Japan 2nd week
On the way to Shikoku island we stayed with a Polish woman and her son in Okayama. They were very generous and showed us around. We became friends and will most likely meet again. Gabi has lived In Japan and taught english for 8 years, and among other things we had very interesting conversations about the schooling system there.
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Shikoku is more quiet island with lots of forests and mountains. Hiking tracks were difficult to reach without a car, but luckily we found something else to do. For quite some time now we had wanted to try river rafting. In Shikoku, on the Oboke river, we found a company called “Happy Rafting”, run by an Australian guy. We got a private course and had a fun filled day.
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We got stuck in town of Kochi for three days as we really wanted to see whales, which we missed in New Zealand. Every day they cancelled the trip because of strong wind, so finally we had to give up and move on. We heard that very few people have managed to get on a whale trip in Japan, because they cancel them so often. There are very few companies, and one of them doesn’t accept foreigners on their trips, apparently because of language problems.
We got help from rafting company’s owners wife, and would have been accepted, but were still out of luck. Well, mandatory resting days were actually again very nice and needed. During these days we only visited the Kochi castle.
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Next destination was Hiroshima, the target of the devastating atomic bombing. The museum was interesting, but also very creepy when they were describing in detail what happened to the victims. In the evening, we reached close-by Miyajima island.
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Miyajima definitely was one of the nicest places we visited in Japan. It is an island famous for a Buddhist gate in water. There we visited Daisho-in Temple, probably the nicest temple so far because of the wonderful surroundings and lots of decorations such as cute little monk statues. We also climbed to the top of Mt. Misen. On the top we sat half an hour by Miyama shrine. The view over mountains covered with trees was beautiful, there was no one else and all you could hear was birds singing. It was so relaxing. On the way back we missed the last cable car down, but that was actually lucky, as on the way down we saw tens of monkeys which live in the island. Really cool!
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