Japan Extreme Budget Travel! A trip from Tokyo to Izumo for just 30,000 yen [Part 1]

Can we make it from the capital to the land of the gods, sightsee, eat, find a hotel, and make it home for just 30,000 yen (US$195)?

Our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori has never been one to let a tight budget, or a tight schedule, keep him from traveling. In his Extreme Budget Travel series, he’s taken trips to Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, and the Philippines, with a target of spending no more than 50,000 yen (US$320) for his flights, food, lodging, and entertainment.

Recently, though, Go has been feeling the domestic Japan travel itch, since while he’s an experienced international traveler, there are still a lot of places he’s yet to visit within his home country. In keeping with his theme of wallet-friendly travel, he’s limiting himself to a budget of just 30,000 yen (US$195) for these domestic trips, and first on the list of places he wants to go is Shimane Prefecture, home of the beautiful and historically significant Izumo Taisha shrine, as well as some of Japan’s best soba noodles.

However, with Shimane being all the way on the west tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu, it’s at the opposite end of the landmass from SoraNews24’s Tokyo offices. Moreover, it’s not on the Shinkansen line or any of Japan’s other heavily used long-distance express train routes, so getting there from Tokyo involves the time, expense, and hassle of multiple train transfers…or so Go thought until fellow SoraNews24 reporter and Shimane native Mr. Sato informed him that:

“You can find cheap flights to Shimane.”

And so it was that Go found himself stepping out of his front door at 5 a.m. on a February morning and heading to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Thanks to one of Japan Airlines’ limited-time sales, he’d managed to find a round-trip ticket from Haneda to Shimane for just 18,500 yen.

Go’s flight took off right on time, at 7:05 a.m. Many of Haneda’s flights to other Asian countries head out over the sea soon after takeoff, but on this day Go’s flightpath was taking him all the way across Honshu, and the view outside his window was a fresh, and breathtaking, reminder of just how mountainous Japan is once you get away from the coastal plains where the country’s biggest cities are located. With it still being winter, as the plane passed over sections of higher-altitude mountain ranges the slopes became dusted with snow, and deep drifts could be seen piled up in the valleys.

An hour and a half after leaving Tokyo, Go’s flight landed at Izumo Enmusubi Airport in the town of Izumo, where the conditions were slushy from a heavy snowfall just the night before.

Shimane is one of Japan’s most rural prefectures, and it’s often easier to get around by car instead of waiting for infrequent trains to come by. Go had reserved a rental car, but needed to first take a 30-minute bus ride from the airport into the city. The fare was 850 yen, so between that and his round-trip flight ticket, Go now had 10,650 yen left in his budget.

On the bus ride to the Izumo City Station stop, Go had more time to admire the peaceful-looking blanket of snow that had been placed over the town.

Instead of a full-on car rental agency office, Go had tracked down a better deal being offered at a nearby Eneos, a major Japanese gas station chain. This Eneos branch has a partnership with discount rental car company Nikoniko Rentacar, and was offering a 12-hour car rental for just 2,750 yen!

▼ The 10-minute walk from the station to the Eneos branch

▼ ニコニコレンタカー = Nikoniko Rentacar

Go’s car, a compact kei-class Honda N-WGN, isn’t anything fancy, but it’ll get the job done for local sightseeing, and had plenty of interior space for a traveler who isn’t hauling massive suitcases around with himself.

It also gets good fuel economy and was fitted with studless snow tires, as the roads were rather icy.

Things seemed to get snowier still as Go continued east along National Route 9, and when he stopped to stretch his legs for a minute in a convenience store parking lot, the pavement practically looked like an ice skating rink.

Go’s big sightseeing destination in Shimane was Izumo Taisha, the shrine where the thousands of Shinto deities present across Japan are said to all gather for their yearly conference on divine matters. Before that, though, Go had a more mundane concern to take care of: he was hungry. Luckily, despite having never set foot in Shimane before today, he already knew where to go for lunch.

As mentioned above, Mr. Sato is originally from Shimane Prefecture, and for pretty much the entire decade and a half since he and Go first met, Mr. Sato has been telling Go about Yakumoan, a soba restaurant in the town of Matsue. Mr. Sato goes so far as to say it has the tastiest soba that he’s ever eaten, so even though Yakumoan is in the opposite direction from the airport as Izumo Taisha, Go was making it the first stop on his Shimane itinerary.

▼ The drive from Eneos to Yakumoan is usually only about an hour, but driving cautiously in the snowy conditions meant Go took around twice as long to get there on this day.

▼ Go isn’t the first writer on our team to heed Mr. Sato’s advice and visit Yakumoan, as our reporter Ikuna Kamezawa also stopped by in a warmer part of the year, where she snapped these photos of its rustically cool exterior, interior, and garden.

On the day of Go’s visit, the weather wasn’t quite as conducive to strolling around outside…but that made the prospect of digging in to a bowl of piping hot kamonanban soba all the more enticing!

This combination of buckwheat noodles, strips of duck, hakusai (Chinese cabbage), and green onion is specifically the one that Mr. Sato says is the best soba he’s ever had, and Go, being a big fan of soba himself, had to try it for himself.

In contrast to the dark, soy sauce-heavy broth styles of east Japan, Yakumoan’s broth is clear and surprisingly sweet, Go says. It’s not a sugary sweetness, but instead a healthier-feeling kind of sweetness that comes from the cabbage soaking in broth. The juices of the duck also mix in to create a delicious flavor that’s full of character without having any rough edges or overpowering elements.

Setting aside the question of whether or not Go would agree with Mr. Sato that this is the best he’s ever had, this is an excellent bowl of soba that is sure to satisfy anyone who’s a fan of the noodles. It was 1,400 yen well spent.

Now it was time to head back west and visit Izumo Taisha. Rather than follow the exact same course he’d taken to the restaurant, Go chose to keep circling around Lake Shinji and return to Izumo City by following Route 431, which runs along the north shore of the lake.

Along the way he stopped in a local supermarket to check out some soba noodles to take back to Tokyo and cook in his kitchen.

And then, about an hour and a half after he’d finished eating lunch…

…Go arrived at Izumo Taisha (出雲大社).

Izumo Taisha has four torii gates along its designated approach. Go’s driving route actually had him arriving at the shrine without passing through the first one, but since he’d come all the way here, he turned around and made sure to pass through it too, so that he could do the whole set.

At most Shinto shrines, you’re supposed to offer prayers by bowing twice, clapping your hand twice, and then bowing once more. At Izumo Taisha, though, there’s a different custom. The shrine is strongly associated with the idea of enmusubi, or fateful connections (most commonly thought of as the connection between lovers, but also encompassing good business relations and friendships). Because of that, at Izumo Taisha you’re supposed to clap four times instead of two, twice for yourself and twice for your enmusubi counterparts.

▼ Izumo Taisha is also famous for its massive shimenawa rice straw rope.

At this point, Go had 6,500 yen left in his budget, but he wasn’t done sightseeing or eating just yet. Also, most critically, we haven’t accounted for his hotel either! Will Go be getting bored, going hungry, or sleeping on the streets for the rest of his trip to Shimane? We’ll be back soon with the answers to all that in part two of this Japanese Extreme Budget Travel report!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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