Hidden Honshu: Yonago
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July 13, 2018 - Hidden Honshu: Yonago
For this afternoons post, I visited the old castle town of Yonago on the west coast of Tottori Prefecture. The town itself does not have a lot in terms of major historical buildings, but the old castle ruins have some of the best views in Japan.
My first stop for the day was Yonago Castle Ruins - with this location meant to be the Yonago Matsuri Museum. It takes around 15 minutes to reach the top and it can be quite sweaty work in summer. It's a bit over 300 stairs and should be a nice walk when the weather is not too hot.
When you get to the top of each set of stairs, you think you are at the top and then see more. At least more height means a better view I guess.
As some people might be aware, there was major flooding in some sections of Japan. This could be seen on the side of the castle (above) along with the large amount of works occurring on the roads today which caused major delays.
I was going to visit the Yonago Art Museum, but it was closed. I'm guessing it may be due to change in exhibits.
Across the road is the Yonago San-in History Museum. A small uneventful museum downstairs costs 250 yen to enter and the majority of the building was free.
Normally when I choose accommodation, I either stay in a business hotel or good quality ryokan for a splurge. For today, I chose a bargain basement priced onsen hotel which is less than 8000 yen with 2 meals (including a kaseki dinner). This is the view from my room - note that the hotel IS OLD! It's based in Kaike onsen which is right next to the beach.
Being an Australian, I have never seen a beach where you pay to enter. It seems as though this beach matches this as there are change rooms and the like with a price included.
Ever wanted to know what a cheap Kaseki Dinner looks like? Well - this is it! The more expensive dishes included abolone in liver sauce, crab legs and simple sashimi. The bamboo boiler had vegetables and reasonably nice dumplings. It was not the best Kaseki meal I have ever eaten, but I've had much worse. It's also possible to upgrade the meals significantly but I decided against it on this occasion.
Today was highly enjoyable for me due to visiting two high quality garden earlier in the day which were shown in my last post. Yonago does not have a heap to do but I have not shown it's best due to time restraints. However, the onsen here was nice and was excellent value for money, even though the place is really old. For tomorrow, I'll be driving to Hagi.
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