Japan is one of my favorite destinations, after a great personal winter tour to Northern Japan early this year; I never imagined that I would have a business trip to this country again in the same year, and with no hesitation I immediately planned to visit Iwami Ginzan, the only World Heritage Site on Honshu Island that I have not seen yet. Reading Els’s and John Booth’s review, Iwami Ginzan seems to be very hard to visit and quite complicated for means of transportation, but actually the place is very easy to go. Iwami Ginzan is one of the few tourist attractions in Japan, that tourists need to look for alternative transportation instead of its superb train system, and the answer for Iwami Ginzan is the reliable and comfortable long-distance bus. From Hiroshima Train Station, there are direct buses connecting the city to the village of Omori and Iwami Ginzan World Heritage Center within 2.5 hours making a possible one-day trip!

After many beautiful views of countless almost ready to harvest rice fields, my bus finally took me to Omori, the chief village of Iwami Ginzan, the first thing I did was to rent a bike and ride to Raganji Temple to see the cave temples, the caves and the statues inside were quite nice to see, then I continue my trip to Ryugenji Mabu Shaft, the sample silver mine that open for casual tourists. The mine was really cold inside even I visited in the summer with more than 30 Celsius outsides! The mine hole actually really small, hard to believe the hardship of miners in old time, even today the mine has been expanded for tourist, I still considered it to be very small! After mine, I ride my bicycle back to the village to discover many beautiful wooden houses. Omori was quite photogenic with row of traditional houses, and I really enjoyed walking around the place. While most of the shops seemed to be closed, but actually business is opened as usual, just moved the sliding door to enter inside. My favorite place in the village was the Kumagai Residence Museum; the residence displayed the lifestyle of rich merchant class. I really impressed its lovely Japanese garden, tea ceremony room and big kitchen.

Then I took a local bus to World Heritage Center to see the exhibition of Iwami Ginzan history before took a bus back to Hiroshima. All in all, Iwami Ginzan is a fine World Heritage Site, but mining is not my interest, so I don’t feel any special from the site except the fact that of how small of original mines is. For the village of Omori, I really liked the place as it still able to keep rural and peaceful atmosphere, the place is still not in the full show of commercialization liked other Japanese tourist spots. The town itself seems to know the important of restricted development, much modernity is kept well behind even the vending machines are put inside wooden cases. But everything can change in the future as well as Iwami Ginzan that from sleepy village to prosperous mining town then from prosperous mining town to unknown village and currently from unknown village to the World Heritage Site!