DRIVING BACK TO HOME IN SHUNAN
23.12.2024
We were up a little later than usual as we did not get to bed until 1.00am. Mami, Nana and Yuri were chatting and playing a new game while I was writing the blog and playing solitaire.
Nana has lent us her car to make the 5 hour trip back to Shunan which is much appreciated as I love driving her car. It is a Toyota Pixas Space and is one of the ubiquitous box-like cars you find in Japan. This car has the highest roof I’ve ever seen in a car and the biggest and best windscreen. It is huge and gives great vision.
The only dislikes are the turning indicators are manual, no automatic turn off when turn is completed and there is no cruise control which is really handy on a long drive. However the comfort, space and driving experience is great.
We left Nana’s at 11.00am with me driving. We had hoped by 11.00am the traffic may have thinned a bit ….Wrong!! It was quite heavy at times but we managed, through Mami’s skills as navigator, to get ourselves onto the Sanyo Tollway and from there it was a breeze.
You will notice from the shots we took along the Sanyo Tollway, that there are lots of tunnels in Japan. On this 5 hour trip, we would have passed through nearly 100 tunnels. The longest being 3180m and the shortest being 70m and was the last tunnel before we left the Tollway for the off ramp to Shunan. The tunneling work done on roads, rail and underground shopping malls is breathtaking. Really remarkable ingenuity and skill goes into all the do in construction work.
We had a couple of stops along the way to have a coffee and a bite to eat. The truck stops have a wide range of foods on offer as well as souvenirs and magazines. Mami did two 30-40 minute stints at the wheel and I did the rest. We got some great shots along the way as passengers and also some good ones at a truck stop near Hiroshima.
Off the tollway I had no problem finding my way to Mami’s parents’ house. Youko was there to welcome us with big hugs and Yoshi did the same when he arrived home from work. I feel very much at home here and I would have no problem living in Shunan.
Tonight we chat with Yoshi and Youkoand watch a bit of television with them and share our experiences in Japan so far. So I’m going to sign off now as we both have a lot of catching up to do, but will be back in action tomorrow.
P.S. I hope you like the pictures we took today and you will notice heaps of mountain shots. That is because the spine of Honshu is pretty much all mountains. The peaks are steep and rugged and so different in shape and foliage to mountains in Australia.
