Summer holiday in Matsue 松江 (day 1 - 13th August 2011)

Like all other countries with four seasons, Japan have many long holidays, one of it is Summer holiday. Me and my friends (3 of us) started our journey on 13th August. First stop was Matsue (松江), it was quite far from Kumamoto (熊本), and if we took the bullet train until Okayama (岡山) and then took express train to Matsue, the train alone will cost 19000 yen. So, another option was found, night bus. However, we were too late, there was only 1 trip per day, and all the seats were fully booked on 12th August night. So, after much researching, there was another option, took bullet train from Kumamoto to Yamaguchi (山口) and then took express train from Yamaguchi to Matsue, this route was cheaper, it cost around 15310 yen. Cheaper by few thousand yen. 

3 flavour soba

Horikawa boat tour 

I woke up on 5.30 am and the day was bright already. We took the 6.26am train and reached Matsue on 12.30 pm. After that, we had soba (そば) for lunch. Since I like hot stuff, I had the soba with soup. While my more adventurous friend ate cold soba with 3 flavour, very interesting! After our lunch, we waited for 2 more travel companions from Tokyo. They didn't come to Matsue directly, they had to transfer at Hiroshima because the buses to Matsue from Tokyo were all fully booked. After that, we went to the tourist centre to take brochures. For the Matsue city loop bus, day pass was 500 yen, if by entry wise, 200 yen per entry.  

First, we went to have a boat ride around the Matsue city. It's called Horikawa 堀川 Boat Tour. One thing I found interesting here was that discount would be given to international traveller, as long as you show your passport or alien card. Well, it's good because we got to save some money. It cost 800 yen and free one plastic hand fan with Matsue town map. 

boat ride (when went under the bridge, the canopy was lowered, people too!)

the view along the river

The person who operate the boat was a kind old lady. Her accent was quite different, so with my level of Japanese, I totally did not understand what she talked about. However, one thing I learned was that for Masue people, 'dandan' means thank you. The ride along the river brought us around the Matsue old town. We could see some attractions from the boat. From one point, we could even see the Matsue castle. 

After the boat ride, we went to the exhibit of samurai house (武家屋敷), again we have discount because we were foreigners. However, this was very boring. We just walked one round and then went out. Next, we waited for the loop bus to take us to Prefecture Art Museum to watch sunset. It started to rain, we were worried that the sunset view would be tarnished by the rain. Luckily it stopped not long after that. 

the samurai house

met 3 old ladies travelling with backpack (元気ですね！)

We didn't go to the museum for the art, we wanted to watch the sunset next to the museum because it was touted to be the best place to see sunset. Notice on sunset time was available, how considerate. One thing funny was that on a wooden structure near the lake side, stand a bird, non-moving at all. I almost believed that it was a prop for people to take photograph because from any location, you could take a photo with the bird, water, mountain and the sun. However, after some time, the bird fly away. The sunset view was magnificent. However, one small disappointment was that I hoped that the sun would fall between 2 mountains, like the one we drew when we were small. It was spoilt by the cloud though. 

the sun and the sea (lake actually)

the blue sky , sun and sea

sun between 2 mountains

After the sunset viewing, we had dinner, first we wanted to eat crab because it was a speciality of Matsue. However, summer was not the season for crab. So, we just have dinner at Izakaya (居酒屋) and checked into hotel after that. The end of our first day trip.

Day 1: Matsue
Day 2: Sakaiminato
Day 3: Tottori
Day 4: Okayama
Day 5: Tokushima (Shikoku)
Day 6: Shodoshima (Shikoku)
Day 7: Oboke & Kochi (Shikoku)
Day 8: Ehime
Day 9: Onomichi