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Today Casey and I decided to go on an adventure. It took us 2 days to decide to go to Onomichi City (to the east of us), and after arriving at the train station and discovering that it would cost almost $40 round trip for transportation, we decided to choose another destination. So, standing infront of the ticket machine at the train station we looked up at the map on the wall, and decided on a random town to the west of us. Iwakuni City (our new destination) only cost $18 round trip, so we thought it was a much better idea. Neither of us had brought any information on Iwakuni, nor did we have a map, but we did know that there was a famous bridge there, so we set off on our adventure, and about 2 hours later we arrived in a little town surrounded by mountains.
Iwakuni City was founded in 1600 after the great Battle of Sekigahara. The city is 'famous' for the Kintai Bridge, Iwakuni Castle, white snakes of Iwakuni, and the Mekata samuri clan. I think by far my favorite tourist attraction was Iwakuni Castle. The castle is built on top of Mt. Shiroyama (also known as Mt. Yokoyama) and towers over the city. Construction of the castle began in 1601 and was finished in 1608 during the Edo period. Seven years after construction of the castle was complete, the 'shogun' (name of a government) decreed that the castle had to be torn down due to a new law which stated that every province was only allowed to have one castle. Later, in 1962, the castle was reconstructed.
Enough of the history, pictures are much more fun. So yeah, it was a great day of sightseeing. The day was very relaxing (being in a relatively small mountain village) and productive.

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