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Published: October 1st 2008
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Well this part of my adventure is now complete... Yesterday I woke up and had an amazing Japanese Breakfast at this hotel. Everything from a poached egg to mandarain oranges and miso soup. After that drove around and checked out the valley.
Iya Valley was very
very impressive. If mist covered mountains, vine bridges, and tons of greenery sounds good to you, you'd love it here. Felt very exotic, minus the well paved roads. The area has quite a number of small villages sprinkled throughout it, with the shops, homes, and schools built literaly into the side of the mountain. Many of them are built on platforms sticking out of the side, living here must be a very unique experience. In the morning I checked out one of the famous Iya vine bridges. It wasn't quite how I expected it. I thought there would be wooden planks tied together with vines, but instead the entire bridge was made out of vines and bamboo sticks. There's about half a foot space between the bamboo branches you walk on making it very slow progress, and gives a VERY good view of whats beneath you. Not for the faint of heart. I also
Feast fit for a Shogun
Not viewable is the shrimp, second hotplate, or the other half dozen plates or so. walked around the area and just enjoyed the nature. There was a number of amazing waterfalls and little stone trails to enjoy here. Ran into a young Australian couple... turns out this is like Spring Break for them, hence the large amount of Australians I've ran into. Figures. Apparently Japan is a major stop during their winter for the skiing here, makes sense.
Dinner was once again fantastic... the theme tonight was shrimp, so had Tempura Shrimp, boiled shrimp, and who knows what else.
I dropped the car off this morning, which gave me a VERY good feeling. Having the guy at the rental agency give a thumbs up and "OK!" I felt quite free at that point. Considering how much worry this part of the trip was causing me, to have survived it without incident made me feel pretty goo. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but really it wasn't so bad. I managed to get back here without making a single wrong turn, and even though the GPS messed me up at the start overall I found it pretty handy. The car was great, although cruise control would have been really nice. It had Automatic
Wipers, never seen that before. Radio stations were kinda crappy although considering Shikoku is a bit remote and the amount of mountains in the area makes sense. Filling up wasn't a problem either at a full serve.. the only confusing bit is apparently since it's a rental they have to record.. something... on a piece of paper I had in the rental package. No idea what that was about.
Today I am heading to Kotohira for a stop on my way to Matsuyama... now that I have a better sense as to how big (or small) Shikoku Island is I PROBABLY could have just gone straight to Matsuyama, but this should keep it nice and relaxed. Matsuyama has a pretty good sized castle (Sadly just a reconstruction now) as well as other interesting areas. Hopefully I can get Internet access there and upload all of this stuff!
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Doug
non-member comment
Hello
Good to see you’re having a great time. Some amazing pictures. Iya valley is beautiful, almost as nice as the Rockies. OK you have had your fun, now get back to work!