Like when we travelled to Kyoto, we left our large backpacks at the hotel in Osaka and left for Shikoku with our small bags with the necessities. it took us about 2.5hours to reach Takamatsu. By the time we reached the town it was close to 11am. and we left Shin-imamiya around 8am. I must say that it was not easy to get to Takamatsu. Coz we gotta change quite a number of trains. we had to take a train on the Osaka loop line to Osaka, then change to another train to Shin-Osaka, where we can board the Shinkansen to Okayama. Why Okayama??? is because this is the 'gateway' to the island of Shikoku!!! Somemore the trains from Okayama to Shikoku island are super super in-frequent! U'll be duely shocked when u know the timings of the trains. there are only 2 trains per day!!! 1 in the morning at around 10 am and another in the evening around 6pm!!! yeah so if u missed the morning train just too bad... u either wait until the evening or tomorrow for more luck.
anyway my sister managed to catch the morning train to Takamatsu. and crossing the bridge that links Honshu with Shikoku is just amazing! i mean i really have to applaud the the Japanese technology in construction! coz the bridge was like a few kilometers long and span across the sea/ocean?? and its not easy building this. apparently there are 3 of such bridges that link Honshu with Shikoku! This bridge that we cross is the only one that support the railways. the other 2 (1 links Tokushima with Honshu & the other is Matsuyama with Honshu) only supports vehicles.
Bridge linking Honshu & Shikoku
Throughout the train ride from Okayama to Takamatsu, my sister & I were the only foreigners. hahaha... i guess Shikoku's sights are yet to be appealing to foreigners. in fact this will be the case for the next 2.5 days that we're in the various towns of Shikoku. And over on this island, there are even lesser people who knows how to speak english. we just have to use 'broken' japanese to ask them for directions. hahaha.... it can be a sight at times.
anyway once we reached Takamatsu, we headed straight to the tourist information counter. We had to asked where is the nearest and cheapest hotel. and the lady pointed us to a hotel "Takamatsu Palace Hotel' that was like about 5min walk away from the train station. we had a tough time looking for the hotel coz road signs in Takamatsu were mainly in Japanese and we had to figure out where we were and walk in the right direction. we finally managed to find the hotel and the staff did not speak English!! Horrors of horrors.... and they thought we had piror booking. I had to ask them in Japanese if they've got vacant rooms in Japanese. They said only smoking rooms available coz the non-smoking rooms were all fully booked. we took a look at the rooms and were pretty satisfied. coz even though the room is on the smoking level, u can't smell any traces of cigarette smoke in the room and it was pretty clean. Hence, we decided to stay there... and it cost us 3450円 per night per person. I think its pretty resonable. As there is an attached toilet in the room. Unlike the places where we stayed in Osaka & Kyoto, where the toilets are shared. We could only check in at 3pm. So we left our bags there and head out to look for lunch and to visit Ritsurin Koen (栗林公園), which is said to be a beautiful garden of Takamatsu.
We ate at the Takamatsu train station. In Japan, u can eat & drink in the trains unlink Singapore. And almost all train stations have kiosk or food bars that often sell Soba, udon or bento. and such food bars, u order your food and u stand while eating your food. hahaha... yeah its sort of the Japanese version of 'Fast food' but this is so much better than MacDonals, Burger King etc. the menu of the shop was in Japanese and there were no pictures... so we headed inside and see what the customers (in fact only Ojiisans where there) were eating. and we saw the Kitsune Udon (狐うどん) appetising... thus we each order 1 bowl. and i must say its the best udon i ate in my entire trip. 1 thing about Takamatsu is, they have the best Sanuki Udon (讃岐うどん). and this shop happen to serve Sanuki Udon and it was pretty cheap. 1 bowl of Kitsune udon was 370円. (btw Kitsune Udon is udon with aburaage (油揚げ) that's sweeten deep-fried tofu & lots of spring onions)
after our lunch we took the 1 carriage train to Ritsurin Koen train station. I was a little surprised at the train stop. hmmm... u take a look and u'll know why.
1 lone person waiting for the train
Single straight track
Super dirty mirror
Yeah it gives a rather lonely feeling... hahaha... anyway its about 7min walk to the park. and i must say the entrance fee to the park is a little expensive. Partly because of the gloomy skies...
Entrance of Ritsurin Koen
we were not able to catch the best pictures when we were in the park. anyway i've tried to capture some shots... and i believe if the weather was to be nicer, it would have been a pleasant sight.
A building in the Ritsurin Koen (栗林公園) premises
Reminds me of 'Sleepy Hollows' hahahaha......
Rows and Rows of Japanese cypress
Japanese koi in the pond fighting for food
the famous pavillion near to the lake in Ritsurin Koen
Sihui standing on the curved bridge
after strolling around the park, we decided to head back to the hotel to check in. Coz by then it was around 3.30pm. after checking in, and washing up, we went out again. This time was to walk around the shopping district and food district. well... the shopping district and food district are typical walking districts that u'll find in almost every town. sheltered pathways with rows of shops on both sides of the walkways. and these shops sell anything and everything that you want. and for dinner, we had udon again! think i'm getting a little sick with udon. hmmm... the problem with my stomach is i can consecutive 2-3 meals take noodles. it will feel weird. and we were silly enough to eat at 5.30pm. anyway after dinner around 6.30pm we headed back to our hotel and call it a day. Coz tomorrow we had to wake up @ 4.45am to get ready to head down to the Iya Valley & Tokushima.
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