My Trip to Shikoku

During the past Golden Week holidays, my girlfriend and I decided to go on a 4-day driving trip to Shikoku, one of Japan's 4 main islands. It was a lot of fun!

Day 1
First, we drove three hours from Osaka to the Seto Bridge, one of 3 bridges that go to Shikoku from Honshu, Japan's main island. The view from the bridge was beautiful! There was a place for us to stop and admire the landscape. Wonderful.

After driving over the bridge, we arrived in Kagawa, one of Shikoku's four prefectures, or states. Kagawa is famous for udon, which is thick Japanese noodles. The first thing we did when we got there was to find one of the famous udon restaurants and slurp away. It was delicious, I tell you! That was good eatin'.

Full off of udon, we went to a famous temple called Konpirasan. It is located near the top of a mountain, and to get there, you have to climb up about 900 stairs! We made it successfully, but we were dead tired, sweaty and we had drunk all of our tea. After we made our way down, even though it was 5 pm or so, we went straight to the hotel. We were too tired to do anything else.

Day 2
We began the day with a nice, delicious breakfast of... udon. Yep, udon for breakfast, too. Hey, we were in udon heaven. Might as well make the best of it. This was the best udon I had by far. We went to the place about 9 pm, when it opens. However, because there was such a long line, we didn't get in until a quarter to 10. That's how famous this restaurant was. It wasn't even really a restaurant. It was like a hole in the wall in the back of someone's house.

After that, we left Kagawa and headed to Iya Valley. Iya is a very very beautiful canyon, kind of like the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and Washington state back in the U.S. We did two things there. First, we went on a short boat cruise along the river that carved the canyon. Second, we went across a suspension bridge made of vine and tree branches. That was interesting! Although we were not that high, it still looked scary to look down onto the river below. Women were screaming out of their minds! I had fun.

Next, we drove an hour and a half east to a small city called Tokushima. By that time, it was nighttime, so we just went to a famous chicken restaurant for dinner, then headed to bed. I was tired from all the driving.

Day 3
For day 3, we had planned to go see the nearby Naruto whirlpools, some of the largest whirlpools in the world. However, Mother Nature did not cooperate with us, as there was a windy rainstorm. It was too dangerous to ride the boat to see the whirlpools close up, or go to the overlook point under the Naruto bridge. So we headed back to Tokushima. We weren't sure what to do, so we went to this place called the Awa Odori Theatre. The Awa Odori is some kind of local dance, and Tokushima people do it during the festival of the same name. However, at the Awa Odori Theatre, there is a dance troupe that does it every day. We saw the dance, then they asked for volunteers to dance with them. My girlfriend volunteered me, so I went down there and experienced the Awa Odori up close and personal.

With nothing else to do in Tokushima, we spent the afternoon driving back up to Kagawa to eat more... yep, you guessed it... udon. That restaurant, however, was not that delicious in my opinion - not like the two other restaurants. After that, we went back to Tokushima and called it a day.

Day 4
The weather was more cooperative today, so we headed up to Naruto to see the whirlpools. We went on a boat cruise out to the whirlpools. However, the tide was not good enough for the whirlpools to form at that time, so we didn't see anything - a waste of money. Despite that, the views from the straits were gorgeous.

Afterwards, we went over the Naruto bridge to Awaji Island, near Kobe. There, we went to a public ranch called England Hill. We petted rabbits, saw a sheep show, bought freshly-picked vegetables, and other fun things. Not bad. Once we finished that, we drove along the west coast of the island and stopped to watch the sunset. Then we headed over the famous Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world - longer than Golden Gate Bridge. We drove through Kobe and headed home. Overall... a good vacation.