The next stop on today’s drive was Kintaikyo or as they call it on the sign “Kintaikyo Bridge”. The “kyo” is Kintaikyo means bridge so essentially you are saying Kintai Bridge Bridge. This is like when they used to call the Tama River the Tamagawa River. They fixed that now but they still call the Arakawa River that way. This is of course irrelevant to Japanese who don’t give a crap what English speakers call it. Anyway, I visited Kintaikyo bridge again today. Kintaikyo is one of the most famous Japanese bridges next to the Rainbow Bridge and Yokohama Bay Bridge ;) I was not impressed by it previously because it was dark and raining. But this time I could get a good look at it. It’s a very nice bridge although I still don’t understand why they needed to build such an elaborate thing for that tiny little river. You have to pay ¥300 just to cross it and come back. It was cold and I’m cheap so we just took some photos. Iwakuni castle sits on top of a mountain behind the bridge and there’s a ropeway you can take to visit it. There’s always a ropeway isn’t there?
(1) Another shot of the castle with the bridge (2) They were doing some repairs on the supports, probably damage from the typhoons last year (3) Plently of parking under the bridge. I think that whole space can fit about 5,000 cars easily.
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