Anyway, yesterday we went to the Ritsurin Garden, a very beautiful garden that took more than 100 years to create. They worked it all to fit in with the natural mountain backdrop - they have over 1000 pines manicured precisely, streams, bridges, tea houses, a duck blind (!), and vistas everywhere. It was quite lovely. Then we had tea in a tea house - the bitter Japanese powdered green tea, which you always drink after a sweet so it doesn't taste so bad.
We drove to Kotohira, where there is the very famous Kompira shrine (Shinto). Sean saw it, because you have to go up 785 steps. Dave and I wandered around the shops in the little village instead.
Then Mike (the owner of the tour company, who had joined us the night before) drove us through the mountain gorge, a lot of it on single lane road with mirrors on the corners, and spaces where one vehicle or the other would back up to if you met oncoming traffic. We ended up at a ryokan (guesthouse) / onsen (hot springs baths) perched on a cliff. Dave and I slept on futons on the floor. Unfortunately, neither of us sleep through the night, and the rising to go to the bathroom was not done with grace by either of us.
We did have a meal served by the guest house that went on for course after course, causing us to eat a lot of things we had never heard of before. But it was all very tasty (or, mostly very tasty!)This morning the ryokan served us a great breakfast, and then we carried on down the Iya Valley road until we arrived at the Kazurabashi Vine Bridge. This is a suspension bridge made of vines that is 15 meters above the river - it has large spaces between the planks, so once again we let Sean do the exciting part, and we watched and took photos. At this stop we also saw a lovely waterfall rushing down the cliff.
Next we drove to Oboke Gorge (we got onto real two lane roads) where we took a 30 minute boat ride through the steep-sided narrow gorge created by the Yoshino River. This would have been lovely on a summer day, but was cold and chilly today, and we all almost froze to death out on the water. Still interesting, as the rocks had obviously been thrust up at a 45 degree angle by earthquakes, there were waterfalls, and ducks.
Then we carried on driving to Matsuyama, the biggest city on the island of Shikoku. Here Dave and I got a palatial room, with western beds in a separate bedroom. There is a traditional wooden soaking tub in the bathroom (and luckily, a shower as well). The toilet room includes a urinal as well as a western toilet - this is the first bathroom I've ever had with a urinal included. They served us some of that powdered green tea when we arrived. In this ryokan we had to leave our outdoor shoes in the lobby, and wear slippers to our room. When you enter the bathroom, you put on your bathroom slippers - Dave thinks we should start doing this at home, because it keeps your feet warm.We went out for supper, and had sashimi and nigiri sushi, so are pretty happy campers right now.
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