The Sanuki Highway

After spending last night figuring out how we were going to avoid Highway 11 today, we decided on a road that looked like it paralleled the big road for most of the trip, but was always just a few blocks away from it. It was a winding road called The Sanuki Highway, according to Google Maps. Sanuki is the old name for the region we are in, and we were instantly reminded of the Tokaido, a historical route that nobles used to take to Edo during the Shogun era. There was almost nothing written about it online that I could find in my brief research last night, but it appears to be a similar type of road, though used by traders to travel Shikoku. It was, up until recently, still used until the bigger roads were constructed. Now, it is a series of small roads, sometimes one lane, sometimes barely wide enough for a single vehicle, that snakes through the constant urban sprawl, up into the nearby mountains that funnel humanity towards the coast. Unless you had business on this route, you didn't drive it. No trucks could fit on it. It was, in a word, perfect.

Instead of this:

We had this:

An old inn, now a private dwelling

Occasional wooden signs showing the distances on the "Shikoku no Michi" (Shikoku Road)

Give me mountain trails over urban streets any day!

This smile was not here yesterday

It is also part of the larger 88 temple pilgrimage (henro) that Shikoku is known for. Several of the 88 temples, along with some of the smaller 38 temples that have some importance that we haven't yet figured out. We stopped at one of the temples along the Sanuki Highway. The monks were rather surprised to see a white guy and when I said something in Japanese, one of them blurted out "He talks!", as if I were Mr. Ed or something. They then used the few English words they knew("Thank you", "See you later") then began arguing amongst themselves about the proper usage of "See you later". It was a bit surreal.

There was a henro rest stop across the street from the temple, which was the first time we'd seen one up close.

Statue of a pilgrim

Spot where a pilgrim can rest (overnight) on their journey

It was a small open-air shelter, much like a park shelter. People walking the pilgrimage (it takes months), may stop here to rest, even overnight, for free. People will sometimes bring food or drink to resting henro, as it is considered good luck.

We stayed on this wonderful road until it finally ended, about 12 miles from out destination at Imabari. At one point, we had to detour by some temple grounds and into a country club on top of a mountain, giving us my favorite road of all time. Trees had grown up around the road, forming a canopy that turned it into a tunnel through the greenery.

It's hard to see how steep the road is here, but it's heading into the mountains

Eventually, we reached Imabari, the beginning of the Shimanami Kaido (mentioned briefly yesterday). It is a road with a series of bridges that connect Shikoku to several small islands to the north and eventually to the main island of Honshu. There is an entire separate section of the bridges and roads dedicated to bicycle and pedestrians. Because of that, it seems much of this city caters to cyclists. There were bike lanes everywhere, lots of bike shops, and outside every store were large cycle racks for cyclists to hold their bikes while shopping or eating, but not the kind you normally think of.

This rack was in the lobby of our hotel(!) for guests with bikes.

We cleaned up, then hit our second round of Coco Ichibanya curry. It is a great meal after cycling all day, and.... yeah, that's my story.

Sumi's favorite Summer Curry - chicken curry with veggies

I tried the new local special, Beef and Onion curry. That's a whole boiled onion there.

Overall a much better day than yesterday, which was really ruined by the last few miles of the trip. The rest of the day had been fine, up till that point. But numerous near-death experiences with oversized trucks will do that. Tomorrow we return to the Shimanami Kaido!

Warning, Rabbits Working Construction Ahead

I know it's some folklore thing, but I can't stop seeing a guy stomping on a bell pepper.

It started out so well...

Finally back in Shikoku for the first time since our bike trip here in 2013. We were up and ready to go around 6:30, with a quick stop at the Family Mart for some water, yogurt, and juice, then across the street to Central Park (Chuou Koen) to clean up our bikes, oil them up, eat some breakfast, and head out.

Takamatsu Central Park

Leaving Takamatsu took a bit of time, not because we got lost (this time), but there were a lot of traffic lights, and a number of intersections with no way to cross other than taking a pedestrian underpass

The stairs have ramps for the bikes, but you. need to walk them down and up.

But finally we were out in some cross between suburban and rural, the traffic was still fairly constant, but the traffic lights lessened, and the scenery improved

Mountains, rice fields, and ponds. Ah, Japan!

Shikoku still has a lot of remnants from WWII hidden in their cities and towns, unlike many other parts of Japan that has modernized rather rapidly. In the south, where we took our first trip, there were old air raid bunkers dotting rice and yuzu fields. Here in the north, we spotted a few old cigarette stands. These popped up during the US occupation and rebuilding of Japan to cater to servicemen. People would build these into the front wall of their homes, and sell cigarettes to soldiers. I had never seen one in person until today, and we passed several.

Remove it? Nah, we'll just put porcelain dogs in it.

Shikoku is the smallest of the four big islands of Japan, and has only a fraction of the population (about 3%). Most of this 3%, however, lives on the northern shores of the Seto Inland Sea where a mountain range separates the northern part of the island from the rest of the land mass, which is about 50km (30 miles) wide. At its narrowest is in the city of Shikokuchuo, or Central Shikoku (not very original, but descriptive). The distance between the sea and the mountain range slims down to just a few kilometers. Any traffic that needs to pass between the western and eastern sides of the island must pass through this narrow strip of flat land. We found this out the hard way.

Now, we usually try and find side roads with little traffic, or roads with good bike lanes (or at least a decent shoulder to avoid traffic). That was simply not an option here. There is exactly one road that passes through this area, and it is the dreaded Highway 11. Two lanes, narrow, no shoulder (literally, none), 60 km/hr, and a "sidewalk" that will frequently end on one or both sides at random intervals. The last 15 miles of our trip today was on this road. Semis, construction vehicles, and 80% of Shikoku appeared to be traveling on 11 today. There wasn't really enough room for them, but they were there. We spent over an hour just crossing the busy highway to get to a side that had some space for use to ride, until it didn't and we had to switch again. It was not any fun at all. It was easily the worst cycling we have ever experienced in Japan. Tense, crowded, dirty, loud. Just plain unenjoyable. We had read about people complaining this route was a problem, but took it with a grain of salt, as people love to complain on the Internet. Nope, this one was 100% justified. We will never cycle here again.

Now, that is not to say the area is bad. The city of Kawanoe, where we were staying, was pleasant enough in a 1970's Gary, IN industrial sort of way. We were still a few hours early for check-in at our hotel, so we headed to the train station to try and find a locker to leave our stuff in so we could wander around.

A nice 1 platform station

Well, it was so small, there were four seats in the waiting area, and nothing else, so we plopped down on some seats and attempted to relax. The aroma of fresh pastries wafting from the bakery next door caught our attention, and the sight of the shopkeeper putting out fresh pans was irresistible. So we wiped the drool off our chins and bought some fresh pastries and buns and had a small, very satisfying picnic on the few plastic seats in a tiny train station.

Willie Winkie Bakery? Where do they get these names?

Finally, it was close enough to check-in time, we headed to our hotel. Most of the way was through one of those covered shopping streets we love so much. This one was a big different. First, most of the stores were closed. On a Saturday afternoon. Second, cars could drive down these roads. That was a bit of a shock. It's hard to say if it's just an economically depressed area and the shops are permanently closed (they didn't look like it), or there was just some ancient tradition of closing whenever foreigners visit your town (I was out definitely the only white guy for about 50 miles, likely more), or what, but it just looked and felt weird to us, and we've visited a lot of Japan.

3pm Saturday and its a ghost town

Our hotel, thankfully, was a fairly standard business hotel with no surprises. We got checked in, cleaned up, and decided to talk a walk to Kawanoe Castle, the only spot of greenery in the entire city.

This is not hyperbole. It's the only park in the city proper. The castle was reconstructed recently, and is now a local museum that holds the traditional swords, armor, etc that you see in most Japanese museums, along with pictures of many of the other castles of Japan. Built on the highest point of the coast,

on the upper floor, it is said you could see Imabari (50km) and the Shimanami Kaidou (a string of suspension bridges connecting Shikoku with small islands and, eventually, the mainland).

Not sure if the haze was from the humidity or all the factories.

It was a nice visit, and a good way to wind down after such a stressful day. We spent the rest of the evening planning on how to avoid Highway 11.

A dragon holding a pear? Bridge decoration for the Dokigawa in Maragume

Some Engrish I understand, but where does the 'r' even come from?

The Anpanman train.There are numerous character trains in Japan. Our first time seeing one.

Speaking of character trains, there is a new one coming out at the end of June.

We will, most regrettably, be home before this very pink Shinkansen makes its debut here in Japan. Which is good, because Sumi had already made up her mind to ride it, regardless of where it was going.

Takamatsu via Shodoshima

Well, today was more of what we expect when we go a cycling trip. Beautiful weather, quiet mountain roads, great vistas, didn't get lost once. It was a good day.

We both passed out very early yesterday. Sumi at about 2pm, me at about 5. Neither of us got up until 4:30 this morning. You do the math. Needless to say, we were wide awake and ready to go. Before leaving Himeji, we decided to take a hike up Shosasan, the local mountain to visit a pretty famous temple, Engyouji. Not famous because its been here since around 900AD. Not famous because the Honda and Matsudaira families have tombs here. Not famous because emperors retired here. No, famous because Tom Cruise was here. This was the temple used for the filming of The Last Samurai, a terrible-looking movie I didn't see. To be fair, this temple is used for many TV and film settings because of its remote location and lack of modern buildings.

We caught a bus from the station to take us to the base of the mountain, about 30 minutes away. Getting up so early, we were at the mountain at 7:30. The ropeway that takes you up most of the mountain didn't start operation until 8:30, so we figured we'd just climb, as it only takes about an hour to get to the temple from the base. The trail, which took us through some narrow back streets, was well marked.

Cars actually drive down here

and led us to a proper trail up the mountain

Proper Japanese Mountain Trail™

The climb was fairly easy, even for out-of-shape Americans. There were many nice scenic overlooks of the city that Sumi insisted was why she was stopping, not because she was tired. Definitely not that. We made it to the entrance of the temple by about 8:20, just in time to see them starting up the ropeway and sending it down the mountain. Along the path up to the temple gate, hindu statues lined the walk, some which I had not seen before.

OK, how many arms before it's just showing off?

Nice view.

The first temple gate was a bit overrun and rustic, but as usual beautiful and intricate artwork covered the wood and tile roof

The temple consisted of about 30 different buildings, some no long here, some in very good condition.

Yeah, that's a real door.

 The main hall for the temple was impressive.

Main hall approach

The framework supporting the building is all exposed timber

 

It was a different type of temple in that there was almost no color other than natural wood. Lots of scrollwork and decoration, but not the red and white lacquer that you often see. It was very peaceful.

After visiting the main hall, we walked back down to the ropeway and took a nice 4 minute ride to the bottom and caught the return bus to the station. It was time to ride! We grabbed our bikes and set out for the ferry port, where we would catch a ferry to the island of Shadoshima. It was a short 8 mile trip, and we got there about 5 minutes before the ferry was to depart. We figured we were too late, but went to the counter anyway. We must have looked desperate (we weren't), because they held the ferry for us. That's right, a Japanese ferry was a few minutes late so we could roll our bikes into the cargo bay. I feel the anger of millions of Japanese grandparents, but we were quite thankful. The next ferry wasn't for another 90 minutes.

All aboard!

The Shadoshima ferry (transit system, actually) has a mascot "Olive-chan". At least that's what we call her. I don't know how the Japanese do it, but they found a way to make an anthropomorphic olive cute.

Sumi made a new friend

The ferry itself was quite relaxing. There are a number of ferries in The Olive Line. We saw several pass by on our way.

They were serving Cup Noodles and drinks at the galley. We stuck with our trail mix and some snacks. 90 minutes later, we were on the island of Shadoshima. Shadoshima is an island known for its beaches, its soy beans, and its olives (hence the mascot). Its a typical island in this part of Japan: very mountainous with little wildlife other than birds and monkeys. We didn't venture into the center of the island, so we didn't see any of the monkeys, but had a wonderful ride along the coast to the next ferry station.

Just about every turn in the road yielded something like this

Happy to be dry

Panoramic Shot #2

The roads were quiet, with hardly any traffic, the sun was out, we were back to our familiar routing of struggling up one side of a mountain, then coasting down the other. This kind of cycling is why we love coming back to Japan. Especially after the last few days, this felt really good. We pulled into the Torosho ferry port around 4, and, after a stop at 7-11 for some well-deserved ice cream, boarded the second ferry to Takamatsu in Shikoku, and were off.

The trip went so smooth all day, we were waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it didn't. We were at our hostel, Ten to Sen, in about 20 minutes,

and in the cozy, not-so-little room shortly after that. The decor in the place is pretty strange

Who thought these paintings were a good idea?

but it's quiet and clean, with private rooms and located right next to a main shopping/dining area. We took advantage of that and stopped at another Indian restaurant where they had Naan bigger than your head

Seriously, bigger than your head

I enjoyed my vegetarian curry, Sumi was a little underwhelmed with her chicken curry, but the samosa, the baban, the salad, and the lassi were all top notch. Full and tired, we stumbled back to the hostel to get ready for a full day of cycling tomorrow.

Olive-chan as a bus

From the Indian restaurant menu. Apparently Lassie only costs $1 extra