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Osaka Castle
Maybe our Christmas card photo! We took the Shanghai ferry to Osaka, a two-day journey accomplished during beautiful, calm weather – thank goodness. Most of the time, Tom the Sailor said that the wave height was 3-4 feet, but the ship just smoothed them out. We traveled on the Suz Hou Hao (
www.suzhouhao.com) for two nights; our comfortable room was a double, though there were also dorm rooms and a couple of “VIP” rooms that weren’t much nicer than ours. We only had a couple of complaints: first, there was no water to drink, except that in the vending machines, which quickly ran out. We thought we might have been the only ones worried about drinking the tap water, but quickly realized that everyone else wanted the bottled water too. Second, although the web site states that departure time is 11:00 a.m., the ship loaded cargo containers into the stern right up to 1 p.m. – was the web site wrong or was the ship two hours late departing? No way to know. The weather was cold (Tom said it reminded him of a carrier flight deck), so we happily sat in our stateroom, watched the sea out the large window, and watched two movies on
Shanghai
Both TV tower and observation tower. the laptop. Most of the passengers were Chinese, but we did meet two Japanese men. Apparently, people travel back and forth for business, tourism, and shopping.
Our first Japanese city is Osaka, where we left the ferry, hit the hotel and dropped two bags of laundry, which turned out to cost us $50. Next time we do this, we’re checking the hotels for coin laundries! Osaka is a very impressive business-oriented city with great nightlife in the Dotonbori area. Our hotel has the same name and is easily recognized by the four weird guys who stand out front. They wear cherry blossom wreaths just now – better check the photos or you’ll think I’m nuts. The room is small and the bathroom is basically a pod that’s installed as a unit. It reminds me of the bathroom in our camper except for the high tech toilet. The toilet seat is warmed and you can choose one of three buttons to have your bottom washed one of three ways. Yes, I tried them all.
The Dotonbori Hotel is probably graded as three stars, but it provides five-star service. We had in-room coffee and tea service, a refrigerator,
The Bund
Early 20th century side of the river from the more modern Pudong district. and the hotel provides free PC and bicycle rental. We’re also experimenting with another Japanese service: having our big packs forwarded to a hotel we arrived at three days later. It’s rather like sending your luggage by UPS, except it’s cheaper and you don’t have to box it up. Worked great, by the way – we’re now in Kochi, Japan, and the bags were waiting for us when we arrived.
We decided that we wanted to see “the real Japan”, rather than see western tourists, so Tom found an independent tour from a company called Inside Japan Tours (
www.insidejapantours.com) on the internet and booked us for their “Paths Less Travelled” trip around the southern island of Shikoku. The company provided us with a guide for our first day in Osaka, but the rest of the trip is on our own. We received a package that included train and bus tickets, hotel vouchers, descriptions of the places we’d see and some suggestions about things to do while we were still in Shanghai, and we’re now out here on our own traveling around the island. Haven’t been lost yet!
Our first full day in Japan was a guided
Our Ferry
The Su zhou hao, it's the largest of the ships and not much like a ferry. Very good ship. tour of Osaka with Toyoko, who walked our feet off all around the city, even though it was the day before her daughter’s wedding! How’s that for dedication to duty? We toured the Osaka Castle, the Hozen-ji temple, the observation floor at the Sky Garden and walked all around the covered pedestrian streets (called arcades in Japan) of the Dotonbori area. The biggest treat – and one we thought we’d missed – the cherry blossom festival. Because the winter was long and cold this year, we were able to see Osaka’s blossoms at their peak. Wonderful! We polished the day off with a great sushi dinner and a visit to a pachinko parlor, where Tom quickly learned to beat the machine and won back the money we put into them plus snacks (the only payout that’s legal in the pachinko parlors).
Next morning, we headed to the southern island of Shikoku by express bus through a tremendous rain and wind storm to the city of Tokoshima. We drove over a long bridge over the inland sea and the bus kept moving from side to side – it looked like a typhoon! Again, it was cold – maybe all
Waiting ...
The ferry left two hours late, our last taste of lateness. Here's the Navy captain, patiently waiting. of Asia has had this long, cold winter. We changed to a train and traveled to Tokoshima Tatsue, a small bedroom community for Tokoshima where we stayed for the night at the Tatsue-ji Temple. The island has 88 temples that are visited by pilgrims – we met 8 people who were on the temple trail. We had our first chances to use the Japanese baths and sampled our first Japanese breakfasts: miso soup, nori (dried seaweed), rice, pickles, hardboiled egg, and tea. The rooms were large, well lit and heated, and we slept on futon mattresses on the tatami mat floors. Tatami mats are soft and made of woven grass. You leave your shoes at the outside door and walk in your socks throughout the building, except in the bathroom areas, where they provide slippers for your use there.
Taking the train across Japan is fun, especially since you are able to see everyone’s back yard, tightly planted with flowers and vegetables, usually only a few feet from the neighbor’s house. The next day, we traveled into the interior of the island, along the Yoshino River through the Oboke gorge. The river has about six class 3-4 rapids
From the Ferry
After we finally left, we could see the Pudong section of Shanghai. with long pools between and looks a bit like a combination of the New River in West Virginia and the Hiwassee in Tennessee. We got a special treat staying at a guesthouse above the river called KU-NEL-ASOB (
www.k-n-a.com). Our young hosts were very welcoming; she is a superb vegan/macrobiotic cook, and he’s a former kayaker and raft guide who’s now concentrating on making the guesthouse as comfortable and ecologically responsible as possible. Another night on futons, listening to the river below. Since the house does not have hot water or bath facilities (it does have a nice bathroom!), Nori Hosaka, the owner, took us to the osen (Japanese bath) at a nearby hotel. Back on the train the next morning for a short trip to Kochi, where we’re staying in the Richmond Hotel, located right on another of those covered arcade pedestrian streets. Last night, after walking around the arcades, we had seared bonito for dinner, our seventh sushi meal in the five days we’ve been in Japan, and found a small night club with a great oldies band. Today, we visited Kochi castle and looked in vain for other museums and residences related to the samurai – they were
Chinese Navy
Tom couldn't resist taking a few pictures as we traveled through the harbor and out to sea. closed, maybe because it’s not high season yet.
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been asked, “Where are you visiting in Japan?” When we say we’re spending three weeks touring Shikoku, the questioner says, “Why would you come here?” We explain that we want to learn about Japan outside the large cities and that we’d rather meet Japanese people than westerners. We made a good choice – we’ve only SEEN a half-dozen westerners and have actually met none, but we’ve been able to talk to many Japanese. Few speak English, but most can still carry on a conversation, even though we all do a lot of arm waving.
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