Wakayama Vacation

The kids have, almost, the entire month of August off school and Honda has a week and a half. This is Japan’s Obon holiday week. So most of the country is on holiday and many people go back to their home towns to visit family. We decided to take 5 days to drive down to Wakayama Prefecture. It’s about an 8 hour drive for normal humans, but 10 hours for people that have to stop and pee every 10 minutes. We fall into the second category.

We drove through Tokyo for the first time and past Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see it at all. It was covered in clouds and haze. We went through Nagoya too, but didn’t get to stop and see Yuhei either. We left at 8:30am and arrived around 7:00pm. We stayed at an Airbnb. Its a stand-alone house in a super old neighborhood, owned by an old lady. I’m pretty sure all the dishes, furniture, blankets, etc. are just her own personal things. Not the nicest house, but it definitely has character. And it is in the perfect location to do all the things we wanted to do.

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We wanted to stay out of the big cities and popular tourist hot spots. So we chose the Kumano Sanzan of Wakayama Prefecture. The entire area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of it’s cultural significance. There are 3 main shrines within about 25miles of each other, and the entire peninsula has pilgrimage paths all over it so you can walk to the shrines. It’s the birthplace of Japanese Shintoism. Interesting fact is that the place we went last week, the Zuiganji Temple up north in Matsushima, was built using trees transported from the Wakayama area because of its spiritual power. So it was kind of cool to experience both places with that link.

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Day 1 – Kumano Hayatama Taisha

The first shrine is only a 10 minute walk from our house, so we decided to knock it out first. It was hot! Its fully Japanese summer now. It was in the 90’s and humid. But the kids were troopers all week. The shrine is near the river, so we walked down there to throw some rocks afterwards. Then we came straight back home because we couldn’t handle the heat! I went back after the kids went to sleep to take some night pictures. It was a little creepy there at night so I didn’t stay long.

After staying in the cool house during the hottest part of the day, we ventured out again to a little ramen shop. It was a true hole-in-the-wall, but it was delicious!

Then we walked from there to the Shingu Castle Ruins. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera so there aren’t so many pictures, but it was really cool. It was really tall and you could look out and see an awesome sunset over the mountains. And we only saw one other person there the whole time.

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Day 2 – Kumano Nachi Taisha

This shrine was the main reason for coming. Actually the BrewLifeJapan website logo is based off of this shrine. So I’ve wanted to visit here for a long time. Its the tallest waterfall in Japan, and there is a sweet 3 storied pagoda in front of it.

After that we came back for our afternoon cool down during the heated part of the day. Then we made our way south to the tip of Honshu. Japan is made of 4 islands, the main island is called Honshu. So we made our way to the southernmost point. On the way, we stopped at cool spot called Hashiguiiwa. It was made from a volcano spewing up from underneath, then the wall getting broken away by the waves over the centuries. It was super cool and the kids loved it. We found hermit crabs in all the tide pools. Many people were there with bug boxes and nets to catch sea creatures.

Then we made our way to the southern point. It is called Shionomisaki. So we looked out there for a while and found an awesome little ramen shop there. It was the 2nd best ramen we’ve ever had in Japan. So, great find. Also the kids were really into the experience. They loved seeing the lighthouse spin its light and kept their eyes peeled the entire way home in the dark for more lighthouses off the coast. They found one more. It was a fun coastal drive.

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Day 3 – Kumano Hongu Taisha

This entire peninsula of Japan has pilgrimage routes all across it, called the Kumano Kodo. They connect all the shrines and people walk them to purify themselves. But this shrine is the only one that all the pilgrimage paths lead to. We walked the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage path for about 2km. It was really pretty. All the cedar trees were awesome and the path stone pattern changed a few times to keep it interesting. Then we took a side path that was suggested to us by the visitors center guy. It provided an amazing view down to the original site of the shrine, which is marked by the largest Torii Gate in the world.

You can see a close up view of how big the gate actually is here.

Then here is the actual shrine.

Again the kids were champs doing all this walking. We stopped for some shaved ice, lunch, and a few vending machine drinks and they stayed focused the whole time.

On the drive back through the mountains and following a beautiful blue river, we decided to pull over and see if we could wade out into the river. It was just so blue and we saw some other people out there doing it. It was a beautiful sunny day when we parked. By the time we made it to the river bank, which was only about 3 minutes, the wind started blowing so hard and dark clouds rolled in and it started sprinkling a bit. We thought, welp I don’t think we are supposed to swim in this river!

So we got back in the car and drove back to the area around our house to a cool restaurant where you grill your own food. The kids enjoyed it too.

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Day 4 – Kamikura Shrine

This shrine is only a 10 minute walk from our house… to the entrance. Then you have to walk up a very steep mountain over 500 steps. The kids did not enjoy this one. Mostly because it was so freaking hot outside. But it was cool once we made it to the top. Its actually a pretty small shrine around a giant boulder sticking out of the side of the mountain. But it’s kind of the most important shrine of all. Its the one where the gods descended down to Earth and landed on this rock. There was also a really cool view of the city and the ocean down below. This whole trip only took about an hour and we were back in our house recovering and staying protected from the heat.

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Heading Home

The next morning we set off for home. It was a pretty easy drive. We played a game where we counted the tunnels we had to travel through. We each guessed how many we thought at the beginning.
OUR GUESSES
JUSTIN – 35 tunnels
HEATHER – 48 tunnels
CAROLINE – 22 tunnels
NATHAN – 25 tunnels

ACTUAL AMOUNT OF TUNNELS – 116!!

It was a fun game and it kept the kids focused. And we were all amazed how many tunnels we actually had to go through.

Also on the way back we finally got to see Mount Fuji! Its just impressive. Its massive.

So that was our big vacation for the Obon summer holiday. It was a unique experience and we feel it kept us away from giant crowds. Honestly, there were not many people anywhere we went. I’m not sure if that was because people weren’t traveling due to corona or nobody really goes to Wakayama and we’re just weird. Either way, it was a great adventure for us.