Wednesday, March 30th: Takematsu
Took the train to Takematsu, then caught the bus to the Heike Story Museum, a tacky wax museum with scenes from the Tale of the Heike (Gempei Wars). From there we took a cab to Ritsurin Park, and enjoyed a beautiful walk on a beautiful day and had tea (macha) in the scooping the moon tea house in the South garden.
From Ritsurin, we caught a Kotoden train to Yashima, where the cable car lift has been out of service a while, but we found the Shikoku Mura and had a wonderful time exploring old buildings from all over Shikoku (think Weald and Downland of Shikoku). We were quite surprised to find a lovely Victorian tea house at the end of the Shikoku Mura tour, and we have a perfectly English tea with toasted bacon and cheese sandwiches while listening to baroque music! We met a chap from Essex named Peter and rode Kotoden back to Takematsu with him. On his recommendation we tried Tenkatsu sushi/seafood for dinner, where we watched some fish swimming in a large tank in the middle of the restaurant. Caught the late train back to Okayama for our last night there.
There are posters up all over Yashima and Takamatsu advertising the Yashima Gempei Matsuri (a festival I wish we did not miss) and a movie called "Ashurajo" that comes out on April 16th (www.ashurajo.com) and something else that I do not have the Japanese language skills to decipher yet: www.yoshitsune.info.
From Ritsurin, we caught a Kotoden train to Yashima, where the cable car lift has been out of service a while, but we found the Shikoku Mura and had a wonderful time exploring old buildings from all over Shikoku (think Weald and Downland of Shikoku). We were quite surprised to find a lovely Victorian tea house at the end of the Shikoku Mura tour, and we have a perfectly English tea with toasted bacon and cheese sandwiches while listening to baroque music! We met a chap from Essex named Peter and rode Kotoden back to Takematsu with him. On his recommendation we tried Tenkatsu sushi/seafood for dinner, where we watched some fish swimming in a large tank in the middle of the restaurant. Caught the late train back to Okayama for our last night there.
There are posters up all over Yashima and Takamatsu advertising the Yashima Gempei Matsuri (a festival I wish we did not miss) and a movie called "Ashurajo" that comes out on April 16th (www.ashurajo.com) and something else that I do not have the Japanese language skills to decipher yet: www.yoshitsune.info.
