Well, I’m back from the weekend trip to Shikoku. Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It’s just south of where I live, and it was surprisingly easy to get there.
Kuniko picked me up early and we hit the road, eager to get there. We traveled across the Akashi Bridge to the small island of Awaji, a place that I’ve been once before. That time Mr. Hayashi was driving me and Kuniko along on a trip to visit his father in the hospital. This time Mr. Hayashi was nowhere to be found and we could go wherever we wanted.
We shot right through Awaji to the next bridge leading to Shikoku. My first impression of Shikoku was that it was the same as everything else that I’ve seen in Japan, but later I found out that I was completely wrong.
As we drove west across Shikoku, the mountains became higher and higher, and the views more dramatic. The weather was perfect, and soon we were on a road following a river through deep forest canyons.
It’s hard to describe what it was like driving through there, and the pictures as I look at them now don’t do it justice. They hills rose on either side of us, and you had lean way over in the car to see the tops. We stopped a few times to soak in the view, and then we moved on.
Every so often we’d drive by a bridge that stretched across the canyon, from one forest to another. At first I was going nuts taking pictures of these beautiful bridges, but I soon realized that there were a lot more bridges than pictures in my camera, so I cooled it down a little.
A couple of highlights – we stopped near a rocky part of the river, and below they were giving boat rides. Stretched above were lots of colorful fabric carp hanging from ropes over the canyon.
We stopped at a restaurant for some udon noodles that are one of the feature dishes of Shikoku. The place was quiet and simple, but the soup was great. We sat at our table and were surprised to find a ninja hanging on the wall above us. As we slurped away at our udon noodles it was strange to have the figure of an attacking ninja in the corner of your eye.
One of the tourist destinations in that area was a really old wooden bridge that crosses the river at one point. We parked near the bridge and paid 500 yen to walk across. It was a sturdy bridge despite its age, and I could see steel cables underneath the wood planks so it was safe. The scary part was the wide gaps between the planks – it would be easy to put your foot in the wrong place and get a big scare. We went across and I took a few pictures but I got nervous about losing my camera so I cut it out.
We got back on the road and headed through another deep canyon area, then finally turned to the south and headed for the ocean. We got to Kochi in the afternoon, and went right to Katsurahama, a beach famous for it’s view and the statue of a famous samurai. Oh, and it’s also famous for dog fighting.
We walked past the souvenir shops, bought a shaved ice, and then went to the beach. I noticed that they had lots of pictures of dogs and ropes, but I didn’t find out the significance until later.
At the beach we took in the view, and I took way too many pictures. The sun was warm and the weather was beautiful – it was a perfect time to visit.
After walking around the beach and seeing the famous statue, we went back to the souvenir shops to look at what they had. From up above the shops I could hear dogs barking and then some horrible yelping, and then I figured out what was going on. What a strange place to have dog fights.
We moved right on out of there and went to check out our hotel and rest up a bit. Kuniko had been driving all day long, and since I’m unlicensed to drive in Japan I wanted to make sure she was well rested.
The hotel was a business hotel, which means it was tiny, but it worked well enough for us. I made a reservation at a delicious looking restaurant on the phone, and then we walked out there to find it.
Kochi is really a beautiful town. The city is built around a series of waterways that come in from the ocean, so there are bridges everywhere. There are lots of gigantic ships harbored there, but then there are neighborhoods surrounded by ocean, too. It didn’t look like a big industrial city – more like what I imagine a European city on the ocean is like.
As we walked around the city of Kochi, Kuniko and I both noticed that we got a lot more attention than we do in Kobe or Osaka. Just from what we saw it appears that foreigners are a little more unusual there, so we had lots of people checking us out. They would look at me, and then look at Kuniko, and it seemed to happen a lot more often than usual.
We got to the restaurant, got some giant beers and ordered up some of the local specialties – katsuo, and kujira. Katsuo is a raw fish with flesh the same color as tuna, a deep dark red. The raw fish is then cooked just on the edges, probably with some kind of flamethrower. Then it is served with onions, garlic, more onions, and basil leaves. It was really good – kind of like seared Ahi tuna, except it is a lot less sear and a lot more fish.
Next was kujira, otherwise known as whale. I had some reservations about trying this one. On one hand, I’m not a big fan of the Japanese whaling practices, and I think that by ordering whale and eating it I’m somehow contributing to this. On the other hand, in this part of the country eating whale is a way of life – a part of the culture. They’ve been eating whale here for a long time. Also, I wanted to see what it tasted like.
It was good. We ordered it served raw over nigiri sushi. The flavor was good, it wasn’t fatty at all, and combined with the taste of the wasabi, wow! I really liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite.
We also ordered a plate of standard makizushi. It was a pretty expensive dinner, so we decided to just eat the local delicacies, and then go out for dinner part two later on.
At Kochi station we bought some souvenirs for the people back home, and then we moved on to a ramen restaurant that Kuniko had seen and we split a bowl of ramen and some chicken in a sour sauce that was really good. I loaded up the ramen with garlic – it also had some tender pork with loads of pork fat floating around in there, so good – especially if you’ve been drinking gigantic beers.
It was a great night and we went to bed fairly early. The next day we got up and walked out to the local castle, walking along a farmers market. We picked up some flowers for Kuniko’s mom, some yuzu juice (some kind of citrus – it’s really sour, but good) for me, and then came back to the hotel and got back in the car.
We drove out of town and headed to the Anpanman museum east of Kochi. Who is Anpanman? It’s this cute character – the story is that he is made of out bread, his head is stuffed with sweet beans (called ‘anko’ in Japanese), and he flies around fighting evil and allowing starving children to take bites of his head. Really.
Anyway, Kuniko is a big fan, and some people say that she looks a lot like Anpanman, especially because of her cheeks. It was a must-see for us, so we drove quite a ways to get there, and then went into the museum and looked around.
It was pretty cool, and it was similar to the Charles Schulz museum that we got to see on our last trip back to California. The design was modern and really well done. The place was crawling with kids all enjoying the chance to see all their cartoon heroes in action, and we took lots of pictures and enjoyed seeing some of the older artwork.
After about an hour or so we headed on down the road. The road through Tokushima Prefecture was even more windy than the road coming in, with lots of rocks and pebbles on the road to remind you that at any point you might get a boulder through your window.
Kuniko was a real trouper to drive the whole way again – windy roads are hard to drive and require all of your attention. I kept the CDs going and just enjoyed the scenery on the way back.
Apparently this area gets a lot of snow during the winter, and I tried to imagine what it would be like then. There were lots of very remote towns, and I also thought about what it would have been like if I had ended up getting placed in some snowy little town in the mountains. Would I still be in Japan? Would I have wanted to stay? It was hard not to be jealous of the mountains – I’m sure there are hiking trails all over the place, and I would really enjoy being close to nature. I don’t know about taking a bus forty minutes to the nearest grocery store, though.
We had a very late lunch in Tokushima, stopping in for some famous Tokushima ramen. The noodles here were smaller but more plentiful, and there was a raw egg in the middle of the meaty sauce. There were also strips of beef in there, and the whole thing was delicious. It was so good.
At last, we headed back to my house. On the way back we saw a factory across the water from my town that was ablaze, but as we got closer it looked like they were doing it on purpose, burning a lot of some unknown substance. It was pretty scary to see, the first for me to see anything like that.
We double parked Kuniko’s car and went inside to drop my stuff off before we drove to Kuniko’s parent’s house. We were inside just a few minutes when we got a phone call from the apartment manager apologizing profusely for bothering us but could we possibly move the car please?
We said we’d be right down, hung up the phone, and then the phone rang again and it was another teacher from the complex warning us that we were parked in the manager’s spot. Thanks, thank you, we’re leaving right now, thanks….
We got out of there without further incident and we went over to Kuniko’s place. It was good to see Kuniko’s folks, and spend a little bit of Mother’s Day with the future mother-in-law. She enjoyed the flowers, and she cooked us all a big dinner. We had a great conversation and everyone is really excited about the big wedding in November. We talked a little logistics regarding the group of rowdy Americans a.k.a. my family and friends who are coming, and threw around some ideas.
Kuniko made one last drive out to my house and dropped me off, and then I went right to bed and crashed. That was great – I’m hoping to visit Shikoku again sometime. It was dramatically different from the Japan I see everyday.
