A Random Trip to Shikoku

Posted on 2008/03/28 00:30:08 (March 2008).

[Friday 21st March]
There are four main islands, plus hundreds of smaller ones, that make up the Japanese archipelago. These are Honshu (the biggest, and where most of the population resides) followed by Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Up until now I had only ever been on the first two of those.

Today we had nothing in particular planned, and as we had our Japan Rail passes it seemed like a good idea to make use of them and go for a daytrip somewhere. Both Kyushu and Shikoku are manageable as daytrips from Hiroshima, but it seemed that Kyushu was a slightly larger undertaking, and given that typically we didn't get around to going out until the early afternoon, we opted for Shikoku.

En route to the station we also dropped by Chie's grandparents to say a quick hello.

We got an a Shinkansen bound for Okayama some time after 2, and from Okayama then changed onto a smaller local train bound for Shikoku. One of the main reasons we'd wanted to go to Shikoku was to go over the Seto-ohashi - the bridge that links Honshu and Shikoku, probably one of the longest bridges in the world. Going over it by train was really quite exciting - I think both Chie and I are closet nerds for this sort of thing - although on the downside the classic problem with rail bridges is that you can't really see the bridge itself particularly well when you're actually on it.

We got off at the first station over the other side of the bridge - a place whose name escapes me (Sakanaide or something?) and were then at a bit of a loose end for what to do next. We mulled over several ideas - including trying to go back by ferry - until eventually we settled upon going to visit Takamatsu - one of the major cities on Shikoku.

I had definitely got the impression previously that Shikoku was something of a backwater - I didn't imagine it would have any sizable cities. So I was quite surprised when we got to Takamatsu - it's a thriving, modern and fairly large (by British standards) city. There was a tall building next to the station from the top floor of which we were able to get some nice views over the city and out to sea (see the pictures).

Apparently the regional speciality of Takamatsu (or perhaps Shikoku in general?) is udon - those thick Japanese noodles, often served in soup. So Chie was keen to try some while she was here. She popped into the tourist information centre to see if they could recommend anywhere, and they furnished her with a fold-out map with a guide to what appeared to be almost every udon place of note in town. You can't fault the Japanese for their provision for tourists. So we took a bit of a wander, and ended up selecting one off the map fairly at random.

I initially thought I wouldn't be able to eat udon in a restaurant because they were always cooked in dashi (fish stock). However it turns out they actually serve the udon in a bowl of hot water, with the dashi in a separate little bowl for dipping. So with only a relatively small amount of persuasion that it was a sane thing to do, we managed to get them to produce some udon for me, with just soy sauce in the little bowl instead of the usual dashi. It's probably the first time I've had udon in a restaurant like this, and it was rather nice.

We decided we should probably head back to Hiroshima after that, so went back to the station, got a regular train from Takamatsu to Okayama, and then the Shinkansen from there to Hiroshima.

When we got back to Chie's family's place, around 9ish, we were treated to a second dinner (we'd only had a small-ish bowl of udon in Takamatsu) - this time the old Hiroshima favourite okonomiyaki.

John: A little mistake... There are technically 5 bigger island in Japan (or 6 if you want to be picky and add AI island)... The 5th is OKINAWA!! :D Although you could say that it is part of the archipelago... oh well.. I would have loved the Udon, must go to Shikoku sooner or later!

Posted by Lox at 2008/03/30 11:46:44.

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