To Hiwasa

Around this day, I stopped to makeup. When I travel to developing countries, I always travel as a backpacker so I do not bring makeup kit and do not care about it. But here is Japan, I need to be pretty, feel good myself, at the same time make other people feel pleasant whom I meet! Well, anyway I found out I would not see any cute boys(not even people!) on a way at countryside so I just stopped makingup, which should have saved some time in a morning(but still I take care of myself being clean like washing face carefully and such at konbini... poor my friend, he was always waiting for me (**) .

We cycled the main road. The scinery reminded me Ibaraki where I lived last year, countryside. But Ibaraki is more developed and there are more shops and people.

 But there was one new experience here. I really liked the loud frog calls at night in Shikoku. I felt that I was being so countryside! I did not have a chance to see them. Maybe I should have looked for them.

Well, going back to a story of the cycle trip on 29th, we dropped by a small fisherman village for lunch. We had eel. it is my favorite food, good :) It was cool to see fisherman's activities somewhat such as seeing drying nets, boats, and guys with long boots. I got to know sea life since last year after visiting Kure, Hiroshima which is famous for its manufacturing of big ships. It was fun to think about how the local life is. I would like to know various life styles. I experienced suburb, countryside, and city so far.

Next time, maybe sea area.  

We did not bring a detail map of Shikoku and we basically followed signs along way. It was funny that we saw the continuing road climbing up so hard, but just turning right or left to check out places around and we found another way taking us to the next destination so we did not have to take the hard road we saw. It happened some times and I felt being lucky!  

To recall whole trip, Hiwasa is the most city I felt being relaxed. We got there during day time and we had a lot of time to explore the entire city. There was a castelo on a hill so we went there to check it out, and only found it being used as a common gathering place by city and the castelo itself remained nothing about its old style anymore but only outlooking.

  Entrance was automatic doors, air condition mashine and western style normal chairs and tables inside. My friend was dissapointed about it but I thought it was a reasonable usage. I thought countryside people just keep things in a old way but here was not. The hill was kinda mountain and we were so exhausted after cycling up. After that we went to another hill and saw a temple. We could see the whole small city having mountains background. Lovely.

Today we met and talked young guys for the first time during this trip! Shikoku is famous for its pilgrimage. There are 55th temples and serious prayers come to visit them all the way from their hometown. They usually wear a white clothing with a big hat which you can find in like Vietnum.

Recently young generations are interested in walking visit temples with the costume just for fun (or some people might come to think about themselves and their future when they stucked with their life... yea you know the young. whatever). Anyway, we met two guys dressed in the costume and walked from the opposite way from us. I forgot how to start conversation but we talked and said good bye on a street when we syscled toward Hiwasa. And then we met them again at a lobby of a hotel where we took onsen at night. It was funny. I am so surprised how fast they walked. At the same time surprised at how small world is. Well, it's nothing surprised about. Shikoku is small,  Hiwasa is small.

The dinner was the best I had during the whole trip. There was a decent restaurant outskirt of the city(if there is something which I could call city centre), and we had a good seafood pizza with nice table, chair, music, and owners. There were nice counter seats too. I haven't seen such a nice private restaurant for a while since I moved to Tokyo. I should look up before stepping into a chain restaurant without thinking anything.