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Barnstorming through Shikoku!
So I *think* that I have to be at the bus stop at 7:20am if I want to get to the port here in time to make it for the 8:15 ferry to Wakayama. I could take the 11:00 ferry BUT in that case I end up with a ridiculous nonstop Seishun 18 trip back to Tokyo getting in at like 1am, with no margin whatsoever for error. If I take the earlier ferry, I have a whole bunch of leeway and the ability to like, stop in Shizuoka or somewhere for dinner.
So I should sleep soon.
As for today...
I checked out of my hotel at 10am with the intention of going to Matsuyama Castle and being at the station at 11:55am. That did not quite happen. I took the ropeway up to the castle. At the ropeway station I had a major "no really, I do not need your fucking English maps and papers. NO REALLY." experience when a girl working there saw me in line and immediately went to the counter -- I realized what she was doing and started saying "Iranai. Iranai. IRANAI. HONTOU NI IRANAI YO" as she came back trying to force her papers on me. I explained in Japanese that I knew exactly what I was doing and had already looked up the castle grounds, that I only wanted a one-way ticket because I'd walk to the station afterwards, etc, etc, and she's STILL trying to hand me an English map. Jesus fucking christ.
The ropeway itself is neat. You can either go in a big gondola with a bunch of people, or go in ski lift chairs! I had too much crap to carry with me, so I opted for the gondola. Which meant that on the way up the hill I was looking out and all the ski lift people were waving at our gondola, so I waved back at them. Heh.
I climbed up to the castle entrance, asked someone to take a photo of me and then ran into Asai-san from the college game last night. She was totally freaked out to see me. And even freakier is that it turns out the familiar-looking guys walking up the castle path behind me actually WERE who I thought they were -- the Tokyo, Keio, and Hosei ouendan leaders. They were like "Why don't we take a photo together?" so I got out my Big 6 towel and we did.
Let me tell you that this is a photo that is pretty freaking rare -- three opposing college ouendan leaders together, with a gaijin baseball fan, in front of one of the few original castles in Japan.
I talked to the Hosei guy a bit; I've actually met him before but he forgot, but I told him I'm friends with Mizushima and he's like "oh! hmm. Well either way please come cheer with us in the fall, we'll be waiting for you!
So.
Asai and I went into the castle together and wandered around and climbed stairs and took pictures of lots of stuff. We got up to the very top and then ran into Ogura... who had called me earlier but I was like "argh I don't think I can meet up because I'm all crazy and you guys are on the other side of the castle". So her and a guy (Kurihara I think?) who also cheers for Meiji, they were there, and so we ended up hanging out at the top of the castle for a while longer shooting the shit about random stuff.
Well, I didn't get to the 11:55 train. I got out of the castle around 11:55. I was looking for the proper path down to the JR Matsuyama station, as there weren't any maps obvious, and I ask a guy if he knows which way it is, and he's like "oh, if you walk down here it'll get you to the station. I'm going there too, you can follow me."
We walk down this path and it turns out this guy is actually like 70 years old and retired but works sometimes as a volunteer Matsuyama tourism guide! So he's telling me all this stuff about the castle. There was literally NOBODY else walking down at the same time -- it's a HUGE stone stepway, and he says it's the original road that was built to lead up to the castle 400 years ago, and obviously nobody really likes to climb it, but it also protected the castle pretty well. When we got to the bottom layer, he pointed out all the stuff like "this is where the outer soldiers used to be, and they used to have cannons sitting on this wall, and see how this wall is built? take a look at the angle here -- even NINJAS couldn't scale this thing back in the day thanks to how it's made!"
I might note this was all in Japanese, he was also like "can you understand everything I'm saying?" and I said I was catching about 75%; occasionally I had to ask him to repeat something, especially the thing about the ninjas. But yeah, it was actually his day off from doing tourism stuff, he was just out walking at the castle for the hell of it. And when I told him I came to Matsuyama to watch baseball, and that I'd been in Hiroshima on Friday night, it turned out he's a Carp fan so he actually saw that game on TV. So I said "Would you believe that only Amaya was the game hero?" and he's like "Iwamoto wasn't too? That's too bad." Heh.
And I said I was hitting all the prefectures in Japan, so I'm like "Ehime is #34. Kagawa and Tokushima later today will be 35 and 36..."
So that was really nice and he literally walked me right to the station. Sometimes I actually DO get lucky with dealing with random strangers.
I had about 35 minutes before my train, so I got lunch; just found the first lunchy-looking place that I could sit down in, and had katsudon, which was clearly not their specialty but I didn't care, it was airconditioned and they gave me a big glass of water, which i direly needed after walking for half an hour from the castle with my backpack and bag and all.
Got on my first train from Matsuyama to Iyo-Saijo; that was a 2-hour ride with no toilet on the train; but about half an hour in there was a 15-minute stop at Iyo-Hojo while waiting for an express train to pass us, so I went to the bathroom there... they only had one bathroom for both genders, so I basically waited for a dude to get out of the urinal before I went in and used the (Japanese) toilet room, it was just kind of weird.
Rest of the ride was uneventful other than that I was on the wrong side to really look out at the water. No biggie, I have been riding local trains and looking at Japanese coastline quite a bit these past 10 days anyway.
Had a 25-minute stop at Iyo-Saijo; threw my stuff on the next train and also did a bathroom run there. I wish I'd noticed the "Shikoku Tetsudou Bunkakan" (Shikoku Trains Culture Center) building more than 7 minutes before the next train was leaving, or I would have gone there instead of just sitting on the train. Oh well. Also talked to another dude who was Seishun 18ing; he was trying to get home to Himeji, so we split off during the next leg of the trip anyway.
Iyo-Saijo to Kanonji, I was sitting on the water side, but fell asleep. Go figure.
Had a 52-minute stop at Kanonji, which is in Kagawa prefecture (35!), so I got out and walked around a bit. Apparently the temple there is famous for having this huge sand coin right on the beach or something that you're supposed to pray at so that you never become poor. HOWEVER, the temple is like a mile from the station... basically, I walked a block from the station to the "Kanonji area tourist booth", where I talked to a very nice but very bored-looking girl there; I explained that I only had 30 minutes between trains, was there anything nearby I could see? and she was kind of like "not really, it's a little far away. But I can give you some pamphlets if you want to learn about our city," so she gave me the one English pamphlet she had, and then a Japanese map of the area with some of the temples and stuff on it.
However what ruled about this tourist booth was that they had toilets. And WESTERN toilets at that. HOORAY! So I went and used their wonderfully western toilet just because I could. It was literally the first western toilet I had seen all day since leaving my hotel; even at the castle and at Matsuyama station, I only saw Japanese toilets.
(Seriously -- after several years here I do not run screaming from Japanese toilets, but I'm still more comfortable using a toilet that isn't just a flushable hole in the ground, thank you.)
Kanonji to Takamatsu was on this delightfully yellow and orange train called "Sunport". It was a 4-car train and I could push it so I had a 4-person area all to myself because there weren't enough people to fill the train; I put my feet up on the seat in front of me and relaxed and watched more countryside and some more water. Hooray.
At Takamatsu, I ended up only having like 40 minutes; my original plan for this trip involved watching a baseball game and spending a night in Takamatsu, but I changed that and saw the castle in Matsuyama instead. So, 40 minutes in Takamatsu for my KAGAWA EXPERIENCE ended up meaning I went to the food floor of a department store next to the station, and I got sanuki udon, which was really rather tasty if a bit soft. That IS the big local thing to eat in Kagawa, so I'm glad I did that.
Takamatsu to Tokushima was a 2.5-hour ride after that; I had a compartment to myself again, but this time it was dark out. Actually in Kanonji I'd stopped and bought Shukan Baseball in the station convenience store along with a bottle of iced tea, so I read through some of that, including a fascinating article about Masashi Date, who used to pitch for the Tigers and Fighters and Giants before retiring in 2006 and now he's a social studies teacher at Toritsu Edogawa HS! This is even more bizarre in that I've actually seen Edogawa's baseball team play against Rikkio Ikebukuro in this year's tournament. Though it said Date is helping with the soccer and track clubs, not the baseball club, which is pretty weird -- you'd think the school would be delighted to have a former pro player helping out.
And so yeah, I got to Tokushima... took some photos of the nutso Anpanman train parked here, investigated the buses to the ferry terminal, and then walked to the Toyoko Inn, where I am now. (The good: I forgot that it's 30% off Sunday, so my hotel room is only like 4400 yen! The bad: the lady asked me for my passport and I was just like "my what? I live in Tokyo, I don't carry a passport". At least she apologized.) I had to go out of my way to find a convenience store to get some tea and a snack just in case for tomorrow, which was a bit odd, but whatever.
What a day.
Now I'm going to go look up train options for tomorrow. I think I can get okonomiyaki for lunch in Osaka and then work my way back up north on local trains and still get in at a reasonable time (and maybe even take that awesome Shizuoka->Tokyo train again). Here's hoping.
So I should sleep soon.
As for today...
I checked out of my hotel at 10am with the intention of going to Matsuyama Castle and being at the station at 11:55am. That did not quite happen. I took the ropeway up to the castle. At the ropeway station I had a major "no really, I do not need your fucking English maps and papers. NO REALLY." experience when a girl working there saw me in line and immediately went to the counter -- I realized what she was doing and started saying "Iranai. Iranai. IRANAI. HONTOU NI IRANAI YO" as she came back trying to force her papers on me. I explained in Japanese that I knew exactly what I was doing and had already looked up the castle grounds, that I only wanted a one-way ticket because I'd walk to the station afterwards, etc, etc, and she's STILL trying to hand me an English map. Jesus fucking christ.
The ropeway itself is neat. You can either go in a big gondola with a bunch of people, or go in ski lift chairs! I had too much crap to carry with me, so I opted for the gondola. Which meant that on the way up the hill I was looking out and all the ski lift people were waving at our gondola, so I waved back at them. Heh.
I climbed up to the castle entrance, asked someone to take a photo of me and then ran into Asai-san from the college game last night. She was totally freaked out to see me. And even freakier is that it turns out the familiar-looking guys walking up the castle path behind me actually WERE who I thought they were -- the Tokyo, Keio, and Hosei ouendan leaders. They were like "Why don't we take a photo together?" so I got out my Big 6 towel and we did.
Let me tell you that this is a photo that is pretty freaking rare -- three opposing college ouendan leaders together, with a gaijin baseball fan, in front of one of the few original castles in Japan.
I talked to the Hosei guy a bit; I've actually met him before but he forgot, but I told him I'm friends with Mizushima and he's like "oh! hmm. Well either way please come cheer with us in the fall, we'll be waiting for you!
So.
Asai and I went into the castle together and wandered around and climbed stairs and took pictures of lots of stuff. We got up to the very top and then ran into Ogura... who had called me earlier but I was like "argh I don't think I can meet up because I'm all crazy and you guys are on the other side of the castle". So her and a guy (Kurihara I think?) who also cheers for Meiji, they were there, and so we ended up hanging out at the top of the castle for a while longer shooting the shit about random stuff.
Well, I didn't get to the 11:55 train. I got out of the castle around 11:55. I was looking for the proper path down to the JR Matsuyama station, as there weren't any maps obvious, and I ask a guy if he knows which way it is, and he's like "oh, if you walk down here it'll get you to the station. I'm going there too, you can follow me."
We walk down this path and it turns out this guy is actually like 70 years old and retired but works sometimes as a volunteer Matsuyama tourism guide! So he's telling me all this stuff about the castle. There was literally NOBODY else walking down at the same time -- it's a HUGE stone stepway, and he says it's the original road that was built to lead up to the castle 400 years ago, and obviously nobody really likes to climb it, but it also protected the castle pretty well. When we got to the bottom layer, he pointed out all the stuff like "this is where the outer soldiers used to be, and they used to have cannons sitting on this wall, and see how this wall is built? take a look at the angle here -- even NINJAS couldn't scale this thing back in the day thanks to how it's made!"
I might note this was all in Japanese, he was also like "can you understand everything I'm saying?" and I said I was catching about 75%; occasionally I had to ask him to repeat something, especially the thing about the ninjas. But yeah, it was actually his day off from doing tourism stuff, he was just out walking at the castle for the hell of it. And when I told him I came to Matsuyama to watch baseball, and that I'd been in Hiroshima on Friday night, it turned out he's a Carp fan so he actually saw that game on TV. So I said "Would you believe that only Amaya was the game hero?" and he's like "Iwamoto wasn't too? That's too bad." Heh.
And I said I was hitting all the prefectures in Japan, so I'm like "Ehime is #34. Kagawa and Tokushima later today will be 35 and 36..."
So that was really nice and he literally walked me right to the station. Sometimes I actually DO get lucky with dealing with random strangers.
I had about 35 minutes before my train, so I got lunch; just found the first lunchy-looking place that I could sit down in, and had katsudon, which was clearly not their specialty but I didn't care, it was airconditioned and they gave me a big glass of water, which i direly needed after walking for half an hour from the castle with my backpack and bag and all.
Got on my first train from Matsuyama to Iyo-Saijo; that was a 2-hour ride with no toilet on the train; but about half an hour in there was a 15-minute stop at Iyo-Hojo while waiting for an express train to pass us, so I went to the bathroom there... they only had one bathroom for both genders, so I basically waited for a dude to get out of the urinal before I went in and used the (Japanese) toilet room, it was just kind of weird.
Rest of the ride was uneventful other than that I was on the wrong side to really look out at the water. No biggie, I have been riding local trains and looking at Japanese coastline quite a bit these past 10 days anyway.
Had a 25-minute stop at Iyo-Saijo; threw my stuff on the next train and also did a bathroom run there. I wish I'd noticed the "Shikoku Tetsudou Bunkakan" (Shikoku Trains Culture Center) building more than 7 minutes before the next train was leaving, or I would have gone there instead of just sitting on the train. Oh well. Also talked to another dude who was Seishun 18ing; he was trying to get home to Himeji, so we split off during the next leg of the trip anyway.
Iyo-Saijo to Kanonji, I was sitting on the water side, but fell asleep. Go figure.
Had a 52-minute stop at Kanonji, which is in Kagawa prefecture (35!), so I got out and walked around a bit. Apparently the temple there is famous for having this huge sand coin right on the beach or something that you're supposed to pray at so that you never become poor. HOWEVER, the temple is like a mile from the station... basically, I walked a block from the station to the "Kanonji area tourist booth", where I talked to a very nice but very bored-looking girl there; I explained that I only had 30 minutes between trains, was there anything nearby I could see? and she was kind of like "not really, it's a little far away. But I can give you some pamphlets if you want to learn about our city," so she gave me the one English pamphlet she had, and then a Japanese map of the area with some of the temples and stuff on it.
However what ruled about this tourist booth was that they had toilets. And WESTERN toilets at that. HOORAY! So I went and used their wonderfully western toilet just because I could. It was literally the first western toilet I had seen all day since leaving my hotel; even at the castle and at Matsuyama station, I only saw Japanese toilets.
(Seriously -- after several years here I do not run screaming from Japanese toilets, but I'm still more comfortable using a toilet that isn't just a flushable hole in the ground, thank you.)
Kanonji to Takamatsu was on this delightfully yellow and orange train called "Sunport". It was a 4-car train and I could push it so I had a 4-person area all to myself because there weren't enough people to fill the train; I put my feet up on the seat in front of me and relaxed and watched more countryside and some more water. Hooray.
At Takamatsu, I ended up only having like 40 minutes; my original plan for this trip involved watching a baseball game and spending a night in Takamatsu, but I changed that and saw the castle in Matsuyama instead. So, 40 minutes in Takamatsu for my KAGAWA EXPERIENCE ended up meaning I went to the food floor of a department store next to the station, and I got sanuki udon, which was really rather tasty if a bit soft. That IS the big local thing to eat in Kagawa, so I'm glad I did that.
Takamatsu to Tokushima was a 2.5-hour ride after that; I had a compartment to myself again, but this time it was dark out. Actually in Kanonji I'd stopped and bought Shukan Baseball in the station convenience store along with a bottle of iced tea, so I read through some of that, including a fascinating article about Masashi Date, who used to pitch for the Tigers and Fighters and Giants before retiring in 2006 and now he's a social studies teacher at Toritsu Edogawa HS! This is even more bizarre in that I've actually seen Edogawa's baseball team play against Rikkio Ikebukuro in this year's tournament. Though it said Date is helping with the soccer and track clubs, not the baseball club, which is pretty weird -- you'd think the school would be delighted to have a former pro player helping out.
And so yeah, I got to Tokushima... took some photos of the nutso Anpanman train parked here, investigated the buses to the ferry terminal, and then walked to the Toyoko Inn, where I am now. (The good: I forgot that it's 30% off Sunday, so my hotel room is only like 4400 yen! The bad: the lady asked me for my passport and I was just like "my what? I live in Tokyo, I don't carry a passport". At least she apologized.) I had to go out of my way to find a convenience store to get some tea and a snack just in case for tomorrow, which was a bit odd, but whatever.
What a day.
Now I'm going to go look up train options for tomorrow. I think I can get okonomiyaki for lunch in Osaka and then work my way back up north on local trains and still get in at a reasonable time (and maybe even take that awesome Shizuoka->Tokyo train again). Here's hoping.