Shodoshima

Hope you are all enjoying following along the travel adventure part of our six month stay in Japan. After leaving Tokyo where we stayed for four months, we went to Nagoya and then Okayama. Each of those places was a three night stop, but our next was four nights. Our destination was Shodoshima, which is an island off the coast of Shikoku. 

Shikoku is the smallest of Japan's four main islands. It's a bit hard to describe the islands, because Shodoshima is so small it doesn't show up on a map of Japan, but when it comes to the islands off the coast of Takamatsu it's one of the bigger ones. Even in the map above, there are so so many tiny islands that are not there! We were looking forward to it so much because we'd booked a place right near the sea and after the somewhat uncomfortable experience in the smokey hotel in Okayama, we were ready for some fresh sea air. 

Shodoshima did not disappoint. 

We had to get their via a ferry, honestly with no real idea about how to do that with a car, but we loaded up as quick as we could out of Okayama and did our best to make the 10:10 ferry. If we missed it, we missed it. We pulled into the parking lot at exactly 10:10 as the ferry crew were putting the chain across to wrap up boarding. Seeing us though, they frantically waved us over and asked if we wanted to ride. I was so happy for helpful Japanese people right then, since the next ferry wasn't until 11:20. 

I leapt out of the car to sort out tickets and Steve drove the car on. The staff in the ticket booth saw us coming and did all the button pushing for me, which made the ticket purchase so quick. When we had been driving in, we had honestly resigned ourselves to having to do the hour wait, but suddenly, everything was sorted and we were on our way! 

Being our first time riding a ferry with a car, we weren't sure what was ok to do, so we stayed in the car for a bit listening to an audio book and snacking before we got out to stretch our legs and look around. So glad we did, because the view of the ocean and islands was pretty magical. 

The ferry ride was about an hour and a half, so we were soon off the boat and onto the island. Given that we had some time to kill before we could check into our place, our first stop was a lookout that was nearby to the ferry terminal. I think Steve and the girls would have been happy with a different lookout, but I think it was worth the stress. The road up was a very windy, one lane with no gutter edges to offer support. Steve was driving with one hand, since he was still sporting his broken hand bandage at this stage too. 

When we got to the parking area, I asked the lady at the tiny refreshment stand which way to go. She very kindly told me straight up, 380 stairs and then a scramble over the rocks to get to the top. Apparently it was only a ten or fifteen min walk. It was 11:30 by this stage, so pretty peak heat, but I was confident we could manage it. 

The trip up was painful but short and the views! Oh my goodness. The islands and the ocean were just stunning. So different from the Japan we had experienced in all the big cities so far. Tokyo, Nagoya and Okayama - nothing was like this. Despite the heat, the beauty was undeniable. We tracked back down the mountain and had a cool drink from the refreshment stand. Steve tried his best to cool his bandaged hand off, but it was pretty uncomfortable for him. 

Then we went off to find some lunch. Ended up at a little place with gyoza and somen noodles. We ordered three types of gyoza: seafood, olive oil and wild boar. Pretty delicious. We had noticed all the olive trees on the island as we had been driving through. It was a bit nuts to see them in Japan; something so iconically Mediterranean. 

Then we found a beach for a swim. This was the "Olive Beach". I can't say much for the actual beach sand, Australia is better there, but the ocean was so cool and just amazing to be in. Again, we all felt sorry for Steve who only went in up to his knees before retreating into the shade. The girls and I got to experience the bliss of the cool water on the hot day. 

Such perfection. We were pretty worried about sunburn, especially for our pale daughters, so we only stayed an hour or so before getting out of the water. 

We went to a grocery store for supplies and then on to our place for the next four days. This house ended up being the biggest one that we would stay in for Japan. It was a beautiful old Japanese house that had been renovated. The kitchen sink stood at a modern height and we had a table and chairs to eat at. There was also a small couch in the living room as well as huge tatami rooms to sleep in. I loved that it came with a backyard and the hosts had a composting system for us to use too. 

The owners ran a small coffee shop on the street in front of the house and lived close by. We saw them during our stay and even met the owners parents when they were around in the evenings. The whole community vibe of Shodoshima was beautiful. Everyone greeted us as we walked along the water front, which was so different to the cities where there is much more "avoid eye contact" going on. 

We were trying to take it a bit easy here, so we didn't do a lot some days. The first day was a bit rainy anyway, but we went out to an "Angel Walk" in the afternoon. 

This is when the tide goes down and you are able to walk the sandbar connecting the main island to other smaller islands. It was pretty fun to do this walk in the cooler evening. Steve skimmed rocks on the water, and Rachel enjoyed looking at all the sea creatures. Lots of crabs, snails and fish in the water. We also saw a stack of jelly fish (just like in Ponyo!) 

The water was again beautiful to be in. 

After this we had some more grocery shopping to do. As we drove over this bridge to get to the shops, I noticed the sign said "World's Narrowest Strait". Steve and Rachel went back to get a photo. There were a number of places where if the tide was high, the water would cut off one side from another, so Shodoshima seems to be a few islands that are connected by bridges more than just one island. 

The days are a bit of a blur, since we enjoyed a few home days, or broke up days with mornings at home and arvo out, or vice versa. We explored the Olive centre of Shodoshima more and had this olive flavoured soft serve. Strangely good!

And we took a cable car to the top of one of the mountain ranges for this view. A bit cloudier than when we first arrived, but still beautiful. It was amazing to see beach and ocean and then huge mountains. I wish we had done more walks in the mountains, but the days were still pretty hot and Steve couldn't do anything that might result in him falling and needing to save himself with a broken hand. Better to be safe. 

At the top of the mountains we had maple flavoured ice cream. This was Rachel's favourite. Possibly Sophie's too. 

I went for a mountain walk near where we lived one evening, slightly traumatised by a less than well maintained trail that had me turning around because it was so over grown it was un-walk-able, and then the subsequent trails being inaccurately represented on both Google Maps and Pokemon Go. I did consider, more than once, that I might be the next Australian to make the news because I've gotten lost and needed a chopper rescue, or worse, fallen right off the mountain and died. I'm not sure the view was worth it that day, but I did feel like I had achieved something by putting my joggers on and giving it a go. 

The girls recorded their Soran Bushi dance at the beach in front of our house one evening. I was so proud of them being brave enough to do it as locals were walking their dogs along the water front. The cafe that the owners of our AirBnB ran had kakigoori (shaved ice), which we enjoyed one afternoon. This was hands down the best we had in Japan. It was enormous and had real fruit on it, rather than just flavoured syrup. Amazing. 

There was a soy sauce factory museum on the other side of the island, so we went out for a walk through there too. It was super interesting to learn about the soy sauce making process (it takes over a year because of fermentation and what not) and also compare traditional to modern production. The girls were not impressed at us dragging them here, but Steve and I had a good time. Rachel joined me for the dress up photo shoot at the end where we pretended to be hard working soy sauce factory employees. 

Outside afterwards we were brave enough to try the soy sauce flavoured ice cream. Kind of caramel-y, like when people add miso to brownies. 

That evening was our last day, so we had an extended play in the water at the beach. Rachel caught all manner of animals, including this fish. Sophie sketched some landscapes of the mountains and ocean. 

I made dinner and brought it out for us to enjoy while the sun set. We could not have been more thankful for this time. 

After the girls were in bed, I was packing up things in the living room and noticed the bookshelf had some picture books of fish, so I pulled them off the shelf to see if I could find out what kind of fish Rachel had caught earlier that day. Turns out she caught a poisonous puffer fish. Ops! Is it bad parenting that I didn't consider the wildlife could be poisonous or that I encouraged her to try to catch the fish in the first place? Both probably. 

Anyway, I had a mild panic and Steve asked Gemini how worried we should be. Gemini told us to seek immediate medical attention, but calmed down slightly when we told it that the fish was not ingested. It's a funny story now, but I did check on Rachel early the next morning to make sure she didn't die in her sleep from my neglect. 

Whew. We left Shodoshima with the same amount of daughters that we arrived with. I can 100% see us returning to Shodoshima one day. It was such a beautiful little getaway place and I hope other people can enjoy it as much as we did. 

Okayama

I realised that I talk a lot about where we are and if you aren't familiar with Japan, it can be a little confusing, so here is a rough map. We started our time in Tokyo and then went down/west to Nagoya (about three hours on the shinkansen). You can see Japan has four main islands that I've labeled too, which will make more sense when I talk about where we go after Okayama. 

Next stop on our journey was Okayama, which is to the west of Nagoya. The shinkansen only took an hour and a half to get here. This is a largish port city along the south coast of Japan's main island (Honshu). 

I love traveling via shinkansen especially because you can get great lunches to eat on them from the station before you go. I was sorely tempted by these kids ones that come in reusable shinkansen style lunch boxes. 

After leaving Tokyo, we had noticed a significant difference in the demographic of tourists. Tokyo had been full of every kind of person; German, French, Indian, Aussie, American, etc. Nagoya had a stack load of Chinese tourists along with the European mix. Coming to Okayama was different again; we only saw very few foreign tourists here. It was still a big city though, so easy to get lost in. Strangely, even though the tourist numbers were fewer, the local department store could have been Australian there was so much English around. Every shop had an English name, from the typical ones like Subway and Starbucks to other random ones like Strawberryholic and Wego. 

Our first stop on day one was to visit Okayama Castle and the gardens there. We wandered through the gardens first, trying to do outside things before the day heated up too much and we needed to retreat to aircon. The gardens were nice enough, but I wouldn't actually rate them too highly (even though they are on some "Top Ten Gardens in Japan" list). 

There were actually a number of light displays set up for illumination in the evening, so maybe it would have been better to come back then. Oh well! We had fun wandering around the various parts and enjoying the views. 

Okayama is famous for its fruit, so I picked up this peach mochi to enjoy there and it was delicious. Then we went into the grounds of Okayama castle. No idea why these enormous fish were on display, but it was likely some festival had just happened. 

The castle was pretty fun because they had a Pokemon event running with lots of cutout Pokemon displayed. Rachel picked up a sheet at the gate that she filled out as we visited each one. You had to write in the names of the Pokemon you found and then use certain letters of each name to answer a question. At the end, you handed in your sheet and got a sticker for your troubles. 

The castle looked cool from the outside, and different to other castles we had seen (like Himeji Castle last year), because the outside was panels of wood painted the dark colour. The castle (and the outer buildings) had been completely destroyed in 1945 but the main building had been rebuilt. They had a model of what it all would have looked like pre-destruction, and it was cool to see all the different buildings that would have filled the now open spaces. 

Inside was five floors of museum that you could take your time walking through. They had a number of displays that were interactive, like this box (below) used for carrying nobles around. There was some support for English (QR codes that you could scan), but not on every item, so it was a little harder to engage when you couldn't read what it was all about. 

And the view from the top was pretty good too. Okayama castle seems to sport a very similar gold fish to Nagoya. 

The air-conditioning of the castle was nice, when we went back outside it was heat city again. So we stopped in to do an hour of karaoke on our way home. Lots of fun singing in the cool aircon. If you are ever in Japan in the summer, I can recommend karaoke as a way to avoid the heat. 

The next day we went to Kurashiki, which was about twenty minutes from Okayama on the train. Kurashiki is an area known for its traditional indigo dying, and when Japan became obsessed with jeans, it was a big production base. As a result, there are all sorts of denim shops clustered together in Denim Street. You can also get a blue soft serve "denim" ice cream. Which we did. 

It tasted mostly of blue Powerade, but was a cool snack on another hot-ish day. I was tempted by the denim, but didn't buy any, still thinking about how heavy our bags were and how far we still had to go with them. We wandered around the area, enjoying the smaller town vibes and old school streets of low Japanese style houses with tiled roofs. 

Okayama is where the story of Momotaro, or the Peach Boy, was originally from, so there was loads of Momotaro things all around too. We went into a Momotaro museum, I was hoping to get pictures and different versions of the story for classroom resources. What it was instead was an optical illusion museum with a Momotaro theme. 

A little strange, but the girls and Steve had lots of fun with all the illusions and tricks. We picked up some Momotaro themed kibidango which is a rice ball sweet similar to mochi that the area is known for. These were delicious and I wished we had more of them. Then we headed back to our hotel in Okayama for a chilled afternoon of D&D playing. 

To be honest, our accomodation here was not to best. It was a pretty standard business hotel, but at one stage must have been fine for people to smoke in. I guess maybe you still can smoke in some of the rooms, because the cigarette smell was quite strong. Steve and I tuned it out pretty quickly, but the girls are so not used to any kind of smoke, and they made their discomfort very clear. 

Anyway, we managed to survive another night there. Steve and I went and picked up a hire car in the morning for our next adventure, which gave us a rather delightful break from carrying all the bags around on trains. Stay tuned!