{"id":9782,"date":"2019-10-14T03:11:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T10:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=9782"},"modified":"2022-10-10T18:48:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T01:48:44","slug":"japan-day-40-matsuyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=9782","title":{"rendered":"Japan Day 40: Matsuyama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I didn\u2019t plan this day very well. I knew I had to get on a ferry and I knew I\u2019d probably also get on a train to get from Beppu across to Shikoku and then up to Matsuyama. It wouldn\u2019t be that big a deal but I always have some trouble finding the Japanese ferry times online. Plus, it was the day after the big typhoon and the winds were still causing high waves, prompting a warning. I figured I\u2019d find out when I got to the ferry terminal.<\/p>\n

I got a fairly early start and found a coffee shop called \u201cItalian Tomato\u201d and had pretty much the same breakfast that I did both days in Hakata. IT was fresh and it was tasty. The coffee, not so much.<\/p>\n

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The ferry was kind of odd but it\u2019s a ferry. I found a seat rather than lie down on the tatami. The waves were pretty bad and going out on the deck was too windy. I felt like I was going to be blown away. But the ferry was stable and plowed through the waves without much trouble.<\/p>\n

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I decided to try to beat the rush by taking a taxi from the ferry terminal to the train station. There was no rush and there was a bit of a wait for the train. Yahatahama station has nothing around it (no cafes, etc) but it did have a 7 Eleven. I bought a tonkatsu sandwich and bought a ticket for the train to JR Matsuyama station.<\/p>\n

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The train arrived and it was an Anpanman train! That thing went quite fast through the countryside. It was kind of fun and went through parts of Shikoku I haven\u2019t seen yet.<\/p>\n

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At the Matsuyama train station I asked about places to see. It\u2019s a bit of a trip from the station to the hotels and I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d be back before I left the next day. I decided just to go to the free Botchan train museum and then do laundry. (Botchan is a famous novel by Natsume Soseki and you can even find info on Wikipedia about the local Botchan train.)<\/p>\n

I had a bit of an issue on the tram because they don\u2019t take Suica in Matsuyama (the backwards bastards) and I didn\u2019t have anything smaller than a \u00a510,000 bill. The change machine only took \u00a51000 bills maximum. Fortunately there was an older woman who had change for \u00a510,000!<\/p>\n

I checked into the hotel and walked to the Botchan train museum through a long shopping arcade. The museum is in a Starbucks! It\u2019s Japan\u2019s first narrow-gauge railway going from Matsuyama to Mitsuhama and turned into the city tram system.<\/p>\n

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It took a while to do my laundry. The dryers weren\u2019t the best. I was late to get dinner and my first try was to get a Matsuyama specialty I haven\u2019t tried yet: nabeyaki udon. I got lost when I got close and asked a woman in a shop where it was and she looked at me like I was going to rob her. I went to another shop where they were much more friendly and they told me that you can only get nabeyakiudon for lunch! So I walked all the way back to the hotel and then north to the dinner place I went last year to get taimeshi (sea bream rice). This time I got a different style than the last time I was here. This one comes with raw tai and egg.<\/p>\n

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After that it was back to the hotel to watch Japan eke out a win against Scotland in the Rugby World Cup game.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I didn\u2019t plan this day very well. I knew I had to get on a ferry and I knew I\u2019d probably also get on a train to get from Beppu across to Shikoku and then up to Matsuyama. It wouldn\u2019t be that big a deal but I always have some trouble finding the Japanese ferry times online. Plus, it was the day after the big typhoon and the winds were still causing high waves, prompting a warning. I figured I\u2019d find out when I got to the ferry terminal. I got a fairly early start and found a coffee shop called \u201cItalian Tomato\u201d and had pretty much the same … Continue reading Japan Day 40: Matsuyama<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9782"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10241,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9782\/revisions\/10241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}