Sonic Statue

There are some places that you hear about on the internet and think "Wow. Shame I'll never see it myself" But turns out, if you give the right people enough money, they actually just let you go to most places. It's mad!! As a lifelong Sonic fan I knew this existed but mostly as an obscure meme and distant dream. But when planning a once in a lifetime Japan trip with my loving partner and we were faced with a choice of doing literally anything else vs spending a day travelling out of the cities to see this statue, I knew in my heart of hearts there was only one choice. We got 3 trains and a bus, and did not have a plan for how to get back, because the bus is fairly infrequent. When being driven along these narrow winding roads, the reason for that became obvious. That also scuppered our potential "maybe we'll just walk two hours back to the station...?" plan. I'm sure you COULD do it, but it'd feel quite dodgy, you'd have to be very aware of traffic, there might not be much room.. We also thought maybe we could get a taxi, but there was nothing on Uber, and couldn't find a local firm. In the end, I figured we could walk to a local inn, or even house, and just use my bad Japanese and Google translate to ask for help. OR just wait two hours for the bus. Anyway, the statue itself - it's Sonic. He's in the woods. What more do you want. And, as luck would have it - the bus driver, on his way back home, saw us taking photos, and asked where we were going - we said back to Aoyamacho, and he said, get in! So we got one last snap and then we did. He took us back to town no sweat - what a legend. So everything was fine! So, all in all, a great adventure. I met my hero. We saw some beautiful views while travelling there and back. And sunset from the shrine at Aoyamacho was a beautiful way to cap off a wonderful day. ..but if you go, maybe have a better escape plan than we did.