Both of us are a little fatigued. One reason is that we've walked 100km during the last week, a big step up (no pun intended) on what we have walked in the few weeks before that. Also, we've been a bit crook. I have had a cough since we left Melbourne, which meant I haven't been sleeping well, though it hasn't disturbed John much. I've just got over it but now John has come down with it. He's been hacking away and we're both feeling a bit weary from it. However, he's on the up and hopefully we will both sleep better tonight.
Because of this, it was a slow start to the day. Opening the curtains revealed a mostly clear sky, as forecast after the rain of yesterday. We were both keen to get out in some fresh air so quickly got dressed and set off yet again for the train terminus, about 10 minutes fast walk away. I handily made a few sandwiches to take with us for a picnic lunch. Alastair had bequeathed us some partly filled jars of peanut butter and jam. Dare I say it, he has become quite partial to American-style peanut butter and jelly "pbj" sandwiches, which is definitely a worry. However, we've found that piling peanut butter, jam, cheese and sliced banana onto some bread makes for a pretty good mix, and indeed one that did us for dinner last night, and a few lunches. The sliced bread here is bought in seriously mega-toast-sized slices, i.e. five slices to a packet! All pure white and fluffy though.
We jumped on the 11am train for the short 20 minute trip to Yashima station, and from there it was an easy 15 minute walk to our destination for the day. This was the open-air museum of Shikoku Mura. It was a good collection of heritage buildings re-sited from around Shikoku Island. I guess in many respects it was like Founders Park in Nelson, but on steroids. We weren't sure how good it would be, but we have typically really enjoyed exploring open-air heritage parks in other countries. After spending two hours wandering around this park, it's safe to say that it was very impressive on many counts - in the variety of buildings on display, the information describing each building, the extent of the park and how well it was maintained.
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| Vine bridge |
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| Village square |
We were keen to get a feel for what Japanese life was in rural Japan in earlier centuries, and buildings included rural houses, kabuki (drama) and puppet theatres, buildings for manufacturing sake and soya sauce, store-houses, huts with pounding devices for crushing rice or sugar-cane, lighthouse keepers' dwellings and so on. It was a great complex and well worth the train trip to get there. We were amused by the fisherman's strings of ceramic pots, dropped down and hopefully hauled up with an octopus in each.
At 2pm, having devoured our peanut butter sandwiches hours ago, we were pretty hungry. Luckily, another heritage building on-site had been converted to a cafe. YES, it had an espresso machine. It was rather plush inside and lovely and warm so we sat down to a coffee/tea and an apple scone. Proper espresso coffee is quite a rarity to come by here, it is mostly filter, so it was a treat.
Back on the train and into Takamatsu at 3.30pm, then a decent walk to the wax museum that we had tried in vain to find a few days ago. This time we had Googled it in advance and had it pinpointed. The write-up about it was very good, detailing many life-sized dioramas of important events in the history of the island. Always a sucker for models, I was really keen to see it. For both John and I, the dioramas in Munich Museum (which was saw in 1982) are still a standout in our world travels. So, we had reasonable expectations for this site. In the end, it was only good, but we'd completed the tour of the 17 'scenes', plus many models of important personages in Japan's history. If for nothing else, it was really interesting being able to study in detail the characteristics of the clothing worn by samurai and others of the twelve century onwards. The models were beautifully done, clothes were great, but the poses were weirdly unlifelike on many.
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| Kobo Daishi (Kukai), the monk who did the first 88-temple pilgrimage |
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| Nobles at a meeting |
A solid walk back home, including scouting out somewhere for a decent evening meal, grabbing a cold beer from the supermarket downstairs, and it was up to our room to put our feet up and relax for half an hour. Another 14km chalked up. It was supposed to be an easier day today given John is still a bit under the weather.
