I planned the trip as a way to use up some of my expiring vacation days (which I have finally reduced to a number where they can all roll over to next year, yayy) and also reunite with some TOA friends before one of them left Japan. It was one of the longer trips I've taken in Japan and also one of the best! It was really great to see my friends again and to see three new prefectures (managed to visit all of the ones on the island except for Ehime, oops), bringing me to 20 out of 47 prefectures visited. :)
So here's what I did, with a general (unplanned) theme for each day!
Day 1: walking
I spent pretty much this whole day walking, from a 30-minute walk to the bus stop at 4:00AM to get to the airport to a kilometer+ down the pier in Takamatsu and back again, not to mention back and forth all over the city in between.
Ritsurin Park (gorgeous and giant green park/garden in the city) --> up and down the shopping arcades (which are apparently the longest in Japan) --> wandering around JR Takamatsu Station and having the famous Kagawa udon for lunch (it was delicious) --> Tamamo Park (with some castle remains and pretty views) --> more wandering until meeting up with my friend Thomas after he got off work and saved me from more walking with his car
Day 2: art
This day was mainly spent admiring all kinds of art both in and outside of museums on Naoshima, an island not far from mainland Shikoku, and admiring the scenery from my electric bike (which was the coolest thing ever, as far as biking up hills was concerned). I think I did almost everything touristy there is to do on the island (except maybe the James Bond Museum? and some other things), which was a lot! Reminded me of Hakone a little bit, in the sense that there's just museums and tons of things to see everywhere, but what I liked was how you could come across random artwork in random places.
Chichu Museum --> Lee Ufan Museum --> Benesse House Museum --> Naoshima pumpkin --> Art House Project (a series of normal houses that were art spaces inside, including one full of glowing numbers and another where you sat in almost complete darkness until your eyes adjusted and you could walk out) --> Ando Museum --> I <3 Yu (a bathhouse whose name is a clever pun on 'you' and '湯', the word for hot water)
And then after then I went out for conveyor belt sushi with Thomas and his friends, followed by card games in his apartment before getting to bed in preparation for the next day!
Day 3: rafting
This was actually the reason I scheduled my trip for this particular weekend - my friend Thomas was planning to go whitewater rafting with his friends in Tokushima and invited me along! It wasn't my first time rafting (I think) but it was tons of fun, despite the fact that while 'surfing' on a rapid I lost one of my contacts and subsequently had to spend the next three days with clear vision in only one eye (because I didn't have spares and forgot my glasses -.-')...the staff was friendly, the group was great, the lunch was tasty, and above all the scenery was amaazzinng. And then Thomas and I met up with our friend Martin back in Tokushima and went out for dinner with his friends, followed by a quick trip to an onsen.
Day 4: driving
We spent this day driving to Kochi Prefecture and Cape Muroto, seeing sights like a traditional street area, a lighthouse, some abandoned buildings, several temples of the 88 on the Shikoku pilgrimage, and many more Lover's Sanctuary areas than I expected. My favorite place by far was the Muroto Geopark, which was full of rocks and ocean and cats! Afterward Thomas headed back to Kagawa and Martin and I wandered around Tokushima. Apparently it's famous for LEDs, so there's a series of bridges on the river that are lit up with LEDs and are really pretty. My favorite was the Milky Way on the footpath of one of the bridges, which was just tons of little tiny lights and was really beautiful.
Day 5: water
This was my last (full) day in Shikoku and also the only day when it rained, boo. It was drizzling as we walked to rent a car, went up Mt. Bizan (which still had a great view), ate lunch, went to another onsen, and visited the Naruto whirlpools, which were not as cool as the pictures (that Martin informed me several times were taken of whirlpools that only surface once every 10 years or so) but still definitely worth visiting, if only to walk a ways out into a churning ocean with some see-through bridge sections. And then it was back to Takamatsu in preparation for my flight early the next morning.
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. :D
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