of pork chashu which was definitely the way to go it was so tasty I can see how some people might be put off by the big chunks of pork fat floating around in the soup but I would happily drown in pig fat it would be my chosen way to go so I loved it The soy sauce flavour is quite rich and salty though, so we drank about a litre of water along with the ramen K added some kind of dried fish vinegary thing to his to make it fishier which he rated but… I liked mine better without it There’s many many ramen shops around here and we also tried another one as well so that we could compare This place is also Onomichi Ramen apparently the slogan for this place is that it is Soy sauce Ramen that doesn’t leave you thirsty let’s find out if that’s true They were sold out of the Chashu ramen when we went which was really sad, so we got the spring onion ramen which turned out to just be a pile of spring onions added to the ramen It was good! K preferred this broth to the first one I like the original one better because it had a stronger pork flavour but the gyoza were really good! I can get around gyoza with ramen but I don’t understand eating rice with ramen although K was very on board with it he really liked the soup they were different, but they both made us thirsty The other famous food is Onomichi okonomiyaki There are also many places to try okonomiyaki and some of them are very local Onomichi is in Hiroshima so the standard is the Hiroshimayaki which is your classic savoury pancake but with yakisoba The Onomichiyaki adds chicken gizzard and deep fried squid to this but what do you think? Would you be up for trying this? Don’t be mad I think I like Hiroshimayaki better than Osaka okonomiyaki When you grill it on the teppan like that the noodles get all crispy and it’s so delicious That place was really good I think there’s only like six seats and it’s one person so I think if you’re passing by and it’s empty, go for it she’s lovely but I think if it’s full… But I think there’s a few places you can find around Onomichi If that one’s full, you’ll find other ones You might not have realized, but I’ve actually already revealed the next item on our list and this one really brings everything together This is the Hondori Shotengai which means Main Shopping Street in English and it’s the road I would recommend using to walk up from the station to the ropeway or on the way back It’s covered so it’ll protect you from the heat or the rain Our first ramen shop and the okonomiyaki place are both located either on this street or adjacent to it and there’s heaps and heaps of other cool street foods to check out here too Many shops along here will close in the evening but if you’re looking for some late night entertainment this Gacha place is open until 10 PM We were looking for an Onomichi original because sometimes these places will have souvenirs unique to the area but we couldn’t seem to find any We did, however, find this: You can actually do something called a Temple Walk in Onomichi It’s 3 km long and it takes you to 25 temples walking through the iconic hilly Onomichi paths The route is marked out but 25 temples is a lot so if you don’t want to do the whole thing but you want to visit one more temple, then I recommend Saikokuji. But just a heads up, it is a bit of a hike to get to it Saikokuji is a place where people have been coming to pray for sturdy healthy feet which makes sense for such a hilly landscape I really love exploring these ancient places in moody weather Something about it just makes me feel like I’m in a movie We’ve only scratched the surface of what Onomichi has to offer But for the rest of the list, we’re heading to Tomonoura. Tomonoura’s port town has remained largely unchanged since the Edo period so we’re gonna start by exploring the Old Town From the bus terminal, we’re gonna walk 4 minutes around the harbour to the Joyato Stone Lighthouse I think it’s 11 meters tall and it’s the largest Edo period stone lighthouse still standing in Japan so it’s a popular attraction here it’s also very photogenic Behind us are these gorgeous stone paved streets with the preserved traditional merchant houses in here you can try some local medicinal liquor called Homeshu And see how many Ponyo’s you can spot! For anyone that hasn’t watched Ponyo, it is a Ghibli movie by Hayao Miyazaki about a little boy that finds a magical fish and it is set here in Tomonoura so yeah it’s really cute if you are interested in watching it If you’re still watching, thank you and let me know down in the comments what your favourite Ghibli movie is. mine is… I don’t have one I haven’t watched that many Ghibli movies so let me know your movie recommendations I wanna watch more but I’m not watching grave of the butterflies or whatever it’s called I don’t wanna cry Anyway the Tomo Terrace here has a VR headset that will tell you about Tomonoura which is fun It is the only town left in Japan where you can still see all five Edo period port facilities almost exactly as they were. The lighthouse is one of them, these gangi docks, that look like stairs going into the water, the breakwaters called Hato, a guardhouse for managing the coming and going of boats that has different coloured flags and this area here called tadeba which was used for managing and repairing boats. Apparently they’d use the high tide to float the boats right up onto the stone ramps and then during low tide when the boats were out of the water they’d repair them No.8: go cafe hopping For such a small town, there’s a surprising number of cafes My personal favourite one was this place called Beer & Cafe the interior has some super cool seating options as well as a gallery and a kids play space but the best seat in the house has got to be this one looking right outside onto the water the breeze was also super pleasant Outside I tried this popular Japanese toy called Kendama until K went and stole the spotlight Yum looks so good what did you get? tuna toastie and blue Hawaiian shaved ice We had the most incredible tuna toastie here, but if you’re after some food you can also have coffee and brunch or lunch at the most unique place Remember the guardhouse that I mentioned earlier? It’s a cafe now We visited for breakfast and we got to enjoy some incredible views over Tomonoura and the coast Apparently on a clear evening you can see all the way to Shikoku, which is another large Japanese island. Apparently this flag here was used to communicate with boats out at sea. They’d use different colours to convey different meanings and apparently this yellow one meant something like “all good, no issues” This one wasn’t coffee but I’m gonna put it in here anyway This cute place along the harbour here has sweets and shaved ice during the summer they also give these cute little cushions so you can come and sit on the Gangi steps and relax so pleasant No 9 is a placed called Iroha This is a traditional townhouse that has been transformed into a restaurant and inn and one of the people involved in designing it was actually Hayao Miyazaki himself so among all the gorgeous traditional elements you’ll find little Ghibli Easter eggs scattered around The presentation of the meal was insane and it used a lot of local dishes including sea bream which the area is known for K booked this one ahead of time for us in Japanese but I did see it also on the English version of Tabelog if anyone’s interested in checking it out Before I reveal No. 10, a few honorable mentions: If you have some time left in Tomonoura, climb to the top of this staircase to catch a beautiful view over the harbour And if you have some extra time in Onomichi, check out the waterfront It’s adjacent parallel? It’s parallel to the Hondori Shopping Street and it’s a perfect place to take a little break this is an ice cream sandwich Onomichi also has a lot of cafes but what no one warns you about is how common it is for places to just close for the day randomly without notice so you’ve been warned But we did manage to check out one cafe called Atmosphere and it was a cool vibe so I thought it deserves a mention The cafe is located in an old apartment complex from the 60s that has been transformed into a hotel called LOG It still very much retains its original charm while simultaneously feeling like it’s beginning to be reclaimed by the mountain Not everywhere we went was amazing There’s two places that if you would ask me if I wanted to go again I might pass… and I’ll explain why This boat here It looks like a pirate ship right? and when I was looking at it from Taichoro I was like OMG I want to ride that! This boat takes you to an uninhabited island called Sensuijima The boat ride is very cool and the island is pretty oh it’s a beach! There’s just not very much to do here… We just ended up coming right back The other one is a temple called Abuto Kannon This temple is objectively cool. It’s at the top of a cliff on what feels like the edge of the world you have to take a taxi to get here and because it’s in such an isolated location taxis won’t come and pick you up after so
you either have to ask the taxi driver to wait for you or you wait for the only bus that comes here which arrives in the evening after the temple is closed Don’t get me wrong, it is a super cool view What’s not fun though, is that you have to take your shoes off and the floor is SLANTING I don’t know if you can tell from this footage that’s why the temple recently decided to make this a no photo zone for safety It’s quite slippery without shoes and that railing maybe comes up to my knees so I was low key terrified and just hugging the wall It’s called to look at though On the way back we asked the taxi driver for recommendations on where to eat in Tomonoura and he actually recommended having dinner around Fukuyama Station so that’s what we ended up doing and that is No. 10 There’s many places to choose from around the station especially on the southern side. According to our taxi driver you can’t go wrong with any shop here but I’ll show you where we went This place is like a food hall with a number of stores inside The first one at the front is the place we ate at called Gakuon Shokudo Look at all these retro collectibles They’re so cool! I think this is an izakaya but the owner seems like a collector of these retro Japanese items It’s a very very local joint so I’m not sure if they have an English menu but the food was great oh my God the fish! This is raw chicken! Do you eat this on its own? I’m not sure how I feel about that… so what’s this? original yaki soba this is yaki soba? that looks creamy yum We also went for Hiroshima Okonomiyaki here around the station at a place called Enmaru The yaki soba here was amazing The okonomiyaki was good too but we chose one that had just a little bit too much going on with perilla leaves and beef tendon and deep fried squid so my mouth just didn’t really know what to focus on so I think next time I’d pick a simpler item so I could just enjoy one thing at a time I know that was a lot of stuff that we just went through and to kind of help you visualize how you might plan out a trip to Onomichi and Tomonoura I put together a bit of a sample itinerary which you can find a link to in the description below Thanks so much for joining us in Onomichi and Tomonoura Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next one

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✨ *TOP 10 THINGS TO DO IN ONOMICHI AND TOMONOURA* ✨
(0:00) The Number 1 thing to do in Onomichi
(10:22) The Best thing to do in Tomonoura
(11:51) Accomodation and How to get here
(12:59) Number 3
(14:54) Number 4
(15:48) Number 5
(17:32) Number 6
(18:32) Number 7
(20:33) Number 8
(22:16) Number 9
(22:52) Honourable Mentions
(24:31) Things I would skip…
(25:53) Number 10

A *FREE* Sample 2-Day Itinerary of Onomichi & Tomonoura I created to compliment this video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E5ZDZ1jCx5Lv6G-MvLwVI1Kz4gImOZR2/view?usp=sharing

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