Today was the day of the epic Shimanami Kaido! This is a renowned, beautiful, uninterrupted 60km bike path that connects Honshu (main island of Japan) to Shikoku, through an archipelago out of Onomichi. We had originally considered preparing our bodies for the full go, but decided to just do a day trip and then take a ferry back. Knowing it was going to be a long day, we stopped by the Lawsons’ to get some coffee, and パン屋航路 for bread, not eating on the go of course!

For bike rentals, I somehow found a helmet that fit me, but got a bike that was too short, which was going to cause some pain later. We got the ferry to the starting line amongst a sea of schoolchildren, and then got underway. The island views were breath taking the whole way, truly feeling transported to a paradise and easy to forget you came from an urban city. The riding itself was a joy, on a mostly protected path with polite cars through natural beauty. The bikes up to the bridges were steep and tough, but rewarded us with even more clear and amazing views.

Our fitness wasn’t an issue, but for myself, butt soreness was quickly becoming one. On our first break at around halfway, we stopped for a vending machine coffee and eating our melon pan at the Innoshima Flower Center. We then made it to Dolce for some phenomenal gelato, coffee, and dumplings. Our final destination was the Kousan-ji temple in the small sub-town of Setoda (which became part of Onomichi proper in 2006). We ate a hodge podge lunch of vendor croquette and chicken thigh. Finally, we caught the ferry back, a trip that Lu fortunately slept through to avoid any motion sickness

Back on the main island, we stopped for even more souvenirs, before getting Eternity crepes to sate our growing hunger. These were mind-numblingly cute-licious. In retrospect, I would say Koli is just as good, if not more expensive, a take I have on a lot of the Japanese fare in San Diego. We did a bit more shopping, before deciding on avoiding any restaurant hunting stress and just bringing back a Lawsons’ dinner to the AirBnB. We ate a surprisingly tasty feast of omu rice, soba, mountain veggies, and onigiri, washed down with a cheap but quality highball can. Cheap, plentiful, and delicious, it really makes me wish the equivalent were readily available in America – Nijiya is the closest, but that’s not a convenience store is it?

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