Kochi 高知 to Ehime 愛媛 (long journey by car)
Since the bed was the best for us in this few days. All of us decided to wake up late. Initially, our plan was to go to Dogo Onsen 道後温泉 in Matsuyama only. However, we found a brochure introducing a car museum 'Shikoku Automobile Museum 四国自動車博物館'. The guys were so excited, so off we go to see cars.
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| the ticket to the Shikoku Automobile museum |
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| the brochure of the museum |
The museum was quite near to the place we stayed, about 30 minutes car ride. The ticket into the museum was expensive, 800 yen per person. There were a lot of cars inside, I am not a fan of car, so I just read the plate introducing the car specification and snap the photos of the cute cars. Inside the museum, apart from cars, there were antique motorcycles and bicycles. Beautiful! (Speaking of bicycles, I like Japanese bicycles, there were more variables and more beautiful compared to Malaysian bicycles.)
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| antique motorcycle |
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| Porsche |
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| antique motorcycle |
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| car specification |
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| accessories |
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| funky car! |
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| funky car |
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| I wondered whether it have been in F1? |
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| forget what is this! |
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| among the auto mobiles, here come the manual mobile! |
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| antique motorcycle |
After that, from the car GPS recommendation, there was a cave to see stalagmite and stalactites (limestone cave). So, we went there. I remembered trying to memorize the stalagmite and stalactites during my secondary school geography's class. However, I keep confusing between these 2, at the end, someone reminded me that the one on the ground was stala'g'mite. Then, I remembered until now. The cave was called RyugaDo 龍河洞. It was 4km long and was formed 1075 million years ago. Two thousand years ago, there were inhabitants in that cave and during the walk inside, there were some artefacts. It was not cheap to enter too, 1000 yen per entry per person. It was summer, but inside the cave was cool. The route was very narrow and sometimes low. So, have to watch your head when walking. There were a lot of interesting shape of stalagmites and stalactites, for some unique shapes, there were a label telling us what is resembled. One of it was Ryoma Sakamoto and another was the deity. Sometimes, I have to look very hard to recognize it. However, it was enjoyable.
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| 龍河洞 |
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| the temperature inside the cave was lower |
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| 龍河洞 - the route was narrow |
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| the map inside the cave |
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| information about the limestone cave |
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| 龍河洞 |
After that cave exploration, we walked back to our car, along the way, there were a lot of souvenior shop. And we found another brochure on another antique car museum near the automobile museum we went earlier, my guy friend said "lucky, we didn't see that earlier, or else will go there too!" This antique car museum charged 800 yen per person. Mmmm, not cheap, if we keep entering museums, the money will be gone like flowing water.
Next, we proceed to drive to Ehime, since it was nearly lunch time, we just ate at the toll rest area. Our next stop was Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama, Ehime. Dogo Onsen was built in 1894 and it was the first Onsen to be recognised as the cultural heritage by the Japanese government. Inside the building, there was a section that was dedicated to royal family. Just outside the onsen building, there were a lot of shops selling souvenir. The Dogo Onsen Station (Meiji era building) was near the onsen site and it gave a old charm feeling to this street. Next the station was a Botchan Karakuri clock that will alarm every hour from 8:00 to 22:00. The clock was very cute. First, all of us wanted to go to onsen in Dogo Onsen, however, the people put us off. There were too many people, so, we just shopped at the nearby souvenir shop and had dinner after that.
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| Dogo Onsen Station 道後温泉駅 |
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| One of Japan earliest rail track |
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| Botchan Karakuri Clock |
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| interesting clockwork mechanism |
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| a life size bear from a shop in the shopping street |
We had dinner in a Izakaya near the Onsen. Maybe it was tourist area, it was so expensive in that shop. By the way, this was the first I ate raw whale fish. It was still so bloody, I forced myself to swallow it. And we celebrated Tee's (our driver) birthday too. It was so difficult to find birthday cake, so we bought a small Japanese pancake. After dinner, we watched the clockwork mechanism of the Botchan Karakuri clock on 9 pm, it lasted for 5 minutes.Then, we back to the guest house for the night. This guest house was ok, the owner provides car park for free. However, the road leading to the car park was so narrow, that the owner helped to park the car. The car side mirrors had to be adjusted to the door so that it can just narrowly pass the road unhurt. Very good parking skill!
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| raw whale fish - bloody (almost vomit!) |
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| interesting sushi (fish with skin attached)! |
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
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