Time to make a major move northward (we'll head back to Osaka-Kyoto-Mt. Fuji later) - we took the bullet train on the blue-route into Tokyo Station, and then the green-route to Ichinoseki ("Itchy-No-Seckey" - yeah, just like it's spelled) - it was a 6-hour train ride with a 30-min layover in Tokyo.

Here's what you eat on the bullet train - a bento-box bought from the train station - room temperature, but oishi (tasty).

Here's a Google-Translation of the box description - it actually says "Tasty!".

There's 12,400 foot Mount Fuji as seen from the train (out the left window) - back in early June we passed by here, but it was shrouded in low rain clouds.  Hmmmm, Gerri is going to climb this over 10-hours in a couple weeks - Tim is going to cheer her on from the beer balcony.

Getting there - it's maybe half the time we've spent on the slower Amtrak for a long trip (6 hrs vs. 12) - we're covering 1,000 km (620 miles), for an average speed of over a 100 mph with all the stops included.

Here's the view from our Ichinoseki hotel room on the 5th floor - wow!  Okay, here's the "cool skinny" on Ichinoseki:  the town is located inland in the south of Iwate Prefecture, a little over two hours north of Tokyo by the Tōhoku Shinkansen. A large volume of extremely stable granite rock runs beneath the city, and is the center of the site being promoted as a suitable location for construction of the International Linear Collider (ILC) (although the project is currently  in limbo, or worse).  And it's a good layover to break-up our heading north to Hokkaido.

We're off to the restaurant the next morning for our 11am reservation, and it's a beer and sake brewery as well - bonus!

Tim chooses a simple pork shank, while Gerri goes for the more exotic mochi specialty (as were many other guests).

"Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome, a short-grain japonica glutinous rice, and sometimes other ingredients such as water, sugar, and cornstarch. The steamed rice is pounded into paste and molded into the desired shape. In Japan, it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki.  While eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year, and is commonly sold and eaten during that time."

And now the sake for dessert of course.

A shrine on the grounds - an ode to brewing perhaps?

Sake bear, little bear, and studious fox...

It was hot today (95F), and after wandering around a bit, then finding another shrine, we found a nice supermarket, bought a lot of fruit and snacks and headed back to the hotel.

Heading northeast - Himeji offered a fine castle, so we go there today.

That's a fancy manhole cover - sporting an image of the castle we seek...

...on a hot clear day.

"Himeji Castle is a hilltop castle complex, the finest surviving example of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, comprising a network of 83 rooms with advanced defensive systems from the feudal period.  The castle is frequently known as Hakuro-jō or Shirasagi-jō ("White Egret Castle" or "White Heron Castle") because of its brilliant white exterior and supposed resemblance to a bird taking flight.

Himeji Castle dates to 1333 when Akamatsu Norimura built a fort on top of Himeyama hill. The fort was dismantled and rebuilt as Himeyama Castle in 1346 and then remodeled into Himeji Castle two centuries later. Himeji Castle was then significantly remodeled in 1581 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who added a three-story castle keep.  In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu awarded the castle to Ikeda Terumasa for his help in the Battle of Sekigahara, and Ikeda completely rebuilt the castle from 1601 to 1609, expanding it into a large castle complex.  Several buildings were later added to the castle complex by Honda Tadamasa from 1617 to 1618.  For almost 700 years, Himeji Castle has remained intact, even throughout the bombing of Himeji in World War II, and natural disasters including the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake.

Himeji Castle is the largest and most visited castle in Japan, and registered in 1993 as one of the first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country.  To help preserve the castle buildings, restorers worked for several years on the structure and the castle reopened to the public on March 27, 2015.  The works also removed decades of dirt and grime, restoring the formerly grey roof to its original brilliant white color."

The main gate...

Getting a photo for the relatives - "wish you were here!".

We start a close up tour by entering a long covered structure along the castle's outer defensive perimeter - they have us tourists remove our shoes and carry them in plastic bags - either to preserve the floor and/or to sock polish them.

Now approaching the central castle...

More "floor cleaning" with our socks, and many stair/ladders climbed, about 8 stories up, phew!

Impressive this way and that...

Setting up for our "money shot"

Wassuppp!

Heading away and to the castle garden, seeing intact moat walls...

Now entering a nicely maintained castle garden, a $2.00 add-on to our visit price...

That's a fine tea house, if I don't say so myself...

Red Japanese Maple leaves and green...

Brewery time again!

And another!  This one was a "stand-up" place (yeah, no chairs/stools) and inside the subway station no less.

And then we met a new friend, a local, who offered to take us to a few local hang outs for locals socializing.  He actually spent a few years in Phoenix as a teacher, where he learned some American customs.

Today the goals are a Beer Farm and a beach, both on Gogoshima Island.  We ride a streetcar to the ferry terminal in Takahama.

At first the street car is all ours, but we pickup a few passengers at follow-on stops along the way.

Now at the Takahama Ferry Terminal, with lot's of good information...

...and a nice waiting room with all the beverage flavors and decent seats.

Here's one of the Gogoshima ferries, but this one will offload and then take people to the other car-capable landing on Gogoshima.  We need to wait a bit for the next cycle that will take us to our desired landing.

A menagerie of rock formations just off shore.

That's a good bit of Gogoshima Island in view - yeah, it's a very short ferry trip - about 15-minutes.

There's another ferry, one that takes people to Nakajima Island, further out and a bit bigger - they leave at the same time.

A fast ferry boat, and another view of the Gogoshima ferry.

Finally, here comes the ferry that will take us over.

And another Nakajima Ferry shows up to take a good load of passengers out.

And we're off!

Coming in for the landing...

...and landing achieved!

And now a short walk across the island to what we hope will be a nice beach...

...and it was a very fine beach with a beach stand to get out of the sun, buy some cheap beer, and take a dip.
(somehow we managed to not take our own pictures here - so these are "borrowed")

Now back to the ferry - hmmm, you might ask this is not the ferry we took getting over here, and this is not how we boarded it before.  As it turned out, when we were walking away from the beach, the lady that ran the beach stand called out and after some pantomimed talk, we learned she was closing for the day and would take us in her van back over to Takashima from the other ferry landing.  What a nice way to avoid a 25-minute walk in the late day heat, and we managed to talk some more, especially about her sunset photos from the beach.

Back to our lodging, just off this arcaded shopping district.

Another Japanese hotel breakfast is served - this gets us well past noon for our day of touring.

Matsuyama Castle is a "flatland-mountain"-style Japanese castle that was built in 1603 on Mount Katsuyama, in the city of Matsuyama.  The castle is one of twelve Japanese castles to still have its original tenshu (central high tower pagoda).  The castle has been protected as a National Historic Site since 1952. 

We could either take the lift, or walk up - of course, we walk up.

Now at the top of the "mountain"...

The part where we went inside has a sprinkling of exhibits to check out.

The internal structures are interesting in themselves.

Now at the very top we get some neat views of the castle overlooking the modern sprawling city.

Now descending the mountain-top perches....

We head down an alternate trail, seeing a lot less tourists going this way...

This has that look of a renaissance oil painting from those olden times - a study of light and dark.

These were originally royal/feudal house-holds and government buildings, now mostly gone (save for some recreations) and given the look of a Japanese garden, but with original foundations outlined around the garden.

Gerri has a yen for counting her yen - ha!...

The mountaintop castle as seen from the garden...and a giant seahorse?

Onward we go, looking for more sights...

...like cloud-shaped motorbike licenses.

We have quickly learned back in June that pedestrians follow these signals religiously - if there isn't a sign of car for blocks and blocks, you still wait for the green man before you head across, especially if a local is standing next to you.  It's not like someone would say anything, it's that you could feel eyes piercing the back of your head if you tried it.

Looking for lunch - many places are closed in the early afternoon - but we find a prospect....

This eclectic one-woman operation was amazing - she spoke a fair amount of "restaurant" English.

And then after we'd paid up, she ran to her freezer and brought us these waffle/ice cream/bean paste treats.

Single-cylinder Easy Rider, and Rob, taking-it-easy-kitty-cat.

On a clinic window - cats are everywhere - height, width, B.P., urinalysis kitty, get-your-shots, how's the ticker...

Ishite-ji (石手寺) is a Shingon temple in Matsuyama - Temple 51 on the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage.  Ishite-ji  means Stone Hand Temple (石手寺). Seven of its structures have been designated National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties.

Ishite-ji three-story pagoda and gorintō, both from the end of the Kamakura Period (around 1300 AD) and Important Cultural Properties.  Seen between the top two stories, notice the big Buddha statue on the high ridge.

...his soul shall be lifted nevermore...

Ha, ha ha, haaaa, that's a good one!                               Temple of the bat people?

These steps are for the pilgrammagers.

There's even a long tunnel (120-150 yds) at the backside of the complex through a ridge-line - as we were about midway through, birds or bats came flying towards us passing by (Gerri said birds, definitely birds).

Their translation (above) and ours (below) differed a bit.  This "cave" is more like a winding narrow tunnel underground about 20 feet down and maybe 50-60 ft in length, with small shrines tucked here and there, that comes out into an above ground structure at the rear.

Now in another part of the city - this clock has animations, but only on the hour during weekdays, so we didn't stick around long enough to see an event.

Gerri in the public foot bath talking with English-speaking locals.

At the German-style beer brewery...

"Dōgo Onsen is one of the oldest hot spring baths in Japan, with a history stretching back over 1000 years.  The springs are mentioned in the Man'yōshū (written c. 759) and, according to legend, Prince Shōtoku (574–622) used to bathe here.  The current structure was built in 1894 on three levels for maximum capacity -  the baths remain popular and are usually crowded at peak times, such as in the early evening before dinner.

While Dōgo is largely engulfed in the suburban sprawl of modern-day Matsuyama, the area around Dōgo retains the feeling of a resort town, with guests from all over the country wandering the streets in yukata robes after their bath."

We weren't able to see it as shown below, as a major restoration project was underway.  

Except for the front entrance, this is how the bath appeared to us - interesting, but not the hoped for view.

Are they coming or going, they look clean and spa-relaxed.

We have three trains to catch to go from Shimanto to Matsuyama - let's see if this works okay.
​
The first one puts a smile on our faces...

...and gave us more great views of coastline.

And then we need to transfer to a second train - hmmm, not what we expected - a platform shack amongst farm vistas.

No problem, here it comes right along, on time.

Getting nice views now of streams and a river.

And then a transfer to a more expected multi-car, multi-seat (not benches), train from Uwajima Stations into Matsuyana Station.

And we find decent pizza for dinner to close the day.

24 July
​
The mission today - take the train down from Kochi to Shimanto.

We get some nice views out the train window of the coast.

Dinner is served in Shimanto...

At this point we cross the long red bridge to the other side...it's provided with bicycle lanes separated from the traffic, on both sides of the bridge...

The trail feels nicely remote during much of the loop...

The turn-around point for the river loop is a popular river restaurant specializing in river unagi (eel).

From river...

...to table.        Again, a very oishi meal (tasty food).

Our bellies full, we head for home (or, uh, the hotel).

Today we walked to the central area of Kōchi to see the sights - starting with a big market on the street - over 6 blocks long!

Onto the castle we march...

We pass through the gate and start the climb...

Okay, it's not so bad, we're almost there...

It's free to walk the grounds, and just a few dollars to take your shoes off and climb to the top of the pagoda.

Well done dioramas are seen...

A large cherry tree hangs over the defensive walls...

Modern clock tower, Japanese style...

Seared bonito is a specialty here in Kōchi - we wandered up a side street after re-entering the open air market, and found the motherload of bonito restaurants.  It was actually more of a food court, with a central seating space surround by multiple kitchens.

Lunch is served up, with a side of rice, and a couple of brewskies.

Ooooh, so good...

Moving along towards "home" - what's this?

Ah, an underground parking area for bicycles (and scooters), of course....

Our hotel is just a couple blocks from the train station and where an amazing Tourist Information (TI) Center is found.  We head there to pick-up our special tourist bus tickets - a hop-on/hop-off all day ticket for the sights of Kōchi.

It's quite an impressively presented and well staffed information center for tourist things for the entire region.

We begin just outside the TI center - Gerri shows the driver our paid tickets.

Passing by the community center.

We leave the bus for the short climb up to an observation point.

A short hike away is Chikurin-ji, a Shingon temple and Temple 31 on the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage. The temple was founded by Gyōki in the early eighth century.  The temple houses a number of important sculptures and its late Edo-period gardens are a Natural Monument.

Another short hike away (10 minutes) is the Makino Botanical Garden.  The garden was established in 1958 with a museum dedicated to Tomitaro Makino (1862-1957), the "Father of Japanese Botany", and also has a research laboratory.  Today its collections include Japanese Rhododendron, Acer, Chrysanthemum, serpentine plants, limestone plants, plants of the Sohayaki region, and wild plants of Kōchi Prefecture region.

The garden has very nice looping paths over not-so-level terrain.

Now finishing up with the greenhouse...

Apparently this is a thing here - greenhouse staffers take people's young kids and pose them on a lily pad for the parents to take photos.  Several kids did not like it in the least - getting turned over to "green monsters" and to submit and commit to the strange floating kid-eating water plants.

We then hop on the next bus out of the garden and take it to some seemingly random stop - a place to pick up strollers who have walked around a lake area - but it's our get-off to walk about a mile to a brand new brewery.

The brewery is up on a plateau over the harbor area containing a great many warehouses and out of view until you get up on the hill.  It's only been operating less than two weeks, still celebrating their grand opening.

The beach is broad and scenic, but for some unknown reason a security guard keeps anyone from touching the water - these people below did try and received the whistle and signal to back out.

We head to Kōchi, but with a layover in Kotohira to do some touring on the way.

Kotohira-gū is a Shinto shrine in the town of Kotohira in Kagawa, Japan.  This shrine is patron of sea ship transport and sailors.  Located at 521 metres (1,709 ft) halfway to the top of Mount Zōzu, the shrine stands at the end of a long path, with 785 steps to the main shrine and a total of 1368 steps to the inner shrine.  Since the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573 AD), pilgrimages to the shrine became popular, and even today hundreds of visitors in a day climb the steps of Mount Zōzu.  On the way to the shrine is a sake museum, souvenir stores, and stones with the names of donors carved in kanji script.

Our walk from the train station crosses the river...

Tim sits on the Coca-Cola bench leaving Gerri to do the shrine climb solo - previous climbs (and descents) have recently "did a number" on his back, so he figures on giving it a break today.  Oh well, a lot of people watching was had from here for the next 90 minutes.

Gerri reaches the first shrine...

Steps, so many steps...

Donor stones line the path.

A stable of "holy" horses, unexpected, is encountered.

Am I there yet?

At the top, Gerri buys a "talisman" tag thingie and then gets to enjoy her peach she'd brought from Takamatsu.

The descent begins (it was 90 minutes up, and then 45 minutes down)...

​We then take our tour of the Sake Museum.

(reminder:  click these photos below to enlarge them for easier reading)

Back to Kotohira Train station...

Our chariot arrives...

Now in Kōchi, we find some fine grub for dinner.

19 July

On to the next island - Shikoku - and Takamatsu, the largest city on the island at just over 400,000 people.

We ride the bullet train or Shinkansen most of the way.

We find a woman-run isakaya for dinner - a couple of fishy's and watermelon.

It's off to the garden to begin our tour today...

"Ritsurin Garden is a large, historic garden completed in 1745 as a private strolling garden and villa for the local feudal lords, and opened to the public in 1875.  Ritsurin is one of the largest strolling gardens in Japan, and a major tourist attraction for Kagawa Prefecture.  Ritsurin Garden lies in a former river bed on the east side of Mt. Shiun.  Numerous ponds and small artificial hills dot the garden.  The southern portion is in traditional Japanese style, with historic teahouses and numerous shaped pine trees. After becoming a public garden in 1875, the north portion underwent Western-style redesigns."

It's not raining, but that Sun sure is hot.

It's nice to meet you, and nice to meet you too!

Koi-pond fish mugshots - "where were you on the night of Jun 25?" - "Uh, out in the far corner of muh pond digesting all the cheetos the tourists fed me today."

The fish on the right is real, yeah, it has golden scales, but it's real I tell you.

"Covid induced supply issues, just couldn't get those curved planks, so we deviated from the plan."   

Yeah, there's a snake in the under growth - we let it go about its day, or vice versa?

This turtle is looking for some petting on the noggin - won't you volunteer?

Zen garden...

A tea house...

One last high view...

Looks like three-generations - taking care of the older generations is seen everywhere we go.

Gotta go see the castle...

Takamatsu Castle is also called Tamamo Castle, literally "seaweed castle," for its seawater moats.  The castle was headquarters of the Takamatsu Domain, which ruled eastern Sanuki Province (modern-day Kagawa) from 1588 to 1869.  This castle, now a park, is one of three in Japan to use seawater moats, along with Imabari Castle in Ehime Prefecture, and Nakatsu Castle in Ōita Prefecture.

​"I sea you, you may enter, but stay out of muh moats, they're seawater."

This gate was actually destroyed in WWII air raids, and was actually rebuilt and completed just last year.

Castles of Commerce looming just beyond the old foundations.

The city is slowly restoring parts of the castle over time, this covered bridge is also one of the more recent projects.

Nearby is the seaport, we stroll out along the boardwalks...

Back at the hotel for the included evening "snacks" - what you're offered and what you get, the same, huh.