The transfer link does not replace the Sakura 750 seat plan or staffed pass-counter stop; the village link begins and ends at the ryokan.
JAPAN 2026
BREAKFAST
BENTO
RAILS
ONSEN
MIYAJIMAGUCHI TO ARIMA — HIROSHIMA TO KOBE
THE LANE ABOVE THE TOWN
2026
DAY IV · 5 SEPTEMBER · 宮島口 → 有馬
THE MORNING IS GIVEN BACK
The second island morning was taken out of this day on purpose. What is left is a hotel breakfast asked forward to half past eight, a station bento carried onto the train, and a rail pass collected across a counter at Hiroshima — then east, out of Chūgoku and into the hills behind Kobe. Arima has been a bathing town since a seventh-century emperor stayed there eighty-six days. Tonight it is one night, one gold bath before dinner, and sukiyaki already paid for.
JR SANYO LOCAL, ¥840 THE PAIR — 10:34 IS THE CALM FALLBACK
12:33
HIROSHIMA → SHIN-KOBE
SAKURA 750, IN AT 13:46 — SAKURA 752 IS THE PROTECTED FALLBACK
13:55
SHIN-KOBE → TANIGAMI → ARIMA ONSEN
SUBWAY, THEN SHINTETSU VIA ARIMAGUCHI — ABOUT 30 MIN, ¥720 EACH
14:45
ARIMA ONSEN — AT THE LATEST
CALL NEGIYA FROM THE STATION FOR ITS 14:00–20:00 SHUTTLE
Only the first local is paid in cash — ¥840 for the two of us — because the pass does not exist until the counter at Hiroshima issues it, and a pass bought through an agency cannot be turned into a seat by any machine. Sakura 750 is the target and Sakura 752 an hour later is the protected fallback. Everything after Shin-Kobe is unreserved local rail, so past 13:46 the only clock that matters is the ryokan's.
The hotel confirmed two seats at ten. The approved plan asks it forward to half past eight, so the morning ends calmly instead of at a run — and until Fork & Knife says yes, ten o'clock is still the booking that exists. Both times sit inside service: the dining room runs half past seven to eleven and stops taking orders at ten. Local ingredients, and premium rice polished that morning and steamed in earthenware. The request goes in the dietary reply due 28 August.
Ueno has sold this box at Miyajimaguchi station for more than a hundred and ten years, and it is built to be good after it cools — which is the whole point of a station bento. It comes out wrapped: vermilion block print, the shop's own seal, a violet string, and a line of instructions for eating it. The window opens at nine; we collect two small boxes at about ten to ten, seven minutes on foot from the hotel door, and untie them somewhere east of Hiroshima. One window serves reserved and walk-up customers alike, so the booking secures the food and not the queue: ten minutes, then go for the 10:19.
The Klook voucher becomes a pass here, at a staffed window, with both passports and the QR in hand. A pass bought through an agency cannot use the machines and cannot reserve online, so every seat on this trip has to be asked for across this counter. Issue the pass and Sakura 750 first; Sunday's Sanyo leg and the four Kanazawa sectors only if the line leaves time. Water, restroom, platform. Hiroshima itself is not on today's list.
This hour is the whole point of the change. Drop the bag at Negiya, ask for Natsume at the desk, and go back out before the bath and the meal take the evening. Yumotozaka climbs from the centre past small wooden shopfronts; beside Kin no Yu the association keeps a free foot bath in the same gold water, and behind it the temple quarter holds Onsen-ji, Nenbutsu-ji and Tōsen-jinja — the shrine whose own account says two gods found this spring by watching three wounded crows bathe in it. Buy the tansan senbei.
The revised evening puts the water first: bathe, rest in the room, then eat — instead of arriving only in time for dinner. Arima's kinsen is iron and salt that reached the surface before anyone had the tools to dig for it; it turns red-brown in the air and carries one and a half to two times the salt of seawater, and the town holds seven of the nine components the ministry recognises as therapeutic. Ask for the Natsume bath at the desk on arrival — forty-five minutes, ¥3,300 with tax, half outdoors, allotted in check-in order — and take the public Kinsen if it has gone.
One night — a 40 m² west-wing Japanese room, futons, no bath of its own. Ask for Natsume at the desk on arrival; it goes in check-in order. Dinner is included, and its exact service time is still unconfirmed — the 18:00–18:30 window is a request, not the house's assignment.
¥840
MIYAJIMAGUCHI–HIROSHIMA LOCAL, PARTY THE ONLY LEG PAID BEFORE THE PASS
¥4,860
TWO SMALL UENO BENTOS ¥2,430 EACH, TAX INCLUDED
¥52,000
JR-WEST PASS, PARTY — NOT YET BOUGHT SEVEN DAYS, SEP 5 TO 11
¥10,440
DAY TOTAL, TWO TRAVELLERS PASS EXCLUDED · BOTH MEALS INCLUDED
IF SOMETHING SLIPS — Fork & Knife refuses 08:30 → keep the confirmed 10:00, the 11:33 local and Sakura 752, and shorten the village, never the bath or the dinner. Ueno's line over ten minutes → Musubi no Musashi at Hiroshima once the pass is issued. Counter still going at 12:20 → pass and Sakura first, the other five seats later. Natsume gone → public Kinsen, 15:00–25:00 or 05:00–10:00.
The transfer link does not replace the Sakura 750 seat plan or staffed pass-counter stop; the village link begins and ends at the ryokan.
JAPAN 2026BREAKFASTBENTORAILSONSENMIYAJIMAGUCHI TO ARIMA — HIROSHIMA TO KOBETHE LANE ABOVE THE TOWN2026
DAY IV · 5 SEPTEMBER · 宮島口 → 有馬
THE MORNING IS GIVEN BACK
The second island morning was taken out of this day on purpose. What is left is a hotel breakfast asked forward to half past eight, a station bento carried onto the train, and a rail pass collected across a counter at Hiroshima — then east, out of Chūgoku and into the hills behind Kobe. Arima has been a bathing town since a seventh-century emperor stayed there eighty-six days. Tonight it is one night, one gold bath before dinner, and sukiyaki already paid for.
JR SANYO LOCAL, ¥840 THE PAIR — 10:34 IS THE CALM FALLBACK
12:33
SAKURA 750, IN AT 13:46 — SAKURA 752 IS THE PROTECTED FALLBACK
13:55
SUBWAY, THEN SHINTETSU VIA ARIMAGUCHI — ABOUT 30 MIN, ¥720 EACH
14:45
CALL NEGIYA FROM THE STATION FOR ITS 14:00–20:00 SHUTTLE
Only the first local is paid in cash — ¥840 for the two of us — because the pass does not exist until the counter at Hiroshima issues it, and a pass bought through an agency cannot be turned into a seat by any machine. Sakura 750 is the target and Sakura 752 an hour later is the protected fallback. Everything after Shin-Kobe is unreserved local rail, so past 13:46 the only clock that matters is the ryokan's.
HALF PAST TWELVEさくら — A SAKURA SET, N700 SERIESSEATS NOT YET ISSUED
INCLUDED, FOR TWO土鍋 — RICE IN THE CLAY POT07:30–11:00 · L.O. 10:00
HALF PAST EIGHT · 朝食
THE MEAL WE ASKED TO MOVE
The hotel confirmed two seats at ten. The approved plan asks it forward to half past eight, so the morning ends calmly instead of at a run — and until Fork & Knife says yes, ten o'clock is still the booking that exists. Both times sit inside service: the dining room runs half past seven to eleven and stops taking orders at ten. Local ingredients, and premium rice polished that morning and steamed in earthenware. The request goes in the dietary reply due 28 August.
Ueno has sold this box at Miyajimaguchi station for more than a hundred and ten years, and it is built to be good after it cools — which is the whole point of a station bento. It comes out wrapped: vermilion block print, the shop's own seal, a violet string, and a line of instructions for eating it. The window opens at nine; we collect two small boxes at about ten to ten, seven minutes on foot from the hotel door, and untie them somewhere east of Hiroshima. One window serves reserved and walk-up customers alike, so the booking secures the food and not the queue: ten minutes, then go for the 10:19.
OPENED ON THE SAKURAあなごめし — THE WRAPPER, STILL TIEDSMALL · ¥4,860 THE PAIR
NOT YET BOUGHT新幹線改札 — THE SHINKANSEN GATES¥26,000 EACH · SEP 5–11
LATE MORNING · 広島駅
EIGHTY MINUTES, ONE QUEUE
The Klook voucher becomes a pass here, at a staffed window, with both passports and the QR in hand. A pass bought through an agency cannot use the machines and cannot reserve online, so every seat on this trip has to be asked for across this counter. Issue the pass and Sakura 750 first; Sunday's Sanyo leg and the four Kanazawa sectors only if the line leaves time. Water, restroom, platform. Hiroshima itself is not on today's list.
This hour is the whole point of the change. Drop the bag at Negiya, ask for Natsume at the desk, and go back out before the bath and the meal take the evening. Yumotozaka climbs from the centre past small wooden shopfronts; beside Kin no Yu the association keeps a free foot bath in the same gold water, and behind it the temple quarter holds Onsen-ji, Nenbutsu-ji and Tōsen-jinja — the shrine whose own account says two gods found this spring by watching three wounded crows bathe in it. Buy the tansan senbei.
The revised evening puts the water first: bathe, rest in the room, then eat — instead of arriving only in time for dinner. Arima's kinsen is iron and salt that reached the surface before anyone had the tools to dig for it; it turns red-brown in the air and carries one and a half to two times the salt of seawater, and the town holds seven of the nine components the ministry recognises as therapeutic. Ask for the Natsume bath at the desk on arrival — forty-five minutes, ¥3,300 with tax, half outdoors, allotted in check-in order — and take the public Kinsen if it has gone.
One night — a 40 m² west-wing Japanese room, futons, no bath of its own. Ask for Natsume at the desk on arrival; it goes in check-in order. Dinner is included, and its exact service time is still unconfirmed — the 18:00–18:30 window is a request, not the house's assignment.
¥840
MIYAJIMAGUCHI–HIROSHIMA LOCAL, PARTY THE ONLY LEG PAID BEFORE THE PASS
¥4,860
TWO SMALL UENO BENTOS ¥2,430 EACH, TAX INCLUDED
¥52,000
JR-WEST PASS, PARTY — NOT YET BOUGHT SEVEN DAYS, SEP 5 TO 11
¥10,440
DAY TOTAL, TWO TRAVELLERS PASS EXCLUDED · BOTH MEALS INCLUDED
IF SOMETHING SLIPS — Fork & Knife refuses 08:30 → keep the confirmed 10:00, the 11:33 local and Sakura 752, and shorten the village, never the bath or the dinner. Ueno's line over ten minutes → Musubi no Musashi at Hiroshima once the pass is issued. Counter still going at 12:20 → pass and Sakura first, the other five seats later. Natsume gone → public Kinsen, 15:00–25:00 or 05:00–10:00.
