Now is the midst of a week holiday called a golden week. My husband is a caregiver for the elderly, so he works as usual. Only I went to Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture by shinkansen or bullet train for a memorial concert of Mr. Kitashima who was an important person to us. The concert was held at the musical instrument museum next to Hamamatsu Station and it was great.
Three of my friends in Hamamatsu were about to travel by a camping car that evening. They gave me a ride on the way to Hiroshima and Shikoku and would stop at Kobe for me. They didn’t plan where to stay, as usual. I slept on the rooftop of the car for the first time at a service area on a highway. They let me use a sleeping bag that is used in a snow mountain. It was extraordinarily warm and comfortable that I hadn’t known at all.
Next morning when the car passed over Kobe, I changed my mind not to get off the car but to go to Hiroshima together with them. We went to an island called Miyajima by ferry. There is a famous shrine named Itsukushima-jinja. You can see an orange gate in the sea. The tide was receding and the sea floor was exposed when we arrived so we were able to walk to the gate on foot.
There is a mountain called Misen where a famous Buddhist priest, Kuukai, opened a saint place. It is only 535 meters high. You can climb up to the peak by cable car, but you have to walk the last part on foot. From the peak, you can see many islands on Setonaikai, the Inland Sea. Miyajima has lots of good local food. We ate anago looking/tasting like unagi or eels, oysters and several kinds of sweets. Our stomachs were not big enough to taste all of them. We were very sure that we would come back again some day.
My Hamamatsu friends were going to find a good onsen or hot spring for the night. I remembered that an old friend bought a condo opposite Miyajima recently. I called her, and then we met. She recommended a good onsen nearby that she just went to the previous day. They went off to the onsen and ahead to the next place, and I decided to stay with her the night.
She works for a university and also has been studying “coaching” for 3 years. She wanted me to be her client. She asked me several questions about my goals on my business. She never told me what to do but she helped me make the goals clear on how to accomplish them myself. We decided which day of the week and what time we will talk over the phone about what’s going on. It sure is thrilling.
The next day, my Hamamatsu friends went to another island named Shodo-shima, and I took a local train back to Kobe. It was about 4,000 yen cheaper than shinkansen, but it took about 5 and a half hours. I had to change the lines twice. I couldn’t buy any food or drink till the second transfer station because there was no time. I was hungry and thirsty. 5 pieces of gum eased me. I enjoyed looking out of the window. There were lots of green, pink and purple colors in the mountains.
That was my holiday. Things went back to normal yesterday. My friends are in Shikoku now and they are going to drop by my place tomorrow. Next week, after the long holiday, they are going to Tohoku, the affected area by the earthquake and tsunami, by that camping car and help them clear the damaged things. I realised that camping cars like my friends’ can be of use in such an emergency because they don’t need hotels to stay in or restaurants to have meals at.
