We were up in plenty of time to catch the 7:50am bus for the short trip to the bus terminal. We'd already sorted our rail pass so it was easy to make our way to the platform for our first train of the day. The signage is very clear, i.e. where to stand on the platform (everyone MUST be properly lined up and standing ON the correct line) depending on which carriage you will be getting into. Certain carriages on each train are for unreserved passengers, and it's easy to find these. We've been told that there is no need to reserve seats at this time of year, even though it is free to do so if you have a rail pass.
Even though we've been sleeping pretty well, I fell asleep for perhaps half of the two hour journey to Shin-Osaka. We hopped off the train there and caught another half an hour later. This was a delight for John because it was a superfast shinkansen train. Unfortunately we were only on it for just under an hour but it was still pretty impressive to be travelling at nearly 300km/hr. From Shin-Osaka to Okayama we were buzzing through urban development intermingled with rice paddies.
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| Our first shinkansen |
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| Zoom! |
While we were at Shin-Osaka station we did as everyone else there seemed to be doing, i.e. bought a bento box for lunch. These are boxes full of a variety of nourishing meat, vegetables, rice, pickles etc combinations. You basically pick the one you want by choosing from the pictures, and your choice is taken from a vast pile of premade examples. As soon as we were on the train to Okayama we unwrapped the multiple layers of plastic and munched merrily on the offerings. Jolly good it was too.
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| Bento boxes |
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| Lovely restaurant frontage in Okayama |
At 1pm we alighted at Okayama train station and searched amongst the lockers for a free one. All were taken but thankfully there was an 'overflow' area where we could leave our big bags. The reason for stopping here was because we'd read that Okayama has another of the top three gardens in Japan in Koraku-en. After experiences the wonders of Kanazawa's garden we were very keen to stroll through another. However, we soon found that this garden was of a completely different style. It is essentially oriented around making the most of 'borrowed views', hence has wide open spaces, which at this time of year consisted of brown grass that had been burnt and compacted by earlier winter snows. While we enjoyed the water features and different aspects of the garden we agreed that it wasn't up to Kanazawa's and was a little disappointing. However, it was still nice to wander through another Japanese town and not be rushed to get back on the train.
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| Okayama Castle |
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| Koraku-en Garden |
The last train had to cross the long series of bridges between the mainland of Honshu and Shikoku Island. It afforded some wonderful views of the very attractive Inland Sea of Japan, with a number of lesser islands. We jumped off the train at its last stop of Takamatsu. We'd decided to come here largely because the partner of one of John's nephews (who has visited Japan a number of times) recommended it. After getting our bearings, we dragged our bags the last kilometre or so to our hotel, which is right in the middle of a pedestrian/commercial area. The bags have nice smooth wheels, so we are happy to walk them along.
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| Looking out cross the Japan Inland Sea towards Shikoku |
Into the room and, yippee, there was an actual normal bed on legs. What a bonus. After sleeping the last 9 days on the floor, which wasn't too bad I have to admit, we had been looking forward to a slightly softer version of a tatami mat and slim mattress. We had a fridge, so could cope with keeping milk for our standard muesli, yoghurt and milk breakfasts, but there was no mini-kitchen in this accommodation. No worries. The food here is usually so cheap we are probably eating out twice a day for the same cost as making our own meals back in NZ.
The tricky thing with eating out is that we are usually restricted to places that display their food either in pictures or as plastic models of the food on offer. There are plenty of little restaurants to choose from and we haven't had a meal yet that has disappointed. Having said that, we soon found out that the speciality of Takamatsu, and possibly the region or Shikoku as a whole, is barbecued meat. The little eatery we went into for dinner looked fun because you grill your own meat on a burner in front of you. Clearly meat is more expensive when eaten this way, because with just a few small side dishes/soup, our meal came to nearly NZ$50 (for both of us), easily the most expensive so far.