Shirahama
Falling a bit behind on the blog, but we have been busy as usual with traveling, exploring and staying warm in the wintertime. To kick off the new year and right before M’s return to school, we head off to Wakayama prefecture, and specifically to the white beach town of Shirahama.
Bus Trip
We normally take the trains, but we found a direct bus to Shirahama and would drop us off right in front of our onsen (hot springs) hotel. The bus trip took about 3 hours, but we made a pit stop at a rest area along the highway, which was a bit interesting. Highways are usually tolled, so it’s fairly common to have a rest area that doesn’t require the vehicle to leave the highway and incur fees to re-enter. Some of these are apparently no joke, and destinations in of themselves with well known restaurants, shops and a plethora of vending machines.
The one we stopped at had a full-service diner, food court serving typical Japanese fast food (eg. ramen, katsu and curry), a bakery and a general store. Of course, the public bathrooms are pretty clean, and you’ll also find an array of vending machines too.
These places seem perfect for EV charging stations, since most people grab a meal and hang out for 30 minutes or more. The few I’ve seen so far only seem to have 1 EV stall, maybe Tesla can strike a deal to throw in some Superchargers! (wink wink)
Shirahama
We arrived at Shirahama, and quickly realized that the place is probably quite busy in the summer time, as it’s known for it’s white sand beach. We walked by a few big resort hotels with pools and such, but in January the area was not very crowded! Since our room wasn’t ready yet, we dropped off our bags at the front desk and headed out to some sights on the local bus.
We were a little nervous about checking out a seaside cave in the middle of winter known as Sandanbeki Cave. Would it be cold, wet, or dangerous? To our surprise, there was an elevator to go down and plenty of lighting and guard rails to be safe for anyone! Apparently there were pirates back in the day, but the views were kinda nice and there were some cool artifacts.
Cool looking shrine… in a cave!
Senjojiki was walking distance from the caves, and is an interesting geological rock formation on the coast. M had fun playing on the rocks and climbing on top of them and checking out some sea critters stuck in the pools of water.
Musashi Shirahama Onsen
The place we stayed at was pretty nice. The food was quite good, and since the place was pretty empty we felt like we had the onsen baths to ourselves. Musashi is also close to everything so I’d recommend a stay here if visiting Shirahama. M really liked the free hot chocolate/drinks around the place, I liked the decor, it felt pretty traditional and classic.
Adventure World
One of the big draw for families is the theme park Adventure World which I can imagine gets insanely crowded during the high season. The place is quite big, and it’s kind of like Sea World, Safari Park and an amusement park all rolled into one. Although it had a bit of everything, it wasn’t particularly amazing in any one of those departments. Still, young kids would love the place and M had a wonderful time checking out the animals, watching some dolphin shows, then sitting on a roller coaster all in the same day. The best part was probably the Pandas. You could get really close to see them, and maybe the only other place to see Pandas in Japan is at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. When we went there a few years back though, the line was so long to see the Pandas we gave up… Adventure World let us check them out a few times since the park was relatively empty!
The Beach
We had a fun couple of days in Wakayama, and ate some local Wakayama Ramen and Umeboshi (pickled plum) which is one of their famous products. Although the place is geared more towards being a big summer resort destination, we might have actually enjoyed it more without the crowds. It felt more like a laid back beach town, maybe not too different from the West Coast back home.
Akashi-yaki
Back in Osaka, we continue to find some new things to try. Walking through one of the older department stores, we happened upon a Akashi-yaki store. I don’t think I’ve ever had it before, it’s best described as a softer Takoyaki that you eat with a dashi (soup) broth. Takoyaki if you’re unfamiliar, is a round dough ball with a small bit of octopus inside, usually topped with sauce and seasonings and a common snack in Osaka. Akashi-yaki is from Hyogo (Kobe) so it’s pretty close by, hence the similarity of the two dishes. Anyhow, it’s the lighter and more subtle take on the snack, so something to try when you’ve had enough of richer Takoyaki.
