Is this one of the world's great drives? Kyoto to Takamatsu, Shikoku. But first, Kinkaku-ji

Trip Diary Day 12 - 9 April 2019

Kinkaku-ji and Road Trip to Takamatsu, Shikoku.

Check out Episode 9 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

On this trip to Japan we really wanted to get off the beaten path. Well, maybe not completely off the beaten path, that implies Indiana Jones style adventurism. No, this time we just wanted to go somewhere completely new for us. Japan has four big main home islands (and thousands of little ones). Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. We’ve spent a lot of time over three visits to Japan on the largest island Honshu. We’ve been to Hokkaido a couple of times too. We’re going to Kyushu later in this trip and while it will be new for us it isn’t exactly off the beaten path. That leaves the smallest of the four main islands, Shikoku. Shikoku is fairly new on the international travellers destination list. In fact until it was connected by the spectacular road bridges a couple of decades ago it wasn’t even a huge destination for Japanese. We were going to spend a week or so driving around Shikoku. But before he head to Shikoku we had to visit the Golden Pavilion.

Our drive from Kyoto To Takamatsu

Kinkaku-ji (Rokuon-ji), The Golden Pavilion

After saying the we’re always late getting up in the morning this morning I was up and showered by 8.30. A new record. We packed and loaded the car. Parking was 5400 yen for 4 days. Expensive but not too bad considering how much some of the parking lots in the area were charging. We were on the road to Kinkaku-ji by 10.30. Kinkaku-ji was only 10 minutes away by car. I hadn’t realised we’d stayed so close. We found car park right at front gate so no inconvenient long walks. I thought for one silly minute that it was going to be quiet. How else would we have got cheap parking so close otherwise? That is easy to explain. The tourists weren’t driving there. I could already see a million tourists coming and going. Walking and arriving on buses.

Kinkaku-ji is not expensive to get in. It’s only 400 yen for adults and 300 for kids and you get a beautiful golden souvenir ticket for the golden temple. There were signs up everywhere - no tripods. I thought for a horrible minute that there was no photography allowed but, no, just no tripods. Not that you’d have room to set one up anyway. A soon as you enter the gate you’re confronted with a million and 1 tourists 10 deep at fence to take classic shot of the Golden Pavilion across the pond. It is one of those iconic sites. It absolutely screams Japan. Like the Taj Mahal in India, the Statue of Liberty in the USA, and the Big Pineapple in Australia. There was some slight pushing and shoving at the fence. Mostly from obnoxious Western tourists. Everybody wants a selfie in front of the temple. I suppose if you’re on a group bus tour and you have limited time the urge to get in and get it before you’re marched back on to the bus must be overwhelming.

The two photos below show the contrast between 2015 and 2019. On the left we have 3 young women with plenty of room to take a selfie in 2015. On the right it is the same spot in 2019. In 2015 the worst that could happen is you might be whacked with a selfie stick. In 2019 you might be trampled to death.

Two year old Georgia flicked a coin into that small bowl not once but twice

The must see at Kinkaku-ji is the Golden Pavilion but you can’t get closer than about 30 metres. There are assorted other temples you can inside if you have the time and motivation. We had neither time nor motivation. We have a road trip to get back to. Unfortunately you have to follow the one way trail through the temple gardens to get out. It was as bad as Inari. Bumper to bumper slowly moving people. We barely stopped at the point where you can flick coins into a bowl. With the number of coins on the ground surrounding the pot you know that most people can’t toss a coin for shit. When we were here first time with a 2 year old Georgia she flipped a coin into the bowl not once but twice bringing a chorus of oohs and aahs from onlookers. This time we’re just carried by on a tide tourists. It was a beautiful Japanese garden. It would be lovely to just sit and contemplate and get all zen but… crowds.

There were a number of souvenir stands with monks selling trinkets and prayers and incense inside the grounds and bunch of stalls outside selling food. Nuts and sweets. Flavoured nuts - salty and sweet. I bought a couple of bags after sampling from a tray offered by one of the sellers. Cheap too. A couple of hundred yen. There were a bunch of the ubiquitous vending machines at the exit too. I remember sitting here last time having an ice cream. A Japanese man wanted to take a photo of Brandy, who had a snotty nose at the time. The photographer even gave us tissues to wipe Brandy’s nose for the photo. I thought that was hilarious. A couple of young women took photos of Brandy inside the grounds that time too. Everywhere we went back in those days, when the kids were young and cute, we were asked if it was okay to take their photos. We always said it was fine if you could get them to pose.

Back in 2015 we could sometimes get them to pose. Below is a young woman wanting a photo with snotty nose Brandy. The second photo is one I managed to snag in 2015. And the third is from this trip in 2019 when I asked them to reproduce the pose from 2015.

It was only 600 yen for parking. The contrast with Australia and the price gouging for parking, snacks and drinks at events and tourist sites is stark. Have I said I love Japan yet? I love Japan.

Kurasu and konbini onigiri

We seem to be doing a thing where go to a particular coffee shop when we arrive in a town then it will be the last place we visit on our way out of town. So far we’ve done that at Narita, Kanazawa and now Kyoto. On our way out of Kyoto we dropped by the Kyoto railway station area and bought a couple of takeaway coffees at Kurasu. On our first visit the coffee was a little weak but this time it was better. Nice and strong. I guess being a tall double shot cap would help with that. We’d parked in the alley just outside Kurasu and conveniently for us there was a 7-Eleven across the way where he bought a couple of onigiri for Georgia. Onigiri must be one of Japan’s perfect lttle snacks. Little triangles or balls of rice wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with almost anything - tuna, chicken, salmon and egg. Georgia loves them. They were fast becoming one of our favourite konbini snacks.

On the road to Takamatsu

There are a couple of routes to get to Takamatsu from Kyoto. The shortest route is down through Osaka then across Awaji Island to Shikoku and then around the northern tip of Shikoku to Takamatsu. Google estimated this route would take about three hours. The other main route skirts Osaka and continues west along the Seto inland sea past places like Himeji, Kobe and Okayama but then crosses the inland sea to Shikoku via a number of smaller islands connected by a string of huge spectacular bridges. Google estimated this route would take only an extra half hour or so than the first boring route. Spectacular bridges? I was sold. Of course taking the scenic route meant you had to factor in extra time to take in the sights. I expected the drive time to blow out by an hour or so at least.

Takarazuka -Kita

About an hour into the drive we stopped the big roadhouse at Takarazuka-Kita for petrol and lunch. I filled up at the Eneos. Just a tad less than 30 litres for about 3800 yen. The Corolla must have a tiny tank because it was near empty and it only required 30 litres. Aussie models usually have 50 to 60 litre tanks. Very economical though. This was the first time I’d put in juice since we picked it up.

According to Tripadvisor Takarazuka-Kita service centre is number 6 of 94 things to do in Takarazuka. I can only wonder what could be less interesting than number 6? The service centre is huge though. I’m fairly confident they’ve gone for Italian villa in the architectural style. Inside there is a small supermarket, a Tully coffee shop, boulangerie, a bunch of food stalls, and a massive souvenir shop selling Kyoto and Kobe treats. It is somewhere between Kyoto and Kobe so they have a finger in each region’s souvenir pies. We bought some of the sweet ravioli type yatsuhashi sweets for 1080 yen. Nama Yatsuhashi is a sweet confectionery from Kyoto. Steamed mochi is rolled out into a square and stuffed with a filling like red bean paste and folded into a triangle. I was very tempted to buy some Astro Boy toilet paper. There was a large display of anime character toilet paper. I will be disappointed from now if souvenir shops don’t have souvenir toilet paper for sale.

We spoke to the reception service robot. Delores or Maeve she ain’t (Westworld for anyone that isn’t a SF nerd). More like Dexter from the old 80s dating show Perfect Match. The kids loved it but it didn’t do much more than tout the amenities at the service centre. It was a cute robot though. They have pictures of the robot and the toilets on the service centre website here. Do yourself a favour and check it out. Speaking of the toilets. We’re well into oh my god territory with the facilities at Takarazuka. Clean, spotlessly clean, beautifully functional and vast. Again, pictures on the website I linked to above.

I bought a hot dog and an iced coffee from the Tully. The doggy only cost 380 yen. We bought some bread, pastries and sausage rolls from the boulangerie. Like nearly all those types of places you have a tray and some tongs and you pick each item and place it on the tray and pay for them on the way out. However this place had an opaque tray. When you put the tray down on the counter the tray is scanned and the items pop up on a screen in front of the cashier and the computer counts each item and then figures out what each item is and how many of them there are. OCR for donuts. The price is calculated automatically and then you deposit money into the machine. 1920 yen. The cashier’s job, as near as I can figure, is to indicate where to deposit the money and bag up each pastry. This being Japan every single item is individually bagged. I ate my hot dog in the car while we watched some people walking a couple of borzoi. Borzoi are Russian sighthounds. Kind of like big hairy greyhounds. You can see quite an eclectic mix of dog breeds in Japan. I’ve seen more dogs pushed around in prams than anywhere else too.

Insert picture of Cassie here.

The Seto Sea Bridges

The reason we drove this way was to see the Seto Sea bridges. Huge Monolithic Flyovers. Imagine half dozen Golden Gate bridges or Sydney Harbour bridges end to end connecting Honshu to Shikoku by number of small islands. Half way across, under the centre span of the Seto Ohashi Bridge, is Yoshima Island. Yoshima Island has another huge Seto Chuo Expressway service centre like Takarazuka-Kita where we stopped earlier. It was late in the afternoon so most of the shops were closed here though. We used some of the amazing toilet facilities at the service centre and spent some time site seeing. It was quite cool and overcast but we most of our time taking lots of photos and video of the bridges and watching ships pass by. There is an observation deck in the service center but there are also a couple of good vantage points in the gardens surrounding the parking area.

There are 6 main bridges snaking across the sea having a combined length of 13 km. It is the longest double deck bridge system in the world. Trains use the lower deck. It takes about 20 minutes to cross the bridges. And cross we did. I had serious doubts for a little while. Our driver was rubbernecking so much I thought he’d drive across half a dozen lanes and over the edge.

It’s only 40 kays to Takamatsu from Yoshima. The turn off the expressway was only just over the other side of the last bridge. We were finally on Shikoku. Unfortunately the last part of the drive was in the dark so all I could see was oncoming headlights and streetlights.

Takamatsu Century Hotel

We had a big triple room at the Takamatsu Century Hotel. A typical anonymous Japanese business style city hotel of about 10 stories. But it was reasonably priced. In other words, it was the cheapest hotel I could find in Takamatsu. We struggled to find Airbnb accommodation in Takamatsu that was as cheap as the hotel. We struggled to find much Airbnb accommodation on this trip at all. Not long before we started planning to come Japan the government had changed the laws regarding short term holiday rentals. Japan had a veritable plethora of cheap Airbnb lodgings until all Airbnb style accommodation was required to have a licence number. 90 percent of Airbnb listings disappeared overnight. And so did our chance for cheap apartment stays for our family. Cheap hotel accommodation for a family of four can be difficult to find in Japan. If you’re a couple looking for a double you’d be amazed at how cheap some very good hotels can be. But once you have more than one child the cheap options disappear very quickly. Traditional style ryokans were a good option for a family but often could be that little bit too expensive. Luckily we were staying at the Takamatsu Century Hotel. According to the hotel website the hotel is a “designated as a tsunami evacuation building. If you expect a tsunami disaster, feel free to evacuate into the building.” That made me feel so much safer considering we were only a stone’s throw from the waterfront. You could more or less guarantee I would feel free to evacuate my bowels straight into the building if I knew a tsunami was expected.

We were able to choose our own pillows from the pillow room. Some Japanese hotels have a pillow room where upon check-in you go and choose your pillow - soft, hard, full of beans, concrete. Whatever your noggin desires. Because we had a triple room Brandon and Georgia shared a bed because they are small and single beds in hotels like this are bigger than average.

Ofukuro

Takamatsu is the capital of Kagawa Prefecture. The smallest prefecture in Japan. It is famous for one of the most popular foods in Japan though. Sanuki Udon. Sanuki udon is a squarish more chewy style of udon noodle. Udon is so popular in Kagawa they have Udon Taxis that will pick you are and take you on an udon tour. The taxis have a distinctive bowl of udon on the roof. We wanted to try the local udon straight away but the three udon places we wanted to try were closed on Tuesdays. So instead we went to the #1 recommended Tripadvisor place. An izakaya called Ofukuro. It is a casual lively eatery full of locals and tourists. After we asked if they had any room they moved an Aussie couple to the counter and we were given a table for four.

Our waitress spoke enough English to get by and gave us an English menu. She also mentioned there were quite a number of other food available on display at the counter. Delicious looking pre-prepared stuff. We ordered seared tuna, seared beef, miso cod, pickles, rice, miso soup with a soft boiled egg, octopus sashimi, eggplant, spinach, Sapporo beer, green tea. Simple, local, and delicious. It was the best meal we’d had in a week. We all enjoyed it even though we were all feeling a little under the weather with colds. Like many cosy local places it isn’t fancy, in fact when we arrived it was a bit hot, stuffy and smoky. Many Japanese izakaya still allow smoking unfortunately. But we got used to it. The bill came to 5778 yen. An amazingly cheap price considering how much we ate. We loved it. Our waitress was wonderful. She was the epitome of Japanese hospitality and friendliness. She gave us a strawberry chocolate each as we left.

We’d walked a long way into town to get to Ofukuro so we took a taxi back to the hotel. 720 yen. I ran to the supermarket 5 minutes before it closed at 10. I bought our usual snacks and supplies for breakfast - yoghurt, cereal, bananas, milk and pancakes. The pancakes are called mochifuwa pancakes. They are pancake sandwiches filled with butter and maple syrup and they are deadset my favourite konbini snack food*. There is an article that I shall link to here that mentions the top 10 items to buy from 7-Eleven. I reckon I’ve tried them all and I love at least half of them. A lot. Special mention for the mochifuwa though. And the chicken karaage. And the onigiri. And egg sandwiches. They’re all pretty cheap too. The pancakes are only 100 yen for example.

I was throwing down the Eve-A cold and flu tablets we bought in Kyoto like were lollies. Michelle very much under the weather and a smidge grumpy. I was going downhill fast and not feeling exactly cheerful myself. Headache, aches, snotty nose and sore throat. There is nothing better than holiday crud. We still planned to catch ferry to Naoshima Island tomorrow. Hopefully could get coffee beforehand. It always comes down to coffee in the morning.

*2020 edit from Shane. A colleague’s partner is an cabin attendant and recently flew to Tokyo. She asked if I wanted something from Tokyo. Ha. I found 1000 yen in my wallet, it has been in there since we got back from Japan a year ago. I asked for 1000 yen ($10) worth of mochifuwa pancakes. They were delicious.

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Check out Episode 9 of our Epic Family Road Trip Across Japan.

Many of the pictures on this page are by Michelle. Essentially the good ones. Michelle retains full copyright and they can not be reproduced without permission. For licensing and using the photos contact Michelle at Michelle Newnan Photography