Typhoon season in Shikoku

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Oh, early morning starts coupled with transportation hassles, how I loathe you. When I was in Beppu I asked at the information desk about the times of the ferries to Matsuyama in Shikoku, I knew there were a couple of different companies but didn't know the exact times and where they left from, so I asked once I arrived. I took a punt and decided not to pre-book a ticket, as I was sure that I would be able to buy one on the day. So my first day in Beppu I asked about the ferries for the next morning when I would be leaving, and for some reason I had it in my head that there was one around 11.30am and that it would cost about ￥4800, quite expensive really but the ferry was the easiest and quickest way to get there. But when I asked at the info desk I was told that the ferries that left from Beppu port were later in the afternoon, which meant that I wouldn't arrive in Matsuyama until 11pm at night. Well that didn't suit me, and so the guy said that there was another company that went to Matsuyama, only they left from Oita port, which was a few stops down the train line. And the only two ferries were once again in the arvo and another at 7.30 in the morning. So I decided on the 7.30am one but the man said that if I didn't have a reservation to get there at least an hour early to buy a ticket just in case. So I resigned myself to another early morning start.

I took the 6.06am train from Beppu and caught it to Oita, and then it was only a 5 minute walk to the ferry terminal. The ship was already there and so I went up to the ticket office and with my fingers crossed asked if they had any room left, well it turns out they had plenty, and this ferry was much cheaper than the one I was going to catch from Beppu, almost half the price! But the thing was we weren't allowed to board the ferry until 7.15, so I had got up at 5am for nothing, I could have very easily arrived at 7.15, bought my ticket and boarded straight away, but then again, if I had taken the chance it wouldn't have turned out that simple would it? And anyway because the ferry was a 4 and a half hour trip I slept most of the way. This ferry was more like what I was expecting in Okinawa, no cargo, although you could take your car or bike over, but the purpose of the ferry was to transport people so it was quite luxurious, had a nice restaurant and shop and stuff, although I only bought a 2nd class ticket again, which meant sharing a room with other people, but it wasn't very full.

Anyway, I arrived in Matsuyama, my first port of call in Shikoku, around lunchtime and they had regular buses from the ferry terminal to the train station in the middle of town, so I caught one of them. Once again still too early to check-in to my hotel so I put my bags in a locker and went and got a map from the tourist info centre of Matsuyama. You know since I have bought that extra canvas bag and stuffed it with all my extra things, I have had to use the large sized lockers which are more expensive, it would be interesting to add up all the money I had spent on lockers at the end of my trip just to see, I might do that actually, I bet I'll be shocked. On second thought, maybe I don't want to know.

Anyway, I told you there was a typhoon coming and even though Matsuyama wasn't near the middle of it we got a fair bit of rain. The main thing I wanted to do in Matsuyama was see the castle that sits up on the hill in the middle of town, but since it was raining I decided to wait until the next day, I spent the afternoon at a restaurant having lunch and then at the internet cafe writing my last entry. I watched the news about the typhoon which was fast approaching, the scenes from it in Kagoshima (where I was only a few days ago!) looked pretty bad, the rain looked so hard and of course it's still moving my way!

The next day it was raining harder but I decided to go to the castle anyway, so what if it was raining? I wasn't about to sit inside all day. I headed to the ropeway station that was at the bottom of the hill that would take me most of the way up and just by the time I got there I was pretty wet, especially the bottom of my pants, I hate that, when the bottom of your pants get wet and it just slowly creeps up your leg even more. The particular pants that I was wearing I always try to wear when it rains because they don't touch the ground like most of my others do so usually they don't get very wet, well I think I must have lost weight or something cos they now drag on the ground aswell. I suppose it's all that walking around I've done in the last month. The area at the top of the hill around the castle was all dirt paths, which of course turned into mud, so my pants were not just wet they were dirty too. And to make things worse, the castle was under construction and there was only a small section that you could actually enter. They didn't advertise this fact though did they? It was very disappointing, you couldn't even tell it was a castle from the outside, there was that much scaffolding and tarps everywhere, and the inside that we were allowed into wasn't very intersting and the top floor which is usually a viewing tower so that you can see the city fo Matsuyama you couldn't see out of very well, once again due to the scaffolding. I suppose the grounds would have been fairly pretty if it wasn't raining and muddy so that I could have walked around them, but that wasn't the case, so I left there and spent the next couple of hours in the undercover shopping arcades before my train left.

It wasn't a very worthwhile stopover, but I don't really mind cos I can't expect to have a good time everywhere I go, let's jusy hope that that was the only place though! The only interesting thing that happened was that I met a fellow Aussie on the tram on my way to the hotel the night before. He was a bit lost and assumed I spoke English and asked if I could help him to get to his hotel. I found out he was from Melbourne, and after meeting that Australian couple in Hagi where I learnt that Australians have a different accent I picked that he WASN'T from Sydney, but couldn't actually point out where he was from. Interesting stuff. Anyway he ended up having to catch the same tram as me so we had a chat and I found out he speaks no Japanese. I asked him if he was finding it hard not knowing any Japanese, cos usually foreigners that don't speak any will stick to the big cities, and he said it was fine and he'd had no problems as there were English signs everywhere. I asked him where he had been so far, Tokyo he said. Well, of course there are English signs in Tokyo, was he kidding?! Matsuyama was the first small place he had been to, but he said he wasn't worried, I did try to warn him, but he said there was no problem, he could handle everything himself, so I asked him why he asked me for help to find his hotel? Aaah, just checking, he said....it can be tough navigating your way around Japan if you don't understand or read the sings, but I wished him good luck and got off the tram.

So the rest of the afternoon was spent on the train, lucky me! But I suppose when it's raining being on the train is a good place to be. I was headed for Takamatsu where I am now, further east on Shikoku, the train ride took about 6 hours with two transfers and I didn't arrive until 8pm last night. And boy did I get a shock when I did, it seems that even though Takamatsu is further away from the typhoon the rain and wind is even stronger, or it could just be that the typhoon moved further north while I was on the train. The wind was unbelievably strong, so I couldn't put up an umberella cos it would just blow it inside out. I walked to the tram station and then caught the tram to the closest stop to the hotel where I was staying, but it was still a 10 minute walk, might have been quicker if it wasn't raining and windy. I wasn't sure exactly where the hotel was so I headed in the general direction and lucky the hotel was tall because the sign they had on the top stuck out and so I just headed for that. After checking in I wanted to go buy some food somewwhere for dinner, so I just started walking hoping something would appear, well no restaurants, no shops, and even no convenience stores!!! Shock horror! Saying you can't find a convenience store in Japan is like saying you can't find any animals at the zoo, simply ridiculous! Then just when I was about to give up and head in a different direction, there above me in the distance, shining down on the streets below, like a star leading you out of the dark and lonely night to a safe haven, was the internationally recognised sign. The golden arches: McDonalds! I was saved!!! OK, I know, it's not too healthy and it's not too satisfying, but I was hungry and that was good enough for me.

If it is even possible, it is raining harder and even windier today than yesterday, and one of the things that I wanted to see here is a big garden, but I decided again that I was NOT going to let the rain and wind stop me from seeing what I came to see. I was actually quite lucky, the gardens are quite big and it took just over an hour to walk around them, and during that time it either wasn't raining at all or only sprinkling, in the last 10 minutes or so it got really hard again so thats when I left, but I was finished anyway. The gardens or park, is called Ritsurin Park and it was really really pretty! I actually think it was good that it was raining or had been because the trees and grass and plants all looked extremely green and fresh and alive and there was a waterfall in the gardens too so that was really going for it. It was a lovely walk around them, they had stone bridges and wooden bridges over the ponds and stone stepping stones too, paths that wound around and up little hills and to view points where you could see the whole gardens. At one point I noticed some palm trees and went over to have a look thinking that they looked like the ones in Okinawa and sure enough a sign below them said they came from Okinawa. It made me miss it, especially cos it was so wet today, but another thing I've learnt since being here is to not dwell on the past, so I kept walking. They had some really nice trees and plants, some typically Japanese,and some not. They had a few maple trees around the place. You can tell that Autumn is on its way, all the trees are turning a beautiful yellow and red, and the leaves are starting to fall, I love that Japan has four distinct seasons, we don't really have that back home.

I'm heading to a place called Tokushima this arvo, by train again, but only a mere 3 hours this time. I'm there for 2 nights and then thats the end of Shikoku, back up the main island of Japan and some big cities! Don't know when my next entry will be cos I'm staying in a youth hostel in Tokushima and its a bit out of town, and the last bus to it is like 6pm or something so Iwon't be able to come to an internet cafe at night and during the day I hopefully will have places to go to, if the weather isn't too bad! But I do consider myself lucky, this is the first time since I started that I have had full days of rain, can't complain.

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Photos

Samurai armour
Matsuyama caslte