境港クルーズ港ガイド: 3 つの簡単な DIY ツアー!
Sakame Nato, Japan seemed like a risk to spend a whole port day. I mean, what else is here but a famous manga tribute and maybe some decent seafood. We thought this would be a fast trip back to the ship, take a nap. But nope. Not only was it a full day, we can’t wait to come back. So, here’s what we discovered. But first, port basics. I’m Troy and this is the port lowdown on Sakai Minato, Japan. Port of Call. Sakai Minato is a small port city in Toto Prefecture, Japan. The city’s famous for two primary reasons. Its seafood, especially the crab, and its connection to the world of Yo-kai, supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons from Japanese folklore. Almost forgotten, except for this man, manga artist Shigaru Mizuki, who created the beloved manga Gay Gay Gay Noataro. It follows the adventures of Qataro, a young boy who was the last surviving member of a ghost tribe and the wide assortment of ghostly creatures. It’s been adopted into numerous anime series, movies, and video games over the decades. And Mr. Mizuki hails from Sakai Minato. As the favorite native son, you’ll see tributes to him and his manga, not just at the town’s most famous attraction, Mizuki Shigiru Road, lined with 177 bronze Yo-kai characters and a dedicated museum, but all over town. Now, if that’s not your thing, there’s plenty of other sites to jump off to, including Matsui Castle, one of the few remaining originals, and Iumo Taiisha Shrine, one of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines. Let’s get oriented. We docked at the Yumi Minato Terminal, which is the newer dedicated cruise terminal. Previously, ships often used the Showa Minami Wars as well. The two are sometimes used interchangeably or referred to as parts of the same overall port facility, which means for you confusion. Point is, whenever you’re driving or taking a taxi, understand there’s two different terminals. Henceforth, we’ll be referring to Yumi Minato. And we’ll have Google Map links for both in the description just to be on the safe side. It’s a pretty wide dock and a long walk if you’re not getting out midship. These rolling shades are a nice touch, but don’t offer complete protection since they originate from the building and not the ship. But still, it’s a courtesy I appreciate. The terminal is bright and welcoming with lots of souvenir tables and friendly staff. Good morning. Morning. This guy was passing out these leaflets for a free gift. Way cool and really nice, but I can’t really find ride share here. Go is the standard app for taxi hailing in Japan with Uber primarily a taxi hailing app. DD is another alternative with discount coupons. At any rate, we got a free bag and a nice one, too. Oh, thank you. And the welcome wagon was out in force. Japanese cultural activities like origami. The souvenir desks had excellent quality stuff. So much so my wife got some light jackets. And we hardly ever shop at a terminal store. Extensive seating to the side and a kids playmat area, a big one. Actually, the kids area kicks butt. Not only the giant map, but a roleplay area and reading books. Tourist information desk with English speakers. Tourist info office as well as table. Money exchange. And if you don’t have the end at this point in your trip, you’re really going to need it here. Bike rentals with storage lockers for customers. And I found this car rental table for Orex, but couldn’t get a solid answer if this was for new rentals, pickups, or what. It’s best just to reserve online and like we did, take the taxi to the airport where most of the car rental offices are. But that’s a subject for my next video. As expected, the bathrooms were first rate. Japan is high-tech toilet heaven. Nursing rooms, too, and vending, of course. Shall we guess the strength of this drip coffee bag? And we have a cleaning robot at home, but not like this. Now I know what I want for Christmas. Upstairs, there’s an added bonus, an observation balcony, which is pretty good for waving at your shipmates. Still on board, step outside and the official ship excursions meet at the front. The taxi stand is all the way at the end of the building outside to the right. No dispatcher, but you can wait for the next one to show or try your hand at the Go app to call one for you. The independent tours meet across the street. So, if you’re doing DIY and you’re not opting for cabs, you have three ways to go. Free shuttle bus to Ein Garden, paid shuttle bus to town, specifically near the train station and Mizuki Shigiru Road, or walk around the nearby area. It’s a small city, but walking all the way to town center would take over an hour. So, we decided to go for it and try all three in one day. Let’s see how that went. Okay, first free shuttle bus to Ein Garden. Turn left for the free shuttle bus. Now, we initially figured never heard of this place, but it’s free. At least the bus is, so let’s go. And because it’s a free bus, the lines build up fast, but you know, no worries. I mean, some buses are big, some buses are small, but there’s seats for everybody. So, if the line is long, patience prevails. It’s a 15-minute ride to the garden. If you can, try to sit up to the front for an on route cheap thrill. The Ishima Ohashi Bridge, otherwise known as roller coaster bridge or pedal to the metal slope. The bridge was built tall to allow large ships to pass underneath. The actual incline is less steep than it appears with its top gradient at 6.1%. But it sure doesn’t look that way from the front, hence sitting up front cuz a lot of people from behind are reaching over their cameras when we get to the slope. Our destination, Yusin Gardens, is a traditional Japanese garden located on Daikon Shima Island. The bus drops you at the garden center parking lot. From there, you pass through the garden center and cross the street to the garden complex. And no, they got wheelchairs. And even though the ticket signs don’t say cash only, the cash only still. Yeah. Really? We can take cash only. So, you just got to be care. That’s basically the point. Now, although this place gets undersold, we think it’s a must visit. Now, check this out. Look at that. It’s a strolling garden famous for its stunning harmonious design. It’s crazy beautiful in the main garden. All that mist pumped in. I can’t decide if this is a misty lake effect or a boiling hotring effect. Now, the bridge is the most popular photo op spot, so just bring some patience. In fact, it looked like they opened up early just for cruise passengers. The other reason why they know that you are a cruiser is because the garden is not scheduled to be open until 10 a.m. for the public and we got here like 9:40. So, the garden is also famous for its peies and Asian jins singh, a point of great local pride. And of course, the bathrooms are classy. The toilet seat lifts automatically and it even kicked out my GoPro. And inside we the cafe and lobby are a knockout. Sipping coffee and looking out this window should be on someone’s bucket list. Plus a small one room Jins Singh Museum. Now I noticed that throughout Japan even the smallest museum displays are beautifully done. One could say the same for Japanese gardens. If a small regional one is like this, imagine what the huge famous ones in major cities are like. This DIY excursion was a loop trip with the shuttle bus dropping us off back at the station. Sorry, no detours. Coming back from the garden, the bridge view is even wilder. For the total activity, I would give it about an hour and a half to two hours. Next, paid shuttle bus to town. Step out and turn right. You’ll see the paid shuttle to the downtown area. But here’s the thing, it’s cheap at 500 yen for a single ride, half off for kids, but it’s cash only. Again, pay on exit. Not only that, they won’t break large 5,000 or 10,000 yen bills. So either have exact change or close to for us. We jumped off the garden bus and made a bum rush for the almost leaving city shuttle. We just wanted to maximize our time even though it runs every 15 minutes. It’s from 8:00 a.m. to 2. Now it’s one of those cramped local buses with limited seating. Not a big deal to stand since the ride to the station is only about 11 minutes. So if you need a seat for any reason, try to be towards the front of the line for a new bus. And because of the cash only thing, people were scrambling to get their exact change when they leave. As you can see, the collection system is part old school, but they do make change for small enough bills. [Music] Anyway, the bus stops across the street from the station and community center facing this lovely toilet hut. Did I shoot inside? You know I did. By the way, guys, if you need a sit-down toilet, try the all gender one or you can try your hand with the squat variety. The small station across the street is adjacent to the Minato Sakai Cory Yukon building with an extensive tourist information center with bike and wheelchair rentals, convenience store, Orex car rental, and even more great bathrooms. There’s even a Yo-kai haunted house on site, or so says the ad copy. The Sakai line serves a station where you can transfer at the Yonago station and take the JR Sanin mainline to reach Matsui and Isumo Taisha Shrine. The Sakai line begins at Sakaiato and ends at Yonago and takes about 45 to 55 minutes. And if you’re in a hurry to get to the station, the cab can drop you off right in front. But coming here is about, of course, exploring Mizuki Shagaru Road. The road stretches for approximately 800 meters from Sakaiato station to the Bizuki Shagaru Museum where you can learn more about Mr. Shigaru’s life and artistic career. There’s also even more bathrooms next door before the entrance. So that effectively covers bathrooms on both ends of the road. The road itself is super whimsical with all those bronzes making for great photo ops. The stores are in a solid Yo-kai theme, of course. Some with products are just downright weird. For me, that’s a good thing. It is touristy with store hours reflecting the schedules of cruise passengers. That is to say, morning to mid-afternoon. The food matches the carnival atmosphere for the most part. Wouldn’t want to miss out on a wigu rice burger or red snow crab fried fishcake. And this area is famous for crab crackers. In fact, it’s one of the main souvenirs here. And there’s not just snack food and ice cream, but a sake brewery. And this unusual doughut and oniri shop, which we had to try on some good authority. Oh, you see it’s very good. The rice is just perfectly done. It’s not too dense cuz a lot of time when people make onigiri, it’s a little bit too dense and you feel like you eating a lot of rice. This one is not. And you could actually kind of taste a little bit of the crab smell or taste on the rice. I wonder if they use maybe, you know, some sort of broth when they cook the rice. This is a real fat. Not in the kitchen. This one is a spicy meat miso. Not sure what meat it is, but hey, you know, when in Rome. Oh, seasoning just perfect. Oh my god. And for dessert, we got the donut cuz it’s advertised outside as a donut flake. This is matcha with white chocolate. M. It doesn’t taste like it’s a fried doughnut. It’s more like a baked cake. And we’re going to do a shout out to Tabby Eats for leading us to this place cuz you know we don’t speak Japanese. But they mentioned that this has the best onigiri. And guess what? They are right. I would say 2 hours is plenty of time here. A little more for the museum. Now, our nephew Dale found a recommended restaurant to try away from the main drag. Getting there took a little more of a walk than we expected, but this place came highly recommended, and if there’s one thing about us, we’ll work harder for the good stuff. Place was called Mina. It was a good 15-minute walk away. It’s a classy place with a reputation for fresh seafood. We are in this restaurant that is highly recommended and uh found by my nephew, Rafael Deo. always know how to find the good food. Okay, so Sakamato is famous for uh seafood especially is one of the few port in Japan where the fish not all of them some of the fish is actually brought in without being ever uh frozen. So that’s when it’s daily catch literally. So I ordered a sashimi uh sat menu. always a delight to order a s menu from Japan, you know, cuz it’s not simply the taste but also the presentation uh is so beautiful. So, let’s start with this is the sushimi which is all the raw fish or the raw seafood usually. And then you got this sukimono which is usually some sort of pickles. This is a seaweed. I haven’t opened this but I think this is going to be a miso soup. If you find it difficult to open, you turn it. Can you turn it and pull it up? You have the chawan musi, the steamed egg, the steamed custard, egg custard. You have your rice. Just a dash of this. Very fresh. Very, very fresh. There’s also some vegetable here. So you could see they always cut it beautifully. These are typically root vegetable or a mix of it because they cook it with a dashi and runs a little bit sweet and cool which is nice. Let’s try the seaweed. It’s a little bit different than what we used to, right? A little bit more fine and a little bit, you know, the color is dark green versus the bright green color that we usually see in America. M it runs more sour. Uh and they use yuzu which is the local lemon. And you don’t actually eat yuzu, you know, you use it for the smell. Um cuz it’s very seedy. Very good. Let’s try the crab cream. The crab croet. So, perfectly crunchy on the outside and it’s creamy. Not just soft, but it’s cream inside. To return to the port, pay for the shuttle back or cabinet. Both are easy enough. Even with lunch and coming back to port, we still had about 3 hours or so to spare. So, we walked around. First, we turned left and walked towards this building, the Yume Manato Tower, an observation building and tourist center, and this Manato Onsen Honokame. This complex is at the head of Yume Manato Park with it lovely seaside walk. Here, the local fishermen come out in force. Outside of that, nothing to recommend it except being peaceful, quiet, serene. For me, that’s what sells it. A bit shaggy in the landscape department, but the views of the bay and checking out the locals fishing is reason enough. Coming out from the park, we turned left and down the street. Then took the next right and headed into a section that had a kind of a sterile look. And this, the star of the show, Plant 5 Supertore. This is a cross between the superv value store of Daisho, the wild Japanese character of Donke and the scale of Walmart, luggage, travel accessories, and don’t even get me started on food. They even have food kits, which is a first for me, and cheap ample sushi and bentos among many, many, many others. I walked around, marveled at the size and variety, and thought seriously about not telling my wife. Would she get hooked on this place as much as Unilo where we have to visit in every city? And yeah, she did get hooked. Let’s just say we stayed a long time. The cosmetic section especially. Added plus, they have ATMs here and a small food court. Just not much seating. Our joke is if we come back here, we may well just spend all of our time at Plant 5. I mean, why not? It’s 10-minute walk back to the terminal. Tip: Cut through this parking lot before the terminal to save a little time. We had two separate days at this port between two different cruises. And on the next one, we ventured beyond with a rental car, so stay tuned for that next port video. If this report has been helpful, please give us a like and a hype. You can also check us out on our website, portlowdown.com. We aim to help the independent cruiser with fun and informative port reports, ship tours, and travel tips. Be sure to check out our other videos from around the world. The collection just keeps getting bigger, and we love your comments. Keep them coming. We aim to answer them as soon as we can.
Just docked at the Sakaiminato cruise port in Japan and wondering what you can do without an expensive cruise ship tour? You’ve come to the right place! Many cruisers seek authentic local experiences, budget-friendly options, and accessible adventures, and this video delivers! In this complete port of call guide, we show you three fantastic DIY options for exploring Sakaiminato on your own, whether you want to immerse yourself in stunning traditional gardens, encounter playful yokai along Mizuki Shigeru Road, or discover local treasures at a Japanese superstore – Sakaiminato has it all!
We cover everything from the Sakaiminato cruise terminal facilities (hello, clean bathrooms, ATMs, and helpful tourist info!) to the free and paid shuttle buses that empower you to have an authentic local adventure exploring Sakaiminato. Learn how to get to Mizuki Shigeru Road from the cruise port and discover the beauty of Yuushien Garden.
If this guide helps you plan your Sakaiminato adventure, please hit the like button and subscribe for more cruise port tips! What’s your favorite thing to do in Sakaiminato? Let me know in the comments below!
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
1:27 Port Info (Sakaiminato Cruise Terminal facilities, free shuttle bus, paid shuttle bus options)
4:25 DIY Option 1: Free Shuttle to Yuushien Garden (Sakaiminato’s stunning traditional garden)
7:19 DIY Option 2: Paid Shuttle Bus to town (Explore Mizuki Shigeru Road, local food & shopping!)
14:46 DIY Option 3: Walk to points nearby (Visit Plant 5 Superstore for unique Japanese groceries!)
Helpful Links for your Sakaiminato Shore Excursion:
Check out the Tabi Eats Video on Mizuki Shigeru Road for more food insights!
https://youtu.be/WEhUDyWxO4?si=0CoEUVN4O2pEOtEk
Delicious Donut Shop (Hamayu) – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zRucuZhjDRbgokns8
Yuushien Garden Official Website:
https://www.yuushien.com/
Yuushien Garden – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ap8rhFSk1GA2K55t5
Sakaiminato Station / Mizuki Shigeru Road – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/SDQ24uSVpBPKTQQ26
Mizuki Shigeru Museum Official Website:
https://mizuki.sakaiminato.net/
Mizuki Shigeru Museum – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/5Rw23NwahRaskTeZ8
Mine Restaurant for fresh seafood – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8ymyteqs7HKmtnq78
Mine Restaurant Official Website:
https://hitosara.com/0004013774/
Yume Minato Park – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/51C97d9Am1cD9zXi6
Plant 5 Superstore for unique Japanese groceries – Google Map Link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/cEw1RAL1Uu8CRngU7
Plant 5 Superstore Official Website:
https://www.plant-co.jp/shop/detail/13.html
#portofcall #diyexcursion #mizukishigeruroad #japan #theportlowdown #cruisetravel #traveljapan
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