Senkoji Ropeway

I came to Onomichi, in Hiroshima. A freight train rolled over the railway bridge near the station, and a short climb up the slope opened onto a view of tiled roofs and the Onomichi Waterway beyond a three-story pagoda. Up on the hill, the ropeway cars were gliding to and from Senko-ji temple.

This is a town famous for its slopes, its literature and its movies. The writers Hayashi Fumiko and Shiga Naoya lived here, and Ozu Yasujiro's Tokyo Story and Obayashi Nobuhiko's Onomichi trilogy were filmed here. My borrowed home was a wooden house with a railed balcony on the second floor. When I slid open the door to the veranda, the rooftops of the town lay right in front of me.

Read this scene in the full journey