*taps* Is this thing on? Yes, yes, I’m spending more time doing things (and procrastinating) than writing about doing things. I guess that’s a good thing, maybe? It’s now September 2025 and I’m writing about a very very long local train adventure I did way back in December 2024 (oh well). It’s kind of funny to write about so far afterward, and think back on, because I’ve done so much of this by now – but this was my first real, all-local train trip, and the start of me settling into the habit & hobby of going out of my way to ride strange/different/new lines just for the sake of it, seeing new places and landscapes and infrastructure and stumbling upon lots of unexpected things…
The background for this is that a certain bus company in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, the westernmost city at the very edge of Honshu, released a commemorative nimoca at a little-publicized, one-day 100th anniversary celebration back in November of last year, and all remaining unsold stock they made available online (in classic Japan fashion, through a very convoluted system, where you mailed them cash and they sent you a card in return, which you then had to pay more cash-on-delivery for). A couple friends asked me if I could use my domestic address to order them each a card when they went on sale – I don’t count online purchases or mail-order IC cards for my own collection, after all – and I said sure, of course. But I emailed the company to ask: hey, is it actually possible to purchase this from you in-person? The head of the automotive division (just small company things! ☺) wrote back to me to say, sorry, no… but we noticed you purchased some cards already and, if you want, despite the per-person limit we said prior, it’s alright if you order another.
I replied telling them about my IC card collecting hobby, shared that the cards I had bought were really on behalf of some friends, and explained that the “rule” I’ve set for myself is that I want to obtain everything on my own, in-person, and if they’d consider my request, I’d love to come all the way from Nagoya on local trains – using the Seishun 18 Kippu – to come get the card. They wrote back a couple hours later: OK, eli, we’ll make special arrangements for you. Let us know when you’ll be here. You can come to our head office at this address, during weekday business hours, sometime before the end of January, and bring cash. We’re looking forward to seeing you! “Holy shit,” I thought. “I got a Japanese company to bend the rules.”
(If this were a YouTube video, that’d be the thumbnail. But it’s not! Thank god!)
Photoshop. Ekispert maps. Lots of Google searches. I started planning my route and drawing lines immediately. I’d spend two days getting there, a more manageable way to split up the ~14 hours required, and then take Monday off work and return the whole way that same day. Where to stay for that one day in the middle, though? I had the entire portion of Honshu west of me to consider, over 750 km on the southern coast of Japan, literally the entire Sanyo Main Line (well, except for the very last stop owned by JR Kyushu) to traverse. I wanted a small city, and knew I’d spend a night & wanted to spend the next half-day there, and was open to anywhere between Yamaguchi-ish and Himeji… but Onomichi, in Hiroshima Prefecture, is the place that piqued my interest from some initial research. When I asked online about it, everyone was like “yes, absolutely”, so I booked an affordable guesthouse there two weeks in advance, for the weekend right after my Oigawa Railway trip. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too exhausting!
I decided on the following routes for day 1 and day 2, respectively:
I had already ridden the “normal” local line route to Kyoto/Osaka (via Maibara) so many times, yet had never been on the seemingly half-neglected, and longer, Kansai Main Line… so why not go that way, and then up back through Shiga via the Kusatsu Line? Similarly, unlike on my return trip, I’d have time to deviate off the super-long Sanyo Main Line, up to Tsuyama and then back down via the Kishin and Tsuyama Lines. They looked pretty (I flicked through cab front view videos on YouTube to verify!) and it’s not like I was getting to Onomichi before dark anyway, so why not spend an extra little bit of time to go via a more unusual route? The so-called “renewal” of the Seishun 18 Kippu – despite the changes, it’s for real this time! – comes in a 3-day variant now, so I could ride any route I wanted, and make last-minute changes or decisions on the fly, for the same price of an even ¥10,000.
Day 1: Departure – and the sinuous route toward Onomichi
Heading through Western and Mie on the Kansai Main Line! Nice mountains already :)
Transfer at Kameyama, where JR Central’s ownership of the line ends and JR West (a company that doesn’t neglect their local trains) takes over. Speaking of which: this train livery was so cool??
I loved how there were just these colorful designs hanging from the spots where there’s usually advertisements. (I guess this is a subtle form of advertisement, too, for “Kyoto Tea Country“.)
Grabbed some food at this little teahouse/cafe near Tsuge Station, just south of the border of Shiga Prefecture.
Ah! A ninja! In the train station!
More ninja. (Yes, I know it’s a loanword into English. Yes, I still feel like I should use Japanese pluralization rules despite this…)
Japanese full-width apostrophe-spacing/typography-fuckery remains UNDEFEATED. (I have a growing collection of signs like this.)
Fun fact: This sign is used as the representative image on the English Wikipedia article for yakuwarigo. I saw it on there years before I saw this in real life for myself, de gozaru!
Passing one of my favorite, most unhinged buildings in the world, Kyoto Station. Crazy even on the façade facing the tracks!
I had to take a shinkansen from Shin-Osaka to Himeji to get back on schedule, as my train from Tsuge to Kusatsu was delayed by a few minutes, which made me miss the special rapid, which I had originally planned to take the whole distance to Himeji. (Had to pay for the shink base fare as well which was especially annoying…) But it gave me time here to pop out of the station, grab some eki-stamps, and see this awesome view of Himeji Castle under a rainbow, a straight-shot sightline from the station exit!
Slowly working my way up the Kishin Line. I love these boxy train exteriors.
Made it to Tsuyama! They had this hot Starbucks-branded spiced tea drink in the konbini which was frankly very tasty but also nice and warm to wrap my cold hands around. It was actually pretty chilly so the heat aspect was mainly why I bought it; it afforded holding, for sure.
Sky creeping into nighttime over Tsuyama Station.
Down from Tsuyama to Okayama. (If you’re thinking there’s lots of ‘yama’s… yes, Japan indeed has lots of mountains.) Orange train.
Old box seats. There were only like three other people and everyone was putting their feet up under the heaters lol.
A guy on the train showed me his Hiroshima Carp commemorative ICOCA I spotted!!
Grabbed a Hareca IC card for a friend from a bus driver outside Okayama Station (the sales office was closed) during a quick transfer.
Next up was a yellow train. I think this was my first encounter with these brightly colored, old trains that are found throughout the Chugoku region on local lines.
Made it to Onomichi!!! Left at 9:51, arrived at 20:41. I stepped out of the station, started walking toward my accommodation, and…. OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS PLACE??????
Thing #1 about Onomichi: It is INSANELY HILLY. Literal endless steps and slopes everywhere – but not orderly; it’s labyrinthine, haphazard concrete fillings and mounds, paths radially branching out and multiplying manyfold from every intersection, just inviting you to scramble up a hill or staircase at every single turn. I tried excitedly recording a video of me walking (ok, maybe running) up a staircase and I fell and got hurt lol.
Thing #2 about Onomichi: There are so many, so so many, feral cats. It’s endless. This night was a night of CONTENT (…for my collaborative “cats at night” zine/project).
Pictures can’t really do this place justice. Neither can 2D maps…
…It is, simply put, literally the place with the coolest topography out of anywhere I have ever been on Earth.
At every turn I felt like I was at an impasse, not knowing which way to turn because all ways felt like they’d be incredible to explore.
I dropped off my backpack, grabbed some quick dinner, and then found myself… accidentally climbing a mountain at midnight? It was irresistible. Instinctive. I went FERAL and noctivagant in Onomichi.
Up and up and up, on bumpy cliffside paths…
…and then a short while later, turning onto a skinny paved alley.
I tried looking for this place on Google Maps and I really have no idea where I was when I took this, which is rare for me. I wasn’t lost at the time, but I feel like I couldn’t get back here if I tried. Onomichi is for wandering.
The brown sign in this photo marks the path to one of Onomichi’s 25 Buddhist temples, which are all connected via a very hilly 3 km walk, if you take the most efficient route, which you shouldn’t. I didn’t go on it, but I did end up naturally seeing a lot of them just through exploring. Some date back to the seventh century.
More views in the dead of night under a moonlit sky.
Cats, more cats!! There was a lot of meowing in the darkness.
Made it to the top of Mt. Senkoji.
Nighttime view from the observation bridge in Senkoji Park. Then on the way down – not the same way I came up, naturally, as if it’d even be possible to walk the same route twice here – I passed unlocked septic tank control panels, a shuttered preschool, some funky Western cars, photos of rabbits, weird bronze statues, and spraypainted messages of thanks on driveways in English. What a place.
I had a pack of wild cats and dogs snarl at me on this steep road. It was legit kind of scary. Managed to sneak past.
Final descent, headed back to my guesthouse.
Day 2: Exploring Onomichi, sunlit – and west to Shimonoseki
Onomichi by day. LOOK AT THIS PLACE!!!!
180° from the above.
I went out exploring again in the daytime. Obviously.
I had a few hours until my half-past-one train and it was like traversing a totally different place than the night before.
Grounds of Jiko-ji Temple.
I don’t remember who recommended me this place but I think it was someone on a train when I told them I was going to Onomichi. So I went and it’s the SMALLEST, CUTEST BAKERY IN THE WORLD. Walk in. (Watch your head.) Grab the tray and tongs. Turn 90 degrees to your right. Take the baked goods that you want, including out of the hanging basket (out of frame!) Turn back 90 degrees to your left. Pay in cash. Leave. Their mini french toast was out of this world.
Here’s the map of how to find it, if anyone decides to go there. I don’t want it to get overrun, or the contents of this to get scraped and fed into some LLM and then mechanically recommended to people, so I’m not writing the name in English. I’m leaving it as an image, and you can OCR the text with Google Lens/Translate or whatever if you don’t read Japanese. Or the blind faith way: go to Onomichi and follow this abstract diagram without looking it up at all! :)
The intersection just north of the bakery, minus the path I walked up to arrive at this “corner”. So many ways to go!!!! Like I said before, pictures, even panoramas, really can’t capture the magic and whimsicality of Onomichi or its topography and layout. You’ve really just gotta go. It’s my favorite single city I’ve been to in Japan.
I saw a sign for a cafe that said they had goats!!! Sadly I could not find any goats despite asking and the owners were kind of rude so oh well.
Also saw a sign for a cafe saying they could communicate in Japanese Sign Language! Way cool! (Well technically it told me that *I* could… which is in fact not true aside from a few signs.)
Walked through a park and this man was painting the scenery in watercolors. How nice!
The view from Senkou-ji Temple. Here‘s another.
I met a very spirited young girl and her mom at the temple, visiting from Osaka, who wanted a photo with me. I also recommended them the bakery I went to earlier. Later in the day, I went back to the bakery myself to buy more, and they were just arriving there as I exited!!! They walked me back toward the station to catch my train (Anju told me ghost stories in broad daylight the whole time) and her mom & I exchanged contact info. We’ve stayed in touch and grabbed a meal again recently when I went to Osaka! :)
Oooohh ahhhh so Instagrammable. (But seriously, it really was pretty. Would love to make it over to the other side of the water next time. They have ferries, I hear!)
View of the Seto Inland Sea from that observatory–bridge where I went the night before. So stunning!!! I want to bike the Shimanami Kaido so badly now.
Walking down one of Onomichi’s more famous alleys, Cat Alley (Neko no hosomichi). There was indeed a lot of cat media here.
And real cats, too. One of many.
More cat media in the leaves.
So many tiny little haphazard cafes.
Panda gate!
SUDDENLY, A KURONEKO YAMATO DELIVERY SCOOTER GOING STRAIGHT UP THE HILL. THEY CANNOT BE STOPPED.
Boardwalk along the port.
Aaaand finally back at the station. Time to leave :(
Sanyo Main Line looking out over the inland sea, at sunset. I love coastal trains.
Shin-Yamaguchi Station was lit up pretty extravagantly.
The coolest thing about it, though, was its vertical garden.
Green!!! Thanks I love it.
A guide to all the different grass and plant species along the walls.
Horseshoe loop down to Ube. The yellow trains were very angular here, more than normal.
Rural trains, like those in this area, have fare boards like buses. Some even combine multiple lines into one. Take a numbered ticket when you get on and pay in cash when you get off.
Evangelion eki-stamp for some reason?
And a lone phone booth.
Whoa!! This station (Shin-Shimonoseki) is so slender, there’s escalators to more quickly access the shinkansen portion of it.
No IC cards used out here…
Me having fun with my fishing rod on the train platform.
More yeller trains.
How do you know you’ve arrived at the boundary between JR West and JR Kyushu? Two different sets of fare gates for ICOCA and SUGOCA, of course!
Holiday decorations at Shimonoseki :) Not like they even celebrate Christmas here, though, lol. But hey, any excuse to adorn the station is a good one!
Thanks, and happy holidays to you too, lots of logs.
I liked this old-style fish lmao? Yamaguchi Prefecture is famous for fugu, or pufferfish. This looks more like the Pokémon Relicanth, though.
Yamaguchi is also famous for kawara soba, though, or soba cooked on a roof tile. I came pretty late and the shop owner asked if it was OK if he put it on a different surface/plate and I said sure. Then he played Shogo Hamada’s Midnight Flight (which I know from Ping Pong The Animation, aka the best work of animated media of all time which btw I’ve subtitled), and he said WTF how do you know this old Japanese song and I laughed.
Time for bed! Exciting day tomorrow!
Day 3: The IC card – and a long way home
‘Morning. Bright and early! Pre-8am!
I got up and started to walk to the bus company HQ which involved passing through the stationfront “Green Mall”. Everything was closed but there was lots of signage in Korean (Shimonoseki’s sister city is Busan and the Kampu Ferry runs between the two).
These ominous, bulbous fugu were hanging out in a road median. Interesting…
More fugu!
I liked these animals. Actually, this whole road was dotted with fun benches and statues and some play sculptures which I think Isamu Noguchi would have liked.
Dilapidated signage, still colorful. Korean home cooking!
Arrived at the HQ. Nimoca-chan was sitting on the desk up front.
All the employees were in such a jovial mood and clearly very amused when I actually showed up. Lots of chatter and peering over from desks. Someone came up front and happily sold me the card, and the guy who had been emailing came out to meet me and say hi! I asked if they’d take a photo with me and they were like OK, why not, sure! The secretary who had handed the card to me offered to take it of us and I said, no, no, you should be in it too! She was totally taken aback (“chuffed” as the Brits would say) and agreed, and another random employee took it of the three of us. They gave me this company anniversary sign to hold which had pictures of their buses on it, along with the Aflac duck for some reason. I was smiling a lot. As you can see.
Card obtained!!! I literally can’t believe I did this.
Had to run to the train station to make the single departure that’d get me back to Nagoya on the very last train. I decided to head one station north instead of going to Shimonoseki again in order to get a new eki-stamp. The light was nice on the way there.
Rainbow and 7-11. Wow, it’s like I’m back in Hawaiʻi.
Yellow train in yellow light. Time to head home!
Pretty chill train, the first one out of nine. I liked the light green handles.
Apparently my battery pack didn’t charge properly the night before – necessary, as my phone’s battery is absolutely trash – and it was having some troubles charging my phone anyway… figured it’d be a good idea to write down my directions/itinerary home the old fashioned way, just in case.
Some more views of the Seto Inland Sea, this time going the other way. A lot was the same as on my way there, but I got to ride my last unridden portion of the Sanyo Main Line, too – between Shin-Yamaguchi and Onoda – as previously I’d done the detour down to Ube.
Had around half an hour to wait for my next train at Tokuyama. Luckily they had a great city library-slash-bookstore where I was able to hang out and charge my phone a bit. Japan’s very safe, so I left my phone charging as I browsed around. I found some books like Rainbow Fish and Frog and Toad! And Botchan lol.
I got to ride the Gantoku Line this time, the beeline route from Tokuyama to Iwakuni instead of around the coast. On paper it’s a faster route, but it doesn’t leave very often, making it slower in practice most of the time; I had an extemporaneous realization that I could actually choose to take it and still make all the rest of my trains. So I did!
I know Japan loves their unpainted stainless steel trains, but these bright colors right next to each other looked great to me…
Don’t let anyone tell you that Japan doesn’t have trash cans. Or that you’re not allowed to eat on local trains. It’s a filthy lie!
I *love* these concrete retaining walls, seen all over the country to protect against landslides. This one was pretty concave and weird so I snapped a pic of it out of the train window. You can find more by googling “吹付法枠工”.
Another stop, 20 minutes, at Itozaki. It was difficult to decide which species of hot sand to get, but I went with tuna cheese.
I was actually spacing out and didn’t even realize where I was until *BAM*, sudden loud English conversation audible even through the music in my headphones. Yup, guess we just got to Miyajimaguchi… Later, an older woman started chatting with me, and she mentioned how she and her adult daughter were traveling there, and how the only thing she can’t stand about Hiroshima is the Carp, their baseball team – and her daughter was freaking out being, like, Mom, stop, you can’t SAY things like that here in public!!!
I do not know what the GreenmoverMax is but now I want to ride the GreenmoverMax. Actually I looked it up and… it’s a Hiroden tram design??? But it’s on JR West tracks??? I was very confused until I eventually saw a news article about how JR West and Hiroden “swapped designs” in order to promote the new integrated station building. Ohhh, ok, so it’s not the real GreenmoverMax.
If anyone ever sees a Hotel AZ, please stay there. There is nothing around Itozaki Station. Literally nothing. (Why is this the terminus of this section of the line??? Why not one station over at Mihara?) Except Hotel AZ. My savior. My oasis that very graciously let me barge in, desperately ask if I could charge my phone to help me not die on my Seishun 18 Kippu trip back home, and said sure. The front desk worker moved the microwave in the lobby out of the way for me, to let me plug my phone into a spare outlet for the half hour I had to wait here. (Hahaha, what is my life…) I bought a ¥100 pack of chocolate pretzels from their snack bar as my thanks – not restricted to only hotel guests, apparently! Thank you Hotel AZ!!!
Passing through Okayama again so you know I had to go get some black tea lovers’ black tea bread (white chocolate dice inside) at the Vie de France. No big versions left but they had some minis. This has actually become a ritual for me every single time I pass through Okayama Station. I’ve done it like half a dozen times by now. Also, I think this is the sign that finally made me understand the Japanese word プチ puchi is actually a loan from the French “petit”… no idea how that took me a decade…
Passing through Banshū-Akō on another slight detour via the Ako Line (the Sanyo Main Line has a lot of these alternate routes for certain small sections like this). Thought this signage was interesting. I guess people get the platform number wrong a lot, or perhaps it changed recently?
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and along a corridor I’ve ridden dozens of times. This small Christmas tree was waiting for me as I changed in the familiar Maibara, from JR West back to JR Central territory. Only two small prefectural slices away from home…
Pulling back into Nagoya Station. A lot of shinks were sleeping on the tracks. I was looking forward to sleeping soon, too.
This trip took me across 1545 kilometers of rail over three days. On my final day, from the city of Shimonoseki in the morning to my home station in Nagoya a few minutes after midnight, across more than half the width of Honshu, I spent 15 hours 8 minutes in transit: 908 minutes of total travel time. Two hours and 11 minutes of this was waiting for trains (on platforms – or, for the most part, in random station cafes, libraries, a nearby hotel…) and the rest, just three minutes shy of 13 hours, riding trains. It was a lot, yeah. The most “lot” for me in quite a while, actually! But it was ridiculous, and memorable – even nine months later as I finally write this – and a total blast.
Next up: SNOOOOOWWWW!!!
